InformationWeek is reporting that the Chinese government has declared a ban on the sale of virtual goods for real currency. This move is poised to shut down a several billion yuan a year business that has been growing by leaps and bounds every year. "The trading of virtual currency for real cash employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually, according to a 2008 survey conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester. He estimates that between 80% and 85% of gold farmers are based in China. [...] Game companies typically forbid gold farming but committed virtual currency traders find ways around such rules. Some game companies have recognized the futility of trying to ban the practice and have built virtual commerce into their game infrastructure."
The trading of virtual currency for real cash employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually, according to a 2008 survey conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester. He estimates that between 80% and 85% of gold farmers are based in China.
Dear god! Eight tenths of one billion dollars is a lot of cash!
The Chinese government estimates that trade in virtual currency exceeded several billion yuan last year, a figure that it claims has been growing at a rate of 20% annually. One billion yuan is currently equal to about $146,000.
So what is it, hundreds of millions or hundreds of thousands? Because one is a nice chunk of change while the other is, across China's population, laughable.
These numbers just aren't adding up here. There seems to be a large disparity between what the Chinese government reports and what Heeks' study finds. It's entirely possible that Heeks' is stretching stats to make his research sound more important and news worthy. It's also possible China is understating the impact their ban will have so they can "cure you of your illnesses." The reality is probably both a little of column A and a little of column B.
Some game companies have recognized the futility of trying to ban the practice and have built virtual commerce into their game infrastructure.
And now China will realize that futility. One would think that China would enjoy the tax on those who report this income [worldwide-tax.com] but now it's just going to all go under-the-table. Hell, I'd say tax it but I'm certain China wants to look like the caring government attempting to heal the afflicted youth [slashdot.org].
Personally, I'm quite happy when oppressive people with power tighten their grip. It follows the law of tension: the harder it's wound, the more likely it is to snap. Organizations such as companies that bully, to massive governments, make stupid decisions to maintain and ascertain their power, when all they do is jeopardize it more. I can't wait till they make a huge mistake on civil liberties and practically give their citizens no choice but to revolt.
Personally, I'm quite happy when oppressive people with power tighten their grip. It follows the law of tension: the harder it's wound, the more likely it is to snap.
Normally I would agree with you. But as a kid I watched tanks clear a square [wikipedia.org] in China. As a result of this, the Red Cross would later report twenty five hundred people dead with seven to ten thousand wounded. The same government that dealt with those protests in that way is still in power today, twenty years later.
If that didn't do it, I don't see banning gold farming and regulating the internet doing it. The Chinese government is a new kind of oppression that has survived many attempts to move in the opposite direction. It must be a decision made simultaneously by billions of people to change this. If you're sitting their waiting for that tension to snap, you may be waiting a lot longer than you think.
I was having breakfast in Idaho City, Idaho around the time the Chinese government put down the Tianenmen Square protests. I overheard a guy at a nearby table say, "This wouldn't have happened if the Chinese were armed, I tell ya." I nearly laughed out loud, but I took a moment to really think about what he said. For the first time in my life, I understood the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.
The First Amendment is the first line of defense; the Second Amendment is the last.
Indeed practically nothing short of another tank can stop a tank. A perfectly positioned and deployed shape charge can, but I doubt many civilians in any country have the training necessary to use such a thing even if they were legal. I don't disagree with the second amendment per se, but implying that it holds the government in check has always seemed silly to me. What holds the government in check is a combination of the rule of law and a culture in the military that makes them nearly unusable in domestic situations. You'd never see a Tienanmen Square in this country because the military would simply refuse the order.
If politicians and (more importantly) the military ever totally abandon the Constitution and impose some sort of martial law, no amount of small arms is going to stop them. As it stands right now, small arms can only kill dismounted infantry if it is extremely well aimed, let alone anyone in any sort of vehicle. Modern body armor doesn't make soldiers invulnerable robo-cops, but it protects most of their vitals from even assault weapons. Put the armored soldiers in an even a lightly armored vehicle and nothing short of high explosives can do much damage to them.
Indeed practically nothing short of another tank can stop a tank.
That's patently wrong. Things like RPGs [wikipedia.org] are still quite effective, even against modern tanks. Yes, there are countermeasures, but they can be defeated, too.
