A million gold farmers in China

By Oli Welsh Published 25 March, 2009

70 per cent of all trade is in WOW gold.

In a revealing profile of the gold-selling industry - the second in our four-part feature series on the trade in in-game currencies and services - the number of gold farmers in China is estimated at one million.

A spokesperson for the gold-selling company SwagVault makes the claim in Nick Ryan's report. He says that larger gold-selling firms, of which SwagVault is one, use up to 1000 farmers to generate their product in-game.

"The yearly turnover for all these enterprises combined is estimated at over 10 billion US dollars," says the trader, 'Benjamin', trumping the 2 billion figure quoted in last week's piece, where it was also said that 30 per cent of all MMO players buy gold.

"World of Warcraft players make up 70 per cent of this RMT activity. So Blizzard really creates a miracle! I really can't believe that a game can generate such a large market."

Ryan also interviews a young Chinese gold farmer in this week's piece Gold Farming Exposed: The Sellers, alongside a British private seller of gold who automated his own operations in Ultima Online and EVE Online.

Stay tuned for future instalments looking at the gold trading business from the perspectives of players and game developers, and be sure to check out last week's introduction.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • LazyDan #1 3 years ago

    I bought 1000g on WoW for a fiver not long ago, right bargain.

  • Erinan #2 3 years ago

    Were Blizzard to change their in-game economy, they could be responsible for hundreds of thousands of job losses, all on a game design decision. Scary stuff.

  • sneetch #3 3 years ago

    Still less than the 17 trillion estimated by the IIAFF.

  • Olemak #4 3 years ago

    Blizzard will probably, in time, embrace gold mining and seek a way to make a profit off the gold miner's efforts. I mean... buyers could pay for gold through Blizzard's arena net, with sellers (miners) selling gold to in-game Battle.net reperesentatives (NPC's pf course), and with battle.net actually paying the miners too. After Blizzard takes a cut of course. Five pounds for 1000 gold sounds OK. Everyone is empowered, protected and enriched by it. Except the ones who regard gold buing as cheating, of course. Didn't Sony do something like this? Dont know if that was a success... but I think it is important to allow the gold miners to still make a profit here, and not undercut their market. Gold miners are viable customers too.

    Personally I have never bought or sold gold in any game, but there's obviously a huge market there, so why not cater to that in an a responsible, safe and professional way that eliminates fraud and other potentially criminal activities?

  • ZuluHero #5 3 years ago

    i would sell the 1000g sitting in my account for a fiver - but the irony is that i'd have to spend £8.99 to give it to you :p

  • Doctor_What #6 3 years ago

    Am I alone in thinking 'Damn, I wish I did that?'

  • dr_faulk #7 3 years ago

    Better than kidneys, anyway...

  • stevetuck #8 3 years ago

    70 per cent of all trade is in WOW gold.

    no shit... maybe because its the most popular?

  • DutchDemons #9 3 years ago

    Out of interest; can anyone explain to me wtf this entails? how is it possible for someone to extract resources in a game, and then sell them via an external site to other ppl? and how are the buyers importing their bought gold into the game?

    Just looking for a short answer, i know there's a feature on it, but i can't be arsed to read all that now.

    Also...i want in!
    Edited by 1 at 25/03/09 @ 14:46

  • iokthemonkey #10 3 years ago

    Just looking for a short answer, i know there's a feature on it, but i can't be arsed to read all that now.

    ----

    Basically, somebody plays the game and "generates" gold by killing monsters.

    They then are paid in real money and the character sends an in-game message or meets up with the player that's paid for the gold and this "bought" gold is then handed over.

  • DutchDemons #11 3 years ago

    ok then. simple and effective. tnx for that.

    so now firms are on the rise hiring gamers to generate gold and sell that to other players...wow..what a strange world we live in:-)

  • Spindle #12 3 years ago

    Blizzard will probably, in time, embrace gold mining and seek a way to make a profit off the gold miner's efforts. I mean... buyers could pay for gold through Blizzard's arena net, with sellers (miners) selling gold to in-game Battle.net reperesentatives (NPC's pf course), and with battle.net actually paying the miners too. After Blizzard takes a cut of course. Five pounds for 1000 gold sounds OK. Everyone is empowered, protected and enriched by it. Except the ones who regard gold buing as cheating, of course. Didn't Sony do something like this? Dont know if that was a success... but I think it is important to allow the gold miners to still make a profit here, and not undercut their market. Gold miners are viable customers too.

    mmo economies are delecate things. There is a limit to how much gold can be economically farmed, so there is a limit to how much extra gold rmt can put into the system. If Blizzard sold 1000 gold for £5 then the amount of 'new' gold is limitless. This is massively inflationary. Which in turn meens it devalues the gold of everyone. Which in turn upsets your non gold buying players.

    I believe Final Fantasy XI is an example of this.