Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft followed up last week’s interview about my upcoming novel FOR THE WIN with this piece on the China-zation of gold farming:
According to Doctorow, gold farming is viewed as somewhat of a get rich quick scheme. The idea of getting ten gamers in a room and having them play through some MMO gives the illusion of fast and easy cash. A lot of these fly-by-night, start-up gold farms don’t make it as business acumen and an expansive network (see above) is needed to make the enterprise work. Doctorow notes that in 2008, many gold farms were being set up in rural parts of China, because all that is needed are computers and an internet connection.
One reason online game companies have players play on different servers is to cutdown on things like gold farming; however, Doctorow points out that game companies, in a way, do need gold farming. Over time the game gets harder and harder in order to challenge experienced players. The example Doctorow gives is that, say, a wife has been playing a game for two years. Her noob husband wouldn’t be able to play with her per se.