A good example of how vulnerable tanks actually are against infantry is the first Battle of Grozny [wikipedia.org]. Chechen fighters had set up people with RPGs in basements along the main routes which Russian tank columns used to advance towards the city center. They would wait till the column is entirely within reach, and then 4-5 people would hit the first tank in the column, and the same number for the last - thus virtually guaranteeing that tanks would be disabled at the very least, trapping the rest of the column - which would then be destroyed methodically in a similar fashion. And basements were used over roofs because tank gun simply cannot depress low enough to make an aimed shot into a basement.
Two things to keep in mind: it's much easier to increase armor penetration than it is to increase armor strength (mostly because you have to increase armor strength along the entire surface of the tank, while e.g. a shaped charge only has to punch through a specific point). And also, tanks have very limited visibility and maneuverability in urban environment, especially compared to infantry.
This sort of thing is why, in modern urban warfare, tanks are always supported by infantry, which defends them against enemy anti-tank infantry.
As a veteran of Iraq and someone who would be happy to post pics of the Humvee/APC graveyards if my site was still up let me just say:
NO. You are wrong. If the U.S. military decided to invade the U.S., for real, not just "security" around a natural disaster area, the war would be over in days or weeks. And the people would win. Do you have any idea how large the U.S. is compared to our military? How vulnerable our forces really are? All of our retirees and guardsmen who would know all our weaknesses and S.O.P... They all LIVE HERE. My base could be effectively shut down by one person doing one thing (yeah, probably dying in the process), and it would be easy. Dead easy.
And "small arms" is a wide category. My.22-250, a smallish varminting cartridge, can penetrate 3/8+" mild steel, and that's just a plain-jane hollowpoint hunting round. You load a decent penetrator and maybe a little more pep in the powder charge and you're talking about something that could penetrate armored glass, humvee tires, building walls... And then you can move up to the bigger hunting rounds, the.308, the.30-'06, the 7mm-'06, the.338. Insurgents using measly 7.62x39 have taken out APC's in Iraq with horrific consequences- I have firsthand experience here, a human being hell-bent on causing death and damage will typically be very successful.
>>Put the armored soldiers in an even a lightly armored vehicle and nothing short of high explosives can do much damage to them.
Nor can they do much to the environment around them, short of yelling through loudspeakers. The turret gunner will be the first target, and his guns can only point in one direction at a time.
>>Indeed practically nothing short of another tank can stop a tank.
You know what can stop tanks? Tank barriers. You put your bomb next to the tank barrier and you set it off when the tank is over it figuring out what to do. And when the tankers figure out that trick and call in EOD, you shoot EOD. And when they figure that out and just barrage the barricade from the next corner, you put your bomb under the logical place for the tank to be. Underground fighters and insurgents have known this for decades. Americans are bright enough to figure this stuff out.
>>You'd never see a Tienanmen Square in this country because the military would simply refuse the order.
Kent state. Different order of magnitude, but it's the thought that counts. Don't count on units simply refusing orders. There are enough assholes in the military to keep a civil war moving until everything falls apart.
I already mention the reluctance of the soldiers as one of the main factors keeping us safe. We're assuming that went away somehow in the "military kills protesters" scenario.
You're going to get all those 200+ million armed civilians in one place supporting the protest? How are they all armed?
Yes, if the military turned against us and EVERY SINGLE CITIZEN who is not otherwise a soldier took up arms in the defense of liberty and ALL of them could competently use their weapons (which you're assuming all of them have, in fact most people I know don't own a gun) they could certainly have a good chance against even our military. You'd have the support of at best a small percentage of the population (many would support the government even in the face of Draconian policies, hoping to be in the elite; more would be too scared; more still would be apathetic as long as American Idol continued to play; etc). Of those a fraction (maybe a large fraction, given the type of people you're talking about, but still a fraction) would actually HAVE guns, and a much smaller fraction would have any training in using them. Of the guns available to you most would be hand guns or hunting rifles, the first are all but useless against even body armor, let alone vehicles, the second only useful in the hands of real marksmen.
Then there's the lack of training and fire discipline. Unless your 'troops' are former police or military themselves, they've never fired guns as part of a formation. This means that they are quite as likely to shoot each other as they are to shoot the soldiers that they are supposed to be aiming at. Cops and soldiers spend all that time training for a reason. It's because it is really hard to shoot, move and communicate in a group without lots and lots of practice.
