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Video game economies
I know next to nothing about video games but these articles about multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG) made for great inflight reading:
Article #1 reports on hi-tech sweatshops that employ the Chinese poor to play video games for cents per hour... though, as the article explains, "play" isn´t really the word because the character-development work involved is mind-numbingly repetitive. This kind of work is called "farming," but perhaps the only thing it shares with rural labor is the lousy pay.
And for background, this article from Walrus Magazine is a great introduction to gaming´s virtual economies. (If you´re as clueless about gaming as I am, read this one first.)
(Via Metafilter)
Posted by Carrie McLaren on 07/20/2005 | Permalink
Comments
Well... after reading that first article, I have to say that I think what they're paying the "farmers" compared to what the profits are is pretty extreme...
But at the same time... I can't help but feel like I would gladly play video games all day for $.50/hour. And really, I think calling them "sweatshop" kind of marginalizes *real* sweatshops. Judging from those pictures, the farming centers are in as good and even better shape than several telemarketing call-centers I've seen.
Posted by: andy | Jul 20, 2005 3:37:37 PM
