Warcraft gold-farms big business

Technology pushes society in new and exciting ways, some good and some bad. The world of online gaming isn’t immune from this either, with their being both upsides and downsides from the emergence of MMO games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest. Welcome to the world of the gold-farm.
One of the strangest sidelines to these games is the virtual economy that has built up around them, with money to be made from building assets by playing the game and then selling them to other gamers. By coupling cash-rich, time-poor players with slave wage workers in emerging economic countries, the people in charge can make big profits.
According to new research by the University of Manchester in England, this virtual economy is big business, and despite efforts by games developers, is likely to keep on expanding.

According to The Telegraph, the research team, lead by Professor Richard Heeks, found that there are almost half a million people employed in these so-called gold-farms.

Large-scale virtual sweatshops in countries such as China, Romania, Indonesia, and Mexico, are employing thousands of young men and women to acquire gold, equipment, and skills. These assets are then sold to gamers desperate for an advantage over their fellow addicts.

The people employed in this industry typically work 12-hour shifts with just a short break in exchange for accommodation, meals, and an average of $150 per month. The people at the top of the multi-million dollar industry can make fortunes, but the employees are left with little money, and an addiction to an online game they cannot afford to keep playing if the gold-farms go out of business.

Where there is demand there will always be supply, and so this black market virtual economy is likely to keep on growing until the developers behind the MMO games manage to stop the practise completely.