A million gold farmers in China Comments by Oli Welsh

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

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.

Still less than the 17 trillion estimated by the IIAFF.

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?

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

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

Better than kidneys, anyway...

70 per cent of all trade is in WOW gold.

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

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!

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.

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:-)

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.