I got another mass-e-mailed offer yesterday, but this one was not as flattering as my last one. A modern slave driver is asking for advertising on my site, and I’m not about to let him get it. I have done the math, and to support MMORPG currency selling is nothing short of supporting slavery. We have all heard of the Chinese sweat shops in the 90s that targeted GAP and Nike, among other major clothing manufacturers, but how many people in the general public or in the masses of MMORPG players have considered the social ramifications of easy money online?
From this point on, I will assume that the person gathering currency is a Chinese Gold Farmer (CGF) for terminology’s sake. Let’s say a CGF is already level 60, not even imagining the terribly unpaid route to 60, and is able to farm for gold at the average rate of 60g per hour. Sure, while grinding, you can get loot kills that give up almost 1g per minute, and then drop nice things every now and then, but there is travel time, death runs, Auction Hall time, etc. So, in one day, our CGF has brought in 480g.
As an aside, that is a miserable day. There is a reason why epic mounts in World of Warcraft are such a sacrifice: 1000g is still a lot of gold if you are just going to grind or run instances. No one grinds for the sole purpose of money for more than an hour or two per day. Then they go run an instance and have to drop 20-50g in potions, elixirs, and reagents to go to the instance and pay a hefty repair bill when they return.
Back to the 480g, most of the sites are advertising gold anywhere from $5-17 per 1,000 gold. After TWO DAYS of grinding, our *poor* CGF has earned his slave master (at most) $17! You know the master is going to take at least 50% right off the top. Let’s say this CGF is really, really good and can bring in 2,000g per day. He has to feed his family off of $17/day.
According to an article I found on the cost of living in Shanghai, the average monthly salary is nearly 18,000 Renminbi (RMB). With an exchange rate of 8.3 RMB/1 USD, a Shanghai CGF’s monthy income needs to be $2,168. That is just not going to happen on $17/day, let alone $8.50/day. If out CGF happens to live in an area that is the average cost of living of 1,492 RMB, then at $8.50/day, he is able to save $86/month. Just how many high-speed Internet connections do you suppost are available to a person living in an area closer to the average cost of living? Not many, I suppose.
I say, “NO!” to you, Mr. Witly Wu, to your asking for advertising on my site. You and your business disgust me.
Great post Gitr. Now if only Blizzard would suspend accounts caught -buying- gold, and then we’d start seeing a slow down in the market.
Agreed, great post. Aye, and there’s the rub .. account caught-buying-gold.
I have an alt on Scilla (struggle’s to remember name) when it was first released. The prices of items on that paled in comparison. It was great!
Most goldfarmers are students who want to earn some extra money.
I just did a quick search. Looks like gold on the random servers I checked was going for a heck of a lot more than $17/1000 – so I think your numbers are off quite a bit.
I agree with the poster above. I think you are off by a factor of 10 ($17 / 100g)… not that I endorse gold selling. I also think that using Shanghai is an unfair comparison – this is one of the wealthiest cities in Asia. Consider Vietnam where monthly salaries for state employees are $40 US. Gold farming become mighty attractive for them. Not to mention that they are not doing manual labor and likely working in better conditions than where a factory employee might be. The job might be mind numbing but not a bad option. Anyway, great site – I enjoy your posts. Keep it up.