The Proteus Paradox (11 page)

In 2005, I worked as a summer intern at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where my colleagues had been running a data collection tool that took a census snapshot of several
World of Warcraft
servers every ten minutes. By the time I arrived at PARC, my colleagues had already collected several months of data. These snapshots included hundreds of thousands of characters, and the census data allowed us to calculate the average time it took for characters to reach each level. We estimated that it took the average player 372 hours to reach the maximum level in the game. To put this number into perspective, given that a normal workweek consists of 40 hours, that's more than two full months of workdays.
²

For some players, the journey of leveling up is satisfying and pleasurable. Rather than a tedious grind, they find a relaxing activity.

While there ARE things much more enriching and rewarding than mindless leveling, there's a certain . . . feeling of zen to be found in the grind. I've spent hours on end in the same area, doing the same thing over and over, watching the exp bar creep slowly upwards. Just soloing, just me and the monsters. [
City of Heroes,
female, 22]

But it is easy to see that grinding can become a chore for most players, especially if it takes two months to reach the advanced game. This is especially true for players who already work full-time and would be hard-pressed to devote much time to grinding. And for many players who make an hourly wage, an interesting calculus comes into play. Specifically, the ability to buy off large numbers of grinding hours with one hour of real-world work can become very attractive.

Guy4Game.com is one of many companies that provide power-leveling services. For a fee, the company's employees use the player's game account username and password to log in and grind through a certain number of levels in the game. When the power-leveling is complete, the service alerts the player via email. A typical cost in March 2013 for leveling a new
World of Warcraft
character to level 90 was $199, and the leveling up would take roughly seven days to complete. For players who make at least twenty dollars an hour and want a max-level character, the ability to trade one workday for months of grinding can be an incredibly attractive and sensible option.

Other players may enjoy the leveling process but might wish to speed things up a bit. Or they would like to reduce grinding without giving up control of their character. And some players might not wish to share their game password with a third party for security reasons. For all of these players, there is virtual currency to be purchased
using real money. Virtual currency allows players to buy in-game weapons and items to kill monsters more quickly and thus level up faster.

A quick search on “wow gold” (the
World of Warcraft
in-game currency) using Google reveals dozens of websites offering virtual gold sales. The transaction is largely identical across these sites. Players identify the game and server their character is located on, and then specify the amount of virtual currency they are interested in buying. Most sites offer specific exchange rates (for example, twelve thousand gold for twenty dollars), with discounts for larger transactions. Players list one or more character names for virtual currency delivery and then pay for the virtual currency using a credit card or PayPal. Transactions are usually completed within a few hours. The seller will first try to deliver the virtual currency within the game world by messaging and meeting the player at a specific large city location that is easy to reach. The final transaction is then conducted using the in-game trade interface. If the player is not online when the transaction is made, the seller can send the virtual currency using the game's mail interface. The player can then retrieve the virtual currency from his or her mailbox at the next login. Because players cannot appeal these illicit purchases to the game companies in cases of fraud, the sellers' reputation is paramount and has likely increased the market share for the best-known and longest-running websites.

The prices of power-leveling services and virtual currencies hinge on the cost of labor. After all, it takes human labor to accrue both character levels and virtual gold. Because these online games are accessible globally, the market for these services is in reality a function of global economic inequalities. It wouldn't make much sense for a typical American player to pay another American player to accrue virtual currency because their wages are within the same order
of magnitude. On the other hand, the lower cost of labor in developing countries makes such global transactions attractive. The act of collecting virtual currency is typically termed
gold farming,
and these players are called
gold farmers
. In 2007, technology journalist Julian Dibbell interviewed gold farmers working twelve-hour shifts in a fluorescent-lit office space in Nanjing, China. The game workers he interviewed in this “gaming workshop” were making 30 cents an hour and lived in dormitories adjoining the office spaces. Because of wage disparities between countries, therefore, an American player is able to trade a workday for many game grinding days. In short, these game services are a form of offshore outsourcing.
³

It is difficult to get an accurate estimate of the size of this industry due to its shadowy and distributed nature. In 2008, Richard Heeks, an informatics researcher at the University of Manchester, published a report aggregating metrics from many sources. His estimates suggested an average wage for gold farmers in China of around $145 per month. Many of these gold farmers work twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, which comes to about 43 cents an hour. On the demand side, both survey and game server data show that about 22 percent of Western players purchase virtual currencies. Heeks's best guess of the size of the gold farming industry is $500 million per year, and that it could well be more than $1 billion per year.
⁴

The complex and repetitive nature of contemporary online games has created an entire industry in which some players are willing to pay someone else to play the game for them. And
World of Warcraft
has become a real place of work for these game workers. For them, playing
World of Warcraft
is an actual job. Or a sentence: the
Guardian
reported in 2011 that Chinese prisoners are being forced by prison bosses to “play”
World of Warcraft
at night to generate income, and so
high-tech entertainment in the West has become a form of prison labor in China.
⁵

As the presence of gold farmers surged across online games in 2005 and 2006, gamers became increasingly frustrated with how these farmers behaved in the game. In particular, players have complained about three problems. First, gold farmers hog resource-rich areas, significantly increasing competition in those areas for normal players. Second, in order to drive normal players away from these resource-rich areas, gold farmers may employ hostile tactics, such as bringing monsters to attack the player or tricking unsuspecting players to engage in player-versus-player combat. Third, gold farmers are believed to ruin game economies by causing rapid inflation and increasing the supply of rare items to the point at which regular players cannot sell these rare items at a reasonable price.
⁶

