Regine March 17, 2006 games

Life at the gamers farm

Ge Jin, a PhD student from UCSD, is working on a video documentary about the gold farming phenomenon. His observations from his meetings with Chinese workers in various gold farming workshops:

When I entered a gold farm for the first time (tietou’s gaming workshop in the preview), I was shocked by the positive spirit there, the farmers are passionate about what they do, and there is indeed a comraderie between them … I do see suffering and exploitation too, but in that place suffering is mixed with play and exploitation is embodied in a gang-like brotherhood and hierarchy. When I talked with the farmers, they rarely complained about their working condition, they only complained about their life in the game world.

Although they have to work/play for 12 hours a day, they take pride in what they achieve and they seem eager to escape into a virtual reality richer, brighter, and more exciting than their impoverished real world lives.

Preview on you tube.

Via Edge Terra Nova.

5Comments

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1

Gustav on March 17, 2006 at 9:46 pm

Wow, thats really interesting. I knew about the phenomenon and Ive been thinking about what it is like in those factories. I wonder what the real life conditions really are like (except the 12h workday)?
2

P.J. Onori on March 17, 2006 at 10:19 pm

I have no doubt that many people will highly disagree with me on this, but I’ll post it nonetheless.
It’s terribly sad that these people are so despondent with their lives that they feel the need to retreat into a virtual one that is more to their liking. I truly empathize with them on that level. Nonetheless, it’s sad they they have chosen to wrap their lives around video games. In the past, people wrote, painted or looked for spiritual/philosophical fullfillment to escape the daily frustration. It just seems to me such an empty escape when you look back at your life and have have it be defined by World of Warcraft.
Once again, who am I to judge, but it’s definitely not something I would undertake.
3

csven on March 18, 2006 at 1:34 am

You might want to emphasize the comments over on Terra Nova. As usual, they’re excellent in addition to including comments from the filmmaker.
4

csven on March 18, 2006 at 5:02 pm

It’s terribly sad that these people are so despondent with their lives that they feel the need to retreat into a virtual one that is more to their liking.
If you’ve not seen the working conditions in some of the factories in China, then I can understand your position. However, I’ve been at factories where when it rains, people pull out plastic sheets to cover the computers. Where walking up the stairs is like walking through a sewer… because the windows overlook the place outside the building (next to the exterior wall) where factory workers relieve themselves in the open. Where machine safety features and guards are removed to speed production and workers’ hands are covered in scars and bandages. Where workers are expected to work 12+ hours a day, 6 days a week (and often work more because they’re only there, far from home, working for the money to send back to their family). Where living conditions provided by the factory border on criminal. And where even though they endure all this, they make so little money that Western companies still salivate at the thought of “harnessing” the Chinese workforce.
Is it really any wonder that these people prefer “working” in a videogame world? Especially when they can interact with people from other countries, improve their English/German/French/etc language skills? And even learn things like how to use digital tools (Illustrator, Photoshop, aso)?
I believe that most of us in that situation would make the same choice. At worst, one might get a repetitive motion injury. At a factory, one might have an injection molding machine take an arm off.
5

K. Mitchell on March 18, 2006 at 7:59 pm

P.J.:
From the tone of your post, I’m not sure you entirely understand these peoples’ situations. They aren’t involved with World of Warcraft as a past-time, because they necessarily want to escape from their real lives, or as a stand-in for spiritual fulfillment. These people are impoverished and are gold farming because it’s the best job available to them and because they need to feed themselves and possibly their families. It’s not something you “would undertake” because you aren’t living in poverty in China. Your critique of gaming as a leisure activity is more appropriately directed toward the gaming population in the U.S. or Japan and reads as a valid commentary in that context, but this is a completely different story.

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