MMO Sweatshops

[TwwIX]

unbelieveable http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3141815


and i thought i was criminal by exploiting a few bugs in swg

 

[Icarusintel]

damn, that doesn;t make games look any better to the public, hopefully this doesn;t get brought up on Dateline or anything, thankfully I don;t play MMORPGs

 

[StardogChampion]

I remember seeing a TV report about this a while ago. I think it was about someone who played Ultima or something.

 

[Kangy]

Ugh, disgusting. I wish I could do something to help the poor bastards farming the gold, but I really can't do anything to even harm these people. There will always be people willing to work themselves to death, and if it means watching a program for 12 hours a day, I guess it's better than selling or producing drugs for 12 hours a day.

Still, in light of this, IGE really should be blocked off by Blizzard, SOE etc.

 

[Ennui]

Wow. This is actually really all quite stupid.

 

[Anthraxxx]

Just one of the reasons why game economy is so messed up in a lot of these games....

 

[Javert]

Wow, just wow. That's despicable and does not make me want to play those types of games anytime soon.

 

[nofx]

This article is really old but I dont think its 100percent bad its basically the same thing major telco companies are doing with their customer support even business people practice this. My ISP and telco service provider outsource jobs to india and the phillipines its not wholly bad doh sometimes i get people who I cannot understand -.-. Its just cheaper to hire them. another example is how jobs our becoming somewhat outsourced in siberia its cheaper to get people to work about 150 usd a month for them and the economy is slowing grow. i think its the same thing its just these people are using the game to make their annual income when ti comes down to it its nothing but the GMs fault

 

[Krynn72]

There was an article in Computer Gaming World magazine about this very subject. I lmao at these loosers. The buisness thrives on idiots.

 

[Adabiviak]

I don't play MMORPGs myself, but this article wouldn't make me not play. The reason these people are in business is because other people pay them for these services. If you buy extra goodies for your character online and don't check the reputation of your seller, you might be promoting this business. On the other hand, how bad is this business? Is the pay rate for the shops good compared to the local economy? Are these kids who would normally be playing anyway? If I was a rockin' WOW player in the third world and somebody offered to give me access to a PC to play games, I might even do it for free. Are they forced to play? Is the only issue the pay rate? I love statistics without context - like tits on a boar.

Besides - there are much worse sweat shops in the third world than this.

 

[DESSTROYER]

too much to read. can anyone kinda put it into smaller words?

 

[gh0st]

holy shit what a good idea.

 

[Gray Fox]

If they paid the workers good wages I wouldn't mind it, or just split the profit 50/50.

 

[Adidajs]

can someone explain to me how they turn online gold into real currency? here's my take on it: a company called IGE exchanges online gold for real world items which I guess are sold for real world currency. is that right?

 

[Computer5k]

I fail to see the problem. It's "creating jobs" xD

If people really think its worth it to play an MMO for a small amount of money, then good for them If they realized how much money there was in it, they could do it by themselves, and not have an 'employer'

 

[Burn]

can someone explain to me how they turn online gold into real currency? here's my take on it: a company called IGE exchanges online gold for real world items which I guess are sold for real world currency. is that right?

They sell the ingame money to idiots who want to buy there money, rather then earning. Rather simple.

So half the problem are the players who are to lazy to play the game themselves, if they didnt buy it, there would be no gold farming.