An Interesting Look at MMO Gold-Farming

In today’s MMO world, gold-selling is a real “issue”, hated by many, and taken advantage of by many others. Generally speaking, the lure of purchasing in-game gold for your favorite MMO can be hard to ignore. It comes down to a “would I rather pay $xx or spend 10 hours doing something boring?”, and if you reach the point where you feel your time is of higher value, you might just find yourself heading to some gold-selling website.

Cory Doctorow, author and Boing Boing editor, has released a new book called For the Win: Organize to Survive! which takes a look at getting ahead in gaming, and also an interesting look at gold-selling and gold-farmers. Many people have written articles about this subject in the past, but overall, few are actual gamers themselves. Cory doesn’t seem to be what one would call a hardcore gamer, but for the purpose for this book, he immersed himself in games like World of Warcraft in order to get a better grasp on things.

In some countries, especially China, gold-farmers are a dime-a-dozen… literally. Cheap labor is what keeps this industry thriving, and those at the top, rich. Cory, though, doesn’t seem to be looking too hard at those gold-farmers, but those who genuinely enjoy the game and either do it on the side, or do it because they feel like they have to… in a similar sense that you hate to do something, like vacuum, but it has to be done!

Outside of gold-farming though, the same logic applies. He mentions that while gaming is usually associated with “fun”, it seems that many don’t have a ton of fun in games at all. Rather, actual labor leading up to a reward is what makes the game fun. I can attest to this, because I’ve often found myself bored in an MMO, but over time, the reward makes it all worth-while. Why not just stop and do something that’s more fun? Because somehow, it’s still “fun” even when it’s tedious or a grind.

Gold-selling is a subject that’s been beaten to death, but this still manages to be a good read.

The reward of doing something that is fun is sweeter when it comes after a period during which you could stop doing something that wasn’t fun. A hot dinner’s better after a long walk in the freezing rain. And so you might as well ask, “If we all know that dinner tastes better after a long walk in the freezing rain, why don’t we walk home when there’s freezing rain out? Why do we call taxis?” We do it because although we know you can make the dinner more delicious by enduring privation on your way to it, it’s kind of hard to work up an appetite for privation itself.