What's What! Video Game Facts (30/365)

Gold farming is a term referring to the player of an MMORPG who tries to obtain ("cultivate") valuable objects or to acquire in-game currency, usually to later be selling it for real world money, this players dedicate their lives to playing MMORPG titles to evolve characters, get weapons and, finally, sell these possessions obtained after long hours of play to first world players with little free time or without wanting to obtain those goals by themselves.

Although the mmorpg aren't the only market of the gold farmer if they are the biggest of all, games like Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft and runescape, are games in which thousands, or even millions, of people interact simultaneously over an Internet connection, and while most game operators ban the practice of selling in-game currency for real-world cash, gold farming is a lucrative because it took advantage of economic inequality and the fact much time is needed to earn in-game currency.

The unconventional money-making methods it's a great way to generate extra income, in particular with average monthly earnings of 145 USD, so it's not surprising that around of 400,000 people live on Gold farming and 100,000 of this people are in China, in 2006, sales of such virtual goods were thought to amount to somewhere between 200 and 900 million USD

Many game developers expressly ban gold farming in their game's terms of service. In order to combat this, game developers such as Blizzard and ArenaNet are attempting to discourage third-party gold farming by implementing official real-money transaction systems within their games, in the game Runescape for example, there was a great wave of Venezuelans who began to farmear gold to sell it by ebay which generated great discontent within the community, even guide dedicated to "Killing Venezuelans." were created.

I've done a bit of gold farming in Guild Wars 2 and in World of Warcraft but it's such a tedious experience that I could not continue it for long, besides it seems that gold farming is more of a pyramid work where all those who are at the base they only receive a small portion and the majority of the profit is earned by those at the top.