Two WoW gold farmers arrested in China

by Tateru Nino on May 8th 2008 2:30PM

World of Warcraft, Economy, News items, Legal

Unfair revenue distribution is a concern in many economies. In China's, however, it is a crime. Two gold-farmers, Li and Zhang, were arrested by Chengdu's Shuangliu county authorities after Li ratted on his partner Zhang.

Li and Zhang had gone into business last August, and with 20 employees had raked in around 1.6 million Renminbi (???) -- that's getting towards a quarter of a million US Dollars. That's not bad for what amounts to seven months of gold and item trading on World of Warcraft, now is it?

With China cracking down on assorted online gaming activities that are either too intrusive, or have destabilizing economic effects, we don't think either Zhang or Li will get off lightly. Why, we wonder, did Li turn Zhang in? There's got to be a good story behind that.

[via PlayNoEvil]

Source

Tags: chengdu, china, economy, gold-farmers, gold-farming, legal, rmt, shuangliu

Reader Comments (3)

"Why, we wonder, did Li turn Zhang in? There's got to be a good story behind that."

The linked article says that "Li reported Zhang for unfair revenue distribution". While that does not exactly provide details on the situation, it almost sounds like Li thought Zhang was not sharing enough of the profits and decided going to the authorities would be a brilliant idea. Oops. :)

Too bad it doesn't really change the state of game economies. I'm not sure other gold farmers in WoW, or other games would be scared away from this but I guess we'll see what kind of penalty they get served.

[analogy]

Gold farming organizations are like flies on that delicious slice of pie you are about to eat. They are annoying, but don't ruin the pie completely, and no matter how many times you brush them away, they will keep flittering back to your pie.

[/analogy]

I've heard all the arguments for and against gold farming, but I think there is one important point to make:

The reason I'm against this particular brand of gold farming, is that it breaks the EULA. You wouldn't sign a document and explicitly agree not to sell gold, and then go ahead and sell gold, would you?