I said it above and I'll say it again, what keeps us safe is the rule of law and respect the military has for the rule of law; not the second amendment. That, at best, keeps you safe from muggers and home invaders.
>I already mention the reluctance of the soldiers as one of the main factors keeping us safe. We're assuming that went away somehow in the "military kills protesters" scenario.
I'm sorry but all your talk of military formations and heavy weaponry suggest a level of open war that does not sit well with your talk of civilian apathy.
As for the distribution of civilian weaponry. The fact that not everyone is armed is made irrelevant by the fact that anyone could be. Hunting riffles are, with the right ammunition, capable of piercing body armor. Further, hunting riffles are often owned by people that hunt and can hit a moving target from a respectable distance. The civilian snipers will be defending and therefore have the terrain advantage. Given the wide variety of terrain types in this country, (compare Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Florida, Virginia) local terrain knowledge will be enough of an advantage to nearly offset the disadvantage in training and equipment.
I have no doubt that civilian casualties will be higher than military casualties. But if the US military ever turned on the general population, the result would make the Vietnam War seem like a grade school shouting match.
"You do realized that the Chinese government used tanks right? Small arms (the kind of guns allowed in the US) cannot stop a tank."
They can force it to button up so it can be killed with incendiaries, have a track disabled by inserted objects for a mobility kill etc.
Small arms dispersed among the people facilitate revolutionary capability, and NO country has enough tanks for them to be everywhere at once. No country, possibly excepting North Korea,has enough domestic military power to destroy widespread armed revolt, though it may contain outbreaks. Tanks can't be everywhere, and can be killed by infantry with expedient weapons. Widespread ownership of weapons means that if enough people choose to unite,they will outnumber any force their government can field. Partisan warfare with a determined base can be very hard to put down,and can turn into civil war where the government forces are divided.
The amount of asspain a few thousand lightly armed Iraqis and Afghans have been inflicting on Coalition forces is an example of what can happen with small arms as basic weapons.
Guns didnt help Jews, Poles, Gypsies, in WWII. An AK in every home didnt stop Sadaam from oppressing his own people. Its funny how people think a handgun or rifle works against a mechanized division.
The first step of every modern tyrant is to confiscate firearms. (Note, this is not to say that everyone who wants to confiscate weapons is a tyrant). Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, etc.
The point is not that a guy with a handgun is going to stop a tank. There are 2 points to make:
1) A crowd the size of the protests currently happening in Iran actually is something to be feared if they are armed.
2) A complete reliance on the state for one's protection creates a complacency and an orwellian love for "big brother". This point is more subtle than the first, but the more I study the issue, the more I realize how important it is. If a person is forced to rely entirely on the state (usually a police force) for his/her protection, this is not a good thing. Responsible gun ownership reminds one that even though good police protection is a wonderful thing, if there were no police, one would still be able to get along with one's life. This autonomy from the state is a good thing.
Get with the time. Now there is a massive Chinese middle class that have more than enough food, and are trying to figure out what to spend their money on.
Rebel Farmer: The more you tighten your' grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your' fingers
Chinese Govt: Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on the World of Warcraft.
Rebel Farmer: No! Warcraft is peaceful, we have no weapons you can't possibly-
Chinese Govt: You will provide another target - a military target? The name the system! I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time. Where is the rebel base?
Rebel Farmer:...Runescape. They're on Runescape.
Chinese Govt: There! You see Lord British she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation, you may fire when ready.
Rebel Farmer: WHAT?!
Chinese Govt: You're far too trusting. Runescape is too remote to make an effective demonstration but don't worry - we will deal with your rebel friends soon enough.
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday June 29, @02:28PM (#28518189)
The numbers aren't adding up because the exchange rate for Chinese currency to U.S. Dollars is incorrect and the author dropped some zeroes. One Dollar is equal to ~7 Renminbi, so one billion Renminbi should be $146,000,000.
China may enjoy the tax generated from gold farming, but virtual commerce cannot be regulated and controlled like real commerce. Ignoring the interaction between Real and Virtual economies is headstrong and foolish, so from my vantage point it appears that China is letting some other country pave the way for virtual regulation rather than saddle itself with unique problems caused by this novel form of earning money.
