The grassroots gold farming industry exists on the periphery of the world of online games known as MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest II. The relation of this endeavor to international development, my field of expertise, led me to a new line of research exploring the sociology and economics of gold farming. I became interested in gold farming after encountering virtual gold merchants while playing online fantasy games. In recent years academics and popular media have developed a fascination for the dynamics of games that represent tiny worlds in fast forward-the fates of players and groups rise and fall in a matter of days and weeks rather than the decades or centuries that represent a human lifespan or an entire society. Once almost invisible to nongamers, gold farming now draws considerable attention from economists and sociologists as a nexus where rich and poor, real and virtual intersect. Perhaps as many as 10 million players worldwide buy gold or services from farmers that help them advance in the game. Total annual trade in virtual gold probably amounts to at least $1 billion.

A best estimate suggests that Asia, and particularly China, where most of the gold farmers reside, employs more than 400,000 players who spend their days stocking up on gold. In just a few years gold farming has become a vast enterprise. As a result, this activity has emerged in the past 10 years as an ingenious, though controversial, way for poorer nations to earn money from information and communications technologies and a way for impoverished workers to build digital skills that might be later transferred to other information technology jobs unrelated to game playing. Although it flaunts the rules of the game, buyers and sellers of this make-believe currency use the gold to determine the fate of a character in these fantasy games.Ī gold farmer in China who plays games and sells virtual currency can earn the same wage and, sometimes, more than might be paid for assembling toys in a factory for 12 hours a day. By assuming fantasy roles in these games, they kill monsters, mine ore or engage in other activities that earn “virtual gold” that they then sell to other players, often in rich nations, for real-world currency. They have become entrepreneurs who make their living by profiting from online games.

How do you turn virtual gold into the real item? Hundreds of thousands of “gold farmers” in developing countries have found a lucrative answer. It sounds like a digital alchemist’s question.

Games that you earn real money