Even though gold farmers have been documented in Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, and South Korea, many academics and online gamers believe that almost all gold farmers are based in China. Heeks estimates that 80 to 85 percent of gold farming takes place in China but cautions that this is a “least worst” estimate based on the proportion of media and academic reports on the subject. I would add that there may be a self-fulfilling prophecy here of assumptions encouraging journalism and study in particular areas of the world, namely China. But even if that estimate is mildly or even moderately off, certainly many gold farmers are indeed based in China.
⁷

Many gamers have posted their frustrations with gold farmers on
forums and message boards. In the gaming community, many have used “Chinese” and “gold farmer” synonymously. On the official
World of Warcraft
forums, there was formerly a large message thread under the heading “Chinese people make me mad.” The following post exemplifies the general sentiment in that thread: “He obviously was referring to the Chinese farmers. And I haven't heard of any group other than the Chinese that had operations set up to farm WOW gold and sell it for real cash.”
⁸

Even gamers who are shocked by the racial stereotyping are very aware of its existence in the community. In another thread titled, “Stop calling people chinese farmers!!!” a gamer commented on the overgeneralization and wrote that “it is just not nice.” Other gamers responded with posts such as:

They're all chinese and they all farm. case . . . freaking . . . closed.

If something is a dog, you call it a dog. If something is a rose, you call it a rose. If something is a chinese farmer, you call it a chinese farmer.
⁹

A French Canadian player recounts his encounter with an intolerant (and misinformed) player begging for gold. To rebuff the beggar, the player responded in French.

So there is this guy: “can I get gold, I will send it back to you by mail, I want to buy an epic”
Me: “pardon je ne parle pas anglais!”
Him: “WTF hey do you have GOLD”
Me: “Vraiment desole, je ne comprends pas!”
Him: “I'll report you, f*** farmer, china FARMER are the suckx!”

Anthropologist Lisa Nakamura has documented how player-created movies, similar to the one I described at the beginning of this chapter, dehumanized Chinese gold farmers. They became second-class citizens in these online games. But dehumanization is a slippery
slope. The hostility toward gold farmers grew to such a point that the rhetoric took a turn toward pestilence and extermination. In a post under the “Stop calling people chinese farmers” thread, one player defiantly replied: “I'll not only call them
CHINESE FARMERS
. . . . I'll call them a disease that has inflicted this game. Gold farmers are the rats of every game. They are everywhere and they multiply in a blink of an eye.” Players expressed similar sentiments in my online surveys:

The only good kind of farmer is a dead one. [
World of Warcraft,
male, 38]

Yes. I enjoy killing gold farmers repeatedly. I play on PvP servers. [
World of Warcraft,
male, 26]

It was this toxic situation that produced the video documentary series “Farm the Farmers Day,” discussed at the beginning of the chapter. These well-documented mob killings were the result. The perceived link between Chinese players and gold farmers, and the negative impact of gold farming on the economy, are all clearly stated at the end of the video:

Farmers inflate the economy and prevent lower level players from leveling up. . . . As it is now people that are rich in real life end up being rich in the game, which is not right. . . . Ask NCSoft to ban Chinese IP addresses. They have their own server now, and do not need to be on ours to play. KS [kill-steal], kill, and harass farmers whenever you see them. Do not let them kill this game.

Even in a fantasy world of ogres and elves, your presumed real-life nationality can matter a great deal. Being labeled a “Chinese farmer” means you are fair game for systematic harassment and slaughter.
¹⁰

As communication scholar Dean Chan has argued, Asian gamers are stuck between two entrenched stereotypes—the “model minority” and the “yellow peril.” The case of gold farming perfectly illustrates how these stereotypes are intertwined. Suspected Chinese gold
farmers are perceived as efficient workers, quietly and tirelessly gathering resources round the clock. But it is precisely this efficiency that has led to the pestilence rhetoric—their hard work is ruining the game. Thus, the anti-gold-farming videos leverage and perpetuate these historical stereotypes of the Chinese.
¹¹

Chinese gold farmers do not walk around with signs above their heads advertising their illicit activities, so how exactly does one identify a gold farmer in a virtual world in which everyone is pretending to be someone else and where real-world ethnicities don't exist? The litmus test that some players use to make the determination reveals player biases in decision-making:

I've encountered a lot of “probable” gold farmers in high-level zones. I tried speaking to them asking them to stop, if they answered in Chinese, I harassed them by luring mobs to them to interrupt their gameplay. If they speak English or any other non-Chinese language, I leave them alone.

In Felwood, there was this annoying level 60 rogue that was farming all the Jadefire demons for felcloth. I asked her: “Are you farming for felcloth?” and she responded with 4–5 Chinese words. Since I was with my hunter, I aggroed about 3 other Jadefire demons, ran up to her, used Feign Death, and the 3 demons went up to her. [
World of Warcraft,
male, 24]

As I mentioned earlier, gold farmers hog resource-rich areas and this frustrates regular players, who also favor these areas. From a behavioral standpoint, then, a gold farmer and a regular player's activities look quite similar. They both stay for long periods of time, understand where monsters will spawn, and hunt those monsters efficiently. What the player narrative above reveals is that it is not the
player's overt behavior per se that is damning but, rather, fluency in the English language. In other words, two players doing exactly the same thing at the same place at the same time are judged very differently depending on whether they are able to speak a few English phrases. The player that can speak English is left alone, and the player who cannot speak English is harassed.