According to Richard Heeks, author of “Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on Gold Farming”… “gold farming means the real-world sale of virtual goods and services produced in online games.” Making a business to sell virtual items for real-life money is definitely the dream job for any gamer. This informative article about gold farming was intriguing because of the fact that people, many people at that, are willing to spend money after money for online game services. While engaging in the article, I found that not only do the gold farmers make real money for online gaming services, it is one of the earliest form of online employment. Going online today, I see hundreds of ads online that is similar to gold farming, except it doesn’t involve video games. Every day I see ads that say that you can make as much as ten thousand dollars just for posting advertisements on other sites! As great and easy as it sounds, most are a fluke and many people fall prey to false advertising.
One would certainly think that playing video games while earning money is preposterous a few years ago but it has been something that has been going on for quite a while. According to Richard Heeks, “First, MMORPGs really began to grow in industrialized countries with the launch of Ultima Online in 1997.” The first MMPORG has boosted the gaming community and started the process of gold farming since 1997. I find that this kind of employment would usually attract students from high school and maybe some young adults. Upon reading the article, I found that gold farmers work a hard 12 hour daily shift while working seven days a week! Now of course, this job has positions and ranks according to research done by Richard Heeks, and it seems that the staff get paid a mere $140 US dollars/month while the higher ups get paid much more. Although fun as it may sound to play games and get paid, the hours put into gold farming does not equal in earnings for a $140/month, although it can be great for pocket change or if you simply just enjoy playing the game while earning some money. I can see great potential in this job for younger people but I don’t think it would actually make the cut on most people.
Cheating in video games? Who’s never tried to do such a thing? People cheat and there are consequences for doing so. That’s the human nature and people have been doing it for decades for many purposes. Some people cheat to get ahead in the competition, some people cheat because it involves less work, and some people cheat for the joy of it. Upon reading the article “Cheaters: A Special Report” by a Game Informer staff member, there are two kinds of cheating in the world of video gaming which I agree on. Playing in single player mode and cheating is a lot less harmful than cheating online during multiplayer. Although it is a lot difficult, gamers are willing to risk their gaming account because playing online and winning increases the points that other online gamers see and in turn can get the respect and bragging rights. Robert Bowling, Call of Duty 4 community manager at developer Infinity Ward states, “You always think your ahead of the curve, but no matter how much internal testing you do or how much we play the game ourselves, your endless community is always going to find things you didn’t see.” Cheating ruins other gamers experiences online and although game developers are trying to find ways to stop the glitches and cheats, new ways to spoil the game are always going to be there.
“The Social Network Game Boom” written by Sande Chen focuses on the social networking that involve some major social websites such as Facebook and Myspace. I am a victim of the mini games on Facebook and MSN especially when I find myself bored out of my mind unable to find anything else to do. One thing that I notice when I play these games is that I have the ability to play with my friends that are online. Being able interact with my friends while playing the game definitely helps to be more social while playing and it also benefit’s the game developers. Video game developers try to expand their product to a wide range of people and what better way to do so than posting games on popular social websites? A simple interesting game played on Facebook can be an advertisement to a upcoming game to improve their sales. Overall, I think that the internet is a powerful tool for advertising and obtaining needed information in which everyone can benefit from. Anything from online employment such as gold farming to having political debates, we would be back in the Stone Age if it wasn’t for the internet.
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One of the problems is that those making the money are in 3rd world countries, earning far less than what they're worth and often endangering their health in order to make that little bit of money.
ReplyDeleteOutsourcing is a huge issue in the global economy, but is using gfs as slave labor the right way to go? And, then, what connections can you draw between this and the idea of social networking/ gaming/ video games for social justice?