The Flat World in Gaming
Over at GigaOM I found this nice post on how Chinese companies are dedicated to produce “virtual gold” for use in online games like World of Warcraft and sell it to gamers in the West.
The piece describes and links to a very impressive (or shocking) MTV documentary called Is Mining Virtual Gold Exploitative “featuring the first video footage shot inside Chinese gold farms, those gray market companies which collect and sell virtual gold (primarily from World of Warcraft) to wealthier gamers in the developed world.”
These developments are not only seen around World of Warcraft, but also in Second Life, although in a different form. Second Life’s first millionaire Anshe Chung has a company based in China, dedicated to developing “in-world” real estate and other products.
Is this all bad? Well it could be for a number of reasons:
- The working conditions as portraited in the MTV video do not seem really good.
- Games should be about equal chances for all and the best players should be the ones to win, not the wealthiest, those being able to buy the most “virtual gold”.
But there is also a silver lining:
- People in poorer countries get new chances of earning money and learning new techniques. In Second Life these people can quickly develop building techniques and set up their virtual stores, providing them with much easier access to the Real World market. Broadband has given them this new opportunity. It really is a flat world.
- Due to third party investments in gaming related industry innovation could be spreading more quickly to poorer countries.
Anything else?
Related: all my Second Life articles
Technorati tag(s): Second Life, Anshe Chung, World of Warcraft, Anshe Chung
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posted Nov 27, 11:05 AM on Nov 27, 2006 |
category: Second Life
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