Think of it this way, if gold farming really is worth $1b USD per year, this is equivalent t
So, wait, are you seriously arguing that the Chinese government was smart to destroy the livelihood of 400K people to prevent the possible future destruction of the livelihood of 400K people? I take it you also support the death penalty for failure to wear a seatbelt?
BTW, the sale of virtual goods is "outlawed" in most of the games in which it occurs (without much effect) and gold farmers often move from game to game as popularity shifts, so thee are non-issues. "Gold Farming" is a legitimate industry - i
It's a pretty safe bet that the figure is in the millions USD, but beyond that it's hard to say.
While my sample size is very small, 3 out of the 4 people I know IRL who play WoW have each dropped $200 on such services. If we assume that 1% of the WoW population [warcraftrealms.com] spends half that, and that each 8 characters represent 1 account, that gives us $772k by itself. And that's just a very conservative estimate for one game, since some self-reported figures are much higher [pollhost.com]. If we expand our assumptions to say that each 4 characters represents 1 account, and that 15% of those accounts have purchased $100 worth of gold or other services, we end up around $23M -- a number which I still suspect is conservative.
So let me get this right, China bans a highly profitable industry from operating in China that no doubt brings in lots of revenue in the Chinese government or at the very least prevents people from having to work directly for the Chinese government. Sound really smart. While your at it why not ban the production of shoes, hard drives and cheap kids toys, it would have about the same effect.
It might be related to their attempts to limit the time that people spend playing games online [gamespot.com]. After all it would seem strange to limit people from playing more than 3 hours in their private life, while still allowing people to play 4 times that long at work.
If this is just another instance where the farmers just have to bribe the cops to look the other way, this "ban" will amount to nothing more than a PR stunt.
I would guess this is the case. China probably needed to make a public announcement like this to get something they wanted in a negotiation. I bet they do nothing to enforce this.
It's not illegal to make Gold. It's not illegal to Give Gold. It's not illegal to Give real Money to someone else.
But somewhere along the way, selling Gold online becomes illegal. Wheras stating the transaction as a two-way donation easily bypasses the law.
Also - the big question - why would this become illegal? People do what they want with their money. If Blizzard was smart - they'd offer Gold at a price matching the market and get a cut on this. They've already ruined WoW four times over. Anyone who's played since the beginning can tell you how much more enjoyable it used to be.
Gold farmers also increase the amount of subscriptions that the game has, more money going into the developers... I don't get why they fight it so much.
To me - its the worst business logic I've ever come across, and games that have these microtransactions already involved will be the ones who come out on top.
George Carlin had a lot of insight into bogosity, and phrased it in memorable ways.
While I'm not particularly in favor of prostitution, the court long ago ruled that sex acts between consenting adults are legal.
That being the case, it seems - at least to this layman - that the law is on shaky ground in dictating how said consent may be achieved. Whether it's by flowers, dinner, and clever small talk, or whatever the going rate in cash is, consent is consent.
I like WOW and I have liked many other games before that.
The problem WOW faces is that gold has to be used to buy one particular feature from a NPC no player can substitute for, epic flying. While "normal" flying and such gets you there, epic flying is so many times as fast that it not only becomes a status symbol it has become a requirement for many people. If they had put the effort into making it obtainable by quests that people could do during the course of their play or even a few group quests they c
Also - the big question - why would this become illegal? People do what they want with their money. If Blizzard was smart - they'd offer Gold at a price matching the market and get a cut on this. They've already ruined WoW four times over. Anyone who's played since the beginning can tell you how much more enjoyable it used to be.
I've played the game from the beginning. And the only reason I'd even consider calling WoW more enjoyable back then is because it was new. It's still fun today. I don't buy in on the idea that they've ruined the game four times over.
However, I do believe they'd gut the game following your advice. Who wants to play a game where you just buy a win? You do, apparently.
Granted - Activision / Blizzard seems to be toying with the idea. The collectible game loot cards, website advertisements, and Pepsi advertising campaign shows where they really want to go. Microtransactions are likely just a matter of time. And then you'll have your wish - WoW ruined.
We pay the Chinese to do the grunt work so that we can focus on having fun.
Which just illustrates why these games are b0rked. If people are willing to pay to avoid an integral part of the game, maybe you've done something wrong.
In full disclosure: I work in the financial industry currently.
This ban has nothing to do with gaming, gambling, or local economy.
This is likely a direct response to MASSIVE money laundering.
