Interview with a Former Gold Farming Shop Manager, Part I
April 24th, 2006 Jun Sok Huhh
I’ve read an interesting interview at a Korean gaming web-zine. It’s a little bit late(sorry for my laziness), but some part of interview deserves to be observed. People around gaming scene already well know that flourishing sweatshops in developing countries (China, Vietnam etc…) are not so ‘sweaty’ as the word looks.
It is definitely true that lower wage is the underlying reason for these offshore RMT workplaces. But, working picture of gold farming in the concrete is a little bit surprising to me. I had vaguely thought that one ‘human’ worker could handle at most 2 or 3 characters with each client simultaneously. But, hacking tools tuned for a specific game make it possible to handle incredibly many accounts/characters per worker. The capital-labor ratio in gold farming business might be much higher than generally expected. Also, the sheer number of farming characters in action might be a lot higher than thoght. If someone tries to calculate total size of gold farming business, these informal pieces of information might be helpful. I translated some parts of interview which seem to bear some importance. If you can read Korean language, jump directly on this full original one.
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