‘Gold farming’ in games means real income in China

“At any given time, as many as half a million Chinese gamers are completing quests and gathering such assets as virtual gold pieces to sell off for real money. They toil in Internet cafes and in makeshift computer labs, sometimes sleeping on cots in nearby dormitories in shifts.”

Gold farming or Gil Farming in World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy Online respectively is big business. As a player of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) I hate these farmers. They are the worst of the lot. What they are doing is a clear violation of the service agreement of the game and should be banned for life. They ruin the entire gameplay experience and drive honest players away. Developers should be aware that these gold farmers bring in what I would like to call “counterfeit money” similar to real life fake money that criminal organizations try to infiltrate into our society which leads into over inflation of products. I’d think that it would be relatively simple on how to find these gold sellers. Just go on line buy a few gil here and there. And once the gil has been sent to you, ban the account immediately. One reason I think that the companies, particularly Blizzard and Square-Enix would be hesistant to ban these accounts on a widespread business would be that they countinue to make money off them. They would still need to pay the monthly service fee and that is a constant flow of money in the bank for them. But generally it’s bad for players.

As a lvl 75 white mage in Final Fantasy, it is only now I can finally earn some decent cash. But with gil sellers abound, it’s hard to make decent cash. For example, there is a “Noble’s Tunic” that I would like to purchase for my character that costs 8.5 million gil. It can easily be obtained if I am able to get some notorious monsters that drop some goodies that I could sell for some decent cash. But some reason, there is a character there 24/7 that does nothing but kill the NM when it pops. A total waste of time. Isn’t it obvious enough that the same character never logs out, is always there, always claims the pop 24/7 is not a gil seller?

Sony Entertainment did an experiment with Everquest 2 which they themselves sold the gold instead of these gold sellers. I have idea if their experiment had any sucess. But Real money trade is a direct violation of the user agreement and therefore those accounts should be banned. And the more that they make, the more they should ban.