Joe has $100,000 worth of illicit cash. Joe strikes a deal to buy $100,000 worth of virtual currency in WoW. Joe smuggles the money. (Many times Joe can even hire the kid down the street and pay him cash...)
Joe turns around and over several months sells the gold BACK to the gold farmers and claims the sales as legitimate income. Selling it at a 50% loss he can convert $100,000 into $50,000 of legitimate funds. Even more so when he acts as a virtual broker (IGN anyone?).
While this is a simplified scenario but we are talking BILLIONS of dollars a year are now going through these kinds of channels.
I've seen locally here in the US $300,000 attempts and laundering money this way (through a combination of FF Online, LOTRO, and Maple).
While it is getting easier to deal with this now that the gaming companies are willing to share some data I can only imagine how hard is must be in Asian markets where channeling cash to chinese gold farmers is easier with the shorter phsyical distances. Oddly though, in my experience, I have seen more Korean and Indian gold farmers then Chinese.
Never had a problem with gold farmers, never will, but I have serious doubts that this ban has anything to do with gameplay.
I think this is in response to the forged bonds that were intercepted in Italy. They are worried about organized crime shifting large sums of money (which require laundering) through the virtual economy.
If I am an evil overlord and I have to get 4 billion to my agents around the world the easiest thing to do is buy a billion dollars worth of WoW gold, have all my agents log in with characters. Divvy up the gold then have them sell it off locally or back to the gold farmers at a loss.
No quicker way to distributed that much real world money then through a network of games.
It would not be a pleasant job, even if you got the same wage you do now. Your bosses will constantly be pushing you to maximize your per hourly gold yield. And most likely you would be running several computers at once and using various hacks, working like a dog. Any semblance of it being a fun game would be completely gone, replaced by simple drudgery.
I'd rather do straight data entry typing than be a gold farmer...
And most likely you would be running several computers at once and using various hacks, working like a dog. Any semblance of it being a fun game would be completely gone, replaced by simple drudgery.
how is that ANY different than your average MMO player?
Your average MMO player has a choice of activities. To use WoW as an example, you can do quests, you can run instances, you can do battle grounds, do some world PVP, level an alt, do silly seasonal quests, etc. As a gold farmer, you do one and only one thing... farm the most valuable items out there. You don't have the opportunity to do anything else, because doing anything else is a waste of time and isn't what you are getting paid for.
Your bosses will constantly be pushing you to maximize your per hourly gold yield.
My understanding is that most of the gold farmer "workers" work on a quota system. Of course the quota will get moved up depending on possible performance. It's not about maximizing yields, it's about hitting the quota dependably.
When labor is that cheap, it's probably more effective to hire additional workers than it is to squeeze every last drop out of the ones you have.
Anecdotally, back when I played MMOs, I was once asked to hold onto some surplus in-game cash for a farmer. He wanted to set it aside so if he had a bad day, he could use it to get over quota and avoid punishment.
I recall reading an article about this somewhere (Gamasutra?)... the gold farmers didn't want to make too much gold for their bosses, or their coworkers would get mad. Excess earnings in a session were hidden to (1) save for a bad day (2) sell independently for income or (3) play the game themselves. It was a really interesting look inside gold farming at the basest level.
I've done buisness with gold farmers in the past, and they were quick to contact me directly to solicity my next sale - to them, not to their employers. I think this is all a bit less Charles Dickens than people are making it out to be. Certainly it's better than typical jobs for kids in the West's industrial revolution.
When labor is that cheap, it's probably more effective to hire additional workers than it is to squeeze every last drop out of the ones you have.
Spoken like a man who's never had a truly crappy job. Squeezing every last drop out of your workers is its own reward. I knew a restaurant manager once who stole tips off the servers' tables "just to remind everyone who the big dog is." I knew a lawyer who refused to pay his staff a living wage or work them less than 60 hours a week "so they won't have time to go find another job." Hell, even John McCain refused to honor our commitment to pay for our soldier's college expenses because, and I'm paraphrasing correctly, if our soldiers knew they could come home and go to college, no one would want to stay in Iraq.
Sometimes treating your employees like crap is more about shoring up your own inferiority complex than it is smart business decision. If you haven't experienced it directly, go reread Thomas More and George Orwell to get the gist of it.
