China bans gold farming

[Angrist]

It's not so much finding the virtual gold as selling it for real money. If you'd play WoW and you needed gold, you could go to a website and pay a Chinese (or anyone) real dollars to give you gold in the game.

In most MMO's it's illegal. It hurts the virtual economy, usually boosting prices. A lot of gamers hate it because they have to 'work hard' for their gold/items/etc. while others just dish out $10 to get the item they want.

Gold farmers play the game for like 20 hours a day, only to make gold. Usually by killing monsters. (That's another reason it's illegal: it hurts the virtual environment, for example when there aren't enough monsters for normal players.) Their bosses pay by the hour, but not very much. Just enough to get some food. The gold farmers often sleep behind their PC. They're often teenagers.

I think that's about it. It's not 100% accurate, because I don't have a full picture. I've just seen this stuff in a documentary, and read about it in the news.