MMORPG News - Au Farming
 

The Guardian has some pretty sad figures on Gold Farming.
More information.

I can't help but be a little shocked every time I hear about this 'industry'. It is hard for me to wrap my head around this method of earning a living.
I certainly couldn't do it, I am one of those who play MMO's for years and never have enough gold for the better things. They'd fire me in a week.
As long as companies like Blizzard make obtaining desirable items in their games a competition that is geared so that only a few can accomplish it, you will see this kind of thing happening, so I believe their sad industry is quite safe.
Can anyone name any other entertainment medium where the customer's satisfaction is intentionally gated like MMO's? Heck, can you name any other business where customers must perform at certain peaks to get the best of what a company is selling to every customer for the same price? Odd business.

This is the first rather seriously researched article on that matter I know of.

I'm actually glad I can learn from that report.
(Not in the meaning that I would want to do gold farming as well …)

Not really. Currently, in Wrath of the Lich King, endgame is ridiculously easy to access. You can do it with strangers, and if your raid isn't completely comprised of idiots, you'll wander from one loot pinata to the next, collecting epics without having to think or figure out tactics. Oh, gold will get you some good crafted items, but the very best are obtained from big bad bosses or arena tournaments: both of which require your participation, and no amount of gold will buy you the items.

Until someone comes up with the idea of raid-farming services, anyway. And why not? The current content is easy enough.

Ive always thought this sounds like a pretty fun way to make a living. I mean, sweatshop conditions aside of course, regular weekends and what not. Play mmos all day long. I know it's a bit tedious, but it beats the hell out of running autocad all day long.

If a gold company would give me weekends and some decent benefits, I'd be all for it!

They did. I read in another article along time ago, where they interviewet a gold farmer.
And he talked about how they had been working intensly to master the raiding content so that someone could pay to be a part of such a raid and get priority on items dropped.

There just wasen't enough interest in that service so it didn't last long. Which the guy who was interviewet was quite sad about since he was main tank, and it was alot more fun than just grinding gold all day.

Uhhh, no, it's not going to be a bit tedius, it's going to be pure tedium. They will figure out the most effecient way to get gold and they will do it over and over and over. Imagine doing the same raid, all day, every day. Quality Assurance testers have more fun.

As for the previous poster noting the oddness of the business - yeah, it is a bit strange for entertainment, but it's a pretty unique industry.

Kinda sad that the article doesn't even try to ask what the effect is on the games themselves. We had an awful time in City of Heroes when salvage and recipes got put in the game. The gold farmers followed immediately and started spamming everyone with in-game emails and, worse, in-game tells. Every hour, some idiot would hit you with a tell trying to get you to go to some website! The developers had to put some very harsh limits on trial accounts to counter it. We still get occasional in-game email spams but now we can wipe them out easily. Still, what a waste of development time, how annoying to have to limit trial accounts so badly!

Interesting article but it just perpetuates the stereotype. There are plenty of people making a living gold farming in the USA and Europe too. I wish someone would write that article.

If there are, there shouldn't be. How can a company stay in business paying those crazy USA and Europe wages while selling a completely fungible product that the Chinese can produce oh so much cheaper?

I remember reading about some companies in Romania… if so, that's hardly the "rich" part of Europe.