Saturday, June 9, 2007

Documentary: Ge Jin- Chinese Gold Farmers



This video is by chinese documentary filmmaker Ge Jin on YouTube. He describes it as a work in progress and there are a couple different versions. This one has generated over 800,000 views.

Chinese kids are hired to play online role playing games that require extensive time to build up characters. These kids build up characters and money which then becomes a commodity that can be sold to Americans on eBay. The American gamers call them "Chinese Gold Farmers." They save the buyer the tedium of slowly building these up themselves. This has been a fascinating subject to me as a former online gamer. I believe there are Americans who also do this for money but the Chinese have a much better labor exchange rate.

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