Yesterday on Marketplace, there was an amazing story about the practice of “gold farming” and item trading in massively multiplayer online games. They focused specifically on Lineage 2, probably because it’s very popular in the country they visited to learn about the practice, South Korea. In Korea, as the story says and is totally true, gaming can be a professional sport, where televised tournaments make stars and heroes out of gamers who are cheered by adoring fans. Commentators call the moves in the game with fervor, and people treat video gaming, especially multiplayer games like Starcraft, with all of the reverence and respect that Americans treat baseball or football. And in many ways, rightfully so.
The best part of the story is the fact that it takes a serious look at the practice of trading virtual items in many of these massively multiplayer games, like epic weapons and difficult-to-obtain armor and objects, even virtual currency like gold in World of Warcraft (my MMO of choice), for real money. The reporter heads to Korea, the birthplace of many of these trading sites, and the home of many services and people who profit from and participate in the trade, what many of us refer to as “gold farming.”
The story was fantastic, aside from the journalist’s in credulousness that such a thing could possibly happen, but he handled it very very well. I would object to the notion that the items in the game that are being sold “don’t exist,” with the subtle notion that if it’s not tangible and real then it’s not worth anything – people pay for license codes and virtual material all the time and none of that “exists” either; people pay for access to products and services that are completely virtual and online, but none of that technically “exists.” I don’t see that as much different, so it was a weak end to an otherwise great story. I’m more impressed that Korea has an entire government agency devoted to the online gaming industry, which I suppose you have to have if your citizens enjoy it (and some of the best broadband internet access in the world) as much as Koreans do. What also surprised me was that there was an entire industry lobby of companies that profit from item trading and the activities of gold farmers to oppose the interests of the game developers and designers. It was an amazing listen, and the transcript is just as compelling. Check it out!