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday June 29, @02:41PM (#28518385)
This is still a hundred times better than working on a farm for a living. Life is hard in rural areas, and making any kind of living outside of farming is a huge step up from what your parents likely did. Even if the work is hard and demanding by our standards, people in the 'first world' live decadent soft lives that don't know what a real lifetime of work would look like if it slapped us in the face.
On the plus side, aside from RSI risk and lack of exercise during working hours, it is a largely harmless and physically undemanding job. No heavy machinery macerating your digits, no toxic exposures, no baking in the fields for 10 hours, no swabbing out other people's toilets.
It would certainly be a job, not a game; but not a substantially grimmer one than a nontrivial number of first world service jobs, much less third world peasant/sweatshop stuff.
All of the non-gold-selling Internet business that comes to mind involves either selling a real good (although that real good consists of data) or performing a service, not selling a virtual good.
You seem to be confusing real goods on the Internet that consist of data with virtual goods. (Note that a real good consisting of data -- like the contents of a website -- can easily, though perhaps inconveniently, rendered into data in a more "physical" form. I cannot give you WoW gold via any physical means.)
One reason might be that building an industry that is entirely reliant on the whims of a foreign company could leave them holding the bag for thousands of idiots who thought they had a job.
It just seems this isn't the real or whole story, though.
Encrypting the client-server protocols, makes it harder to hack the "game". Sort of.
That also makes it a great tool for secret communication about counter-revolutionary activities ranging from simple gossip about Tienanmen square, to money laundering.
Its an interesting public admission that a video game company can make a government-proof encryption/authentication/communication system.
I suspect that the article is actually blowing out of proportion the MMO currency trading side of things. A quick googling shows that evidently gambling is illegal in china and the government has gone to lengths to crack down on it:
If :
A) MMO currency trading is not a notable contributor to China's GDP
B) Virtual currency makes bypassing gambling restrictions easier
C) China is genuinely interested in curbing gambling It sounds to me like banning on-line currency trading is a no-brainer as it will criminalize the entry point people would use to get around local gambling restrictions. Any problem with MMO currency trading is purely incidental.
And I doubt China cares about the cost the rest of the world pays for [Titansteel Bar]s on the auction house..
Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Informative)
The trading of virtual currency for real cash employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually, according to a 2008 survey conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester. He estimates that between 80% and 85% of gold farmers are based in China.
Dear god! Eight tenths of one billion dollars is a lot of cash!
The Chinese government estimates that trade in virtual currency exceeded several billion yuan last year, a figure that it claims has been growing at a rate of 20% annually. One billion yuan is currently equal to about $146,000.
So what is it, hundreds of millions or hundreds of thousands? Because one is a nice chunk of change while the other is, across China's population, laughable.
These numbers just aren't adding up here. There seems to be a large disparity between what the Chinese government reports and what Heeks' study finds. It's entirely possible that Heeks' is stretching stats to make his research sound more important and news worthy. It's also possible China is understating the impact their ban will have so they can "cure you of your illnesses." The reality is probably both a little of column A and a little of column B.
Some game companies have recognized the futility of trying to ban the practice and have built virtual commerce into their game infrastructure.
And now China will realize that futility. One would think that China would enjoy the tax on those who report this income [worldwide-tax.com] but now it's just going to all go under-the-table. Hell, I'd say tax it but I'm certain China wants to look like the caring government attempting to heal the afflicted youth [slashdot.org].
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'm quite happy when oppressive people with power tighten their grip. It follows the law of tension: the harder it's wound, the more likely it is to snap. Organizations such as companies that bully, to massive governments, make stupid decisions to maintain and ascertain their power, when all they do is jeopardize it more. I can't wait till they make a huge mistake on civil liberties and practically give their citizens no choice but to revolt.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'm quite happy when oppressive people with power tighten their grip. It follows the law of tension: the harder it's wound, the more likely it is to snap.
Normally I would agree with you. But as a kid I watched tanks clear a square [wikipedia.org] in China. As a result of this, the Red Cross would later report twenty five hundred people dead with seven to ten thousand wounded. The same government that dealt with those protests in that way is still in power today, twenty years later.
If that didn't do it, I don't see banning gold farming and regulating the internet doing it. The Chinese government is a new kind of oppression that has survived many attempts to move in the opposite direction. It must be a decision made simultaneously by billions of people to change this. If you're sitting their waiting for that tension to snap, you may be waiting a lot longer than you think.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was having breakfast in Idaho City, Idaho around the time the Chinese government put down the Tianenmen Square protests. I overheard a guy at a nearby table say, "This wouldn't have happened if the Chinese were armed, I tell ya." I nearly laughed out loud, but I took a moment to really think about what he said. For the first time in my life, I understood the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.
The First Amendment is the first line of defense; the Second Amendment is the last.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realized that the Chinese government used tanks right? Small arms (the kind of guns allowed in the US) cannot stop a tank.
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed practically nothing short of another tank can stop a tank. A perfectly positioned and deployed shape charge can, but I doubt many civilians in any country have the training necessary to use such a thing even if they were legal. I don't disagree with the second amendment per se, but implying that it holds the government in check has always seemed silly to me. What holds the government in check is a combination of the rule of law and a culture in the military that makes them nearly unusable in domestic situations. You'd never see a Tienanmen Square in this country because the military would simply refuse the order.
If politicians and (more importantly) the military ever totally abandon the Constitution and impose some sort of martial law, no amount of small arms is going to stop them. As it stands right now, small arms can only kill dismounted infantry if it is extremely well aimed, let alone anyone in any sort of vehicle. Modern body armor doesn't make soldiers invulnerable robo-cops, but it protects most of their vitals from even assault weapons. Put the armored soldiers in an even a lightly armored vehicle and nothing short of high explosives can do much damage to them.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:4, Informative)
Lucky thing most hunting rifles are more powerful than any "assault weapon".
A .30-06 will go through any body armour worn today with no difficulty at all. And it's far from the most powerful hunting round in use in the USA.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed practically nothing short of another tank can stop a tank.
That's patently wrong. Things like RPGs [wikipedia.org] are still quite effective, even against modern tanks. Yes, there are countermeasures, but they can be defeated, too.
A good example of how vulnerable tanks actually are against infantry is the first Battle of Grozny [wikipedia.org]. Chechen fighters had set up people with RPGs in basements along the main routes which Russian tank columns used to advance towards the city center. They would wait till the column is entirely within reach, and then 4-5 people would hit the first tank in the column, and the same number for the last - thus virtually guaranteeing that tanks would be disabled at the very least, trapping the rest of the column - which would then be destroyed methodically in a similar fashion. And basements were used over roofs because tank gun simply cannot depress low enough to make an aimed shot into a basement.
Two things to keep in mind: it's much easier to increase armor penetration than it is to increase armor strength (mostly because you have to increase armor strength along the entire surface of the tank, while e.g. a shaped charge only has to punch through a specific point). And also, tanks have very limited visibility and maneuverability in urban environment, especially compared to infantry.
This sort of thing is why, in modern urban warfare, tanks are always supported by infantry, which defends them against enemy anti-tank infantry.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:4, Informative)
As a veteran of Iraq and someone who would be happy to post pics of the Humvee/APC graveyards if my site was still up let me just say:
NO. You are wrong. If the U.S. military decided to invade the U.S., for real, not just "security" around a natural disaster area, the war would be over in days or weeks. And the people would win. Do you have any idea how large the U.S. is compared to our military? How vulnerable our forces really are? All of our retirees and guardsmen who would know all our weaknesses and S.O.P... They all LIVE HERE. My base could be effectively shut down by one person doing one thing (yeah, probably dying in the process), and it would be easy. Dead easy.
And "small arms" is a wide category. My .22-250, a smallish varminting cartridge, can penetrate 3/8+" mild steel, and that's just a plain-jane hollowpoint hunting round. You load a decent penetrator and maybe a little more pep in the powder charge and you're talking about something that could penetrate armored glass, humvee tires, building walls... And then you can move up to the bigger hunting rounds, the .308, the .30-'06, the 7mm-'06, the .338. Insurgents using measly 7.62x39 have taken out APC's in Iraq with horrific consequences- I have firsthand experience here, a human being hell-bent on causing death and damage will typically be very successful.
>>Put the armored soldiers in an even a lightly armored vehicle and nothing short of high explosives can do much damage to them.
Nor can they do much to the environment around them, short of yelling through loudspeakers. The turret gunner will be the first target, and his guns can only point in one direction at a time.
>>Indeed practically nothing short of another tank can stop a tank.
You know what can stop tanks? Tank barriers. You put your bomb next to the tank barrier and you set it off when the tank is over it figuring out what to do. And when the tankers figure out that trick and call in EOD, you shoot EOD. And when they figure that out and just barrage the barricade from the next corner, you put your bomb under the logical place for the tank to be. Underground fighters and insurgents have known this for decades. Americans are bright enough to figure this stuff out.
>>You'd never see a Tienanmen Square in this country because the military would simply refuse the order.
Kent state. Different order of magnitude, but it's the thought that counts. Don't count on units simply refusing orders. There are enough assholes in the military to keep a civil war moving until everything falls apart.
-b
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Insightful)
I already mention the reluctance of the soldiers as one of the main factors keeping us safe. We're assuming that went away somehow in the "military kills protesters" scenario.
You're going to get all those 200+ million armed civilians in one place supporting the protest? How are they all armed?
Yes, if the military turned against us and EVERY SINGLE CITIZEN who is not otherwise a soldier took up arms in the defense of liberty and ALL of them could competently use their weapons (which you're assuming all of them have, in fact most people I know don't own a gun) they could certainly have a good chance against even our military. You'd have the support of at best a small percentage of the population (many would support the government even in the face of Draconian policies, hoping to be in the elite; more would be too scared; more still would be apathetic as long as American Idol continued to play; etc). Of those a fraction (maybe a large fraction, given the type of people you're talking about, but still a fraction) would actually HAVE guns, and a much smaller fraction would have any training in using them. Of the guns available to you most would be hand guns or hunting rifles, the first are all but useless against even body armor, let alone vehicles, the second only useful in the hands of real marksmen.
Then there's the lack of training and fire discipline. Unless your 'troops' are former police or military themselves, they've never fired guns as part of a formation. This means that they are quite as likely to shoot each other as they are to shoot the soldiers that they are supposed to be aiming at. Cops and soldiers spend all that time training for a reason. It's because it is really hard to shoot, move and communicate in a group without lots and lots of practice.
I said it above and I'll say it again, what keeps us safe is the rule of law and respect the military has for the rule of law; not the second amendment. That, at best, keeps you safe from muggers and home invaders.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Informative)
>I already mention the reluctance of the soldiers as one of the main factors keeping us safe. We're assuming that went away somehow in the "military kills protesters" scenario.
No we are not assuming, we saw it at Kent State.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the distribution of civilian weaponry. The fact that not everyone is armed is made irrelevant by the fact that anyone could be. Hunting riffles are, with the right ammunition, capable of piercing body armor. Further, hunting riffles are often owned by people that hunt and can hit a moving target from a respectable distance. The civilian snipers will be defending and therefore have the terrain advantage. Given the wide variety of terrain types in this country, (compare Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Florida, Virginia) local terrain knowledge will be enough of an advantage to nearly offset the disadvantage in training and equipment.
I have no doubt that civilian casualties will be higher than military casualties. But if the US military ever turned on the general population, the result would make the Vietnam War seem like a grade school shouting match.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:4, Insightful)
"You do realized that the Chinese government used tanks right? Small arms (the kind of guns allowed in the US) cannot stop a tank."
They can force it to button up so it can be killed with incendiaries, have a track disabled by inserted objects for a mobility kill etc.
Small arms dispersed among the people facilitate revolutionary capability, and NO country has enough tanks for them to be everywhere at once. No country, possibly excepting North Korea,has enough domestic military power to destroy widespread armed revolt, though it may contain outbreaks. Tanks can't be everywhere, and can be killed by infantry with expedient weapons. Widespread ownership of weapons means that if enough people choose to unite,they will outnumber any force their government can field. Partisan warfare with a determined base can be very hard to put down,and can turn into civil war where the government forces are divided.
The amount of asspain a few thousand lightly armed Iraqis and Afghans have been inflicting on Coalition forces is an example of what can happen with small arms as basic weapons.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Insightful)
Guns didnt help Jews, Poles, Gypsies, in WWII. An AK in every home didnt stop Sadaam from oppressing his own people. Its funny how people think a handgun or rifle works against a mechanized division.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Insightful)
The first step of every modern tyrant is to confiscate firearms. (Note, this is not to say that everyone who wants to confiscate weapons is a tyrant). Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, etc.
The point is not that a guy with a handgun is going to stop a tank. There are