Good Example Of Movie Review On Gold Farm, Sweatshop Of The Gaming World

Introduction

Gold farms basically are groups of gamers who “farm” goods, also known as equipment, inside a game. Gamers grind for hours to look for good items inside the games. Quality equipment can only be found by two ways in-game, by grinding to find the loot, or by buying. This type of gaming is also considered professional gaming, besides competing in tournaments. Gamers sell their farmed virtual goods to other gamers. This paper will be an analysis on how gold farms affect concepts like global digital divide and global inequality. The market of these types of goods is also an important subject that will be discussed.

Gold Farms/E-Sweatshop

A basic definition of a sweatshop is that, it is a workplace where people are working for long hours with little pay. An example would be the case mentioned by Gan Xin Zhong, where he works for 12 hours and get 700-800 Yuan for a month, which is equivalent to more or less 120 US dollars. Another case of a sweatshop is it having an undesirable working condition. For Ming Qing Hai, the working conditions of a gold farm are not very good. He mentioned that sitting in front of a computer for long hours is not healthy. This can be seen as an electronic sweatshop for the sweatshop and trade is within the gaming world.

Global Divide and Inequality

As mentioned by Lao Liu, another professional gamer, the games, even if it was not yet released in their country, they get to play it first because of the large demand on the virtual goods for these new games. This is an example of a digital divide on technology. Demand first goes up in home countries, and it is only then that it will be opened to other countries. The fact that they could play it first while it is still not yet open to the public is a digital divide.
The issue of income inequality is also discussed on the videos. An example is the position of Gareth Cales, where he cannot believe the concept of earning while playing video games. For all the professional gamers interviewed in the videos, they all have similar opinions, that it is better than physical labor, both in pay and in the working condition. For someone like Gareth, the thought of working as a gold farmer is alien because of the difference of income of people in America compared to those in China.

Conclusion

The market for virtual goods in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games is very large because of the appeal of these kinds of games to people. People get to meet other players from around the world. Players also get to have a sense of full control on their characters or online “selves”. There is also the need for getting stronger inside the game, and from which the demand of virtual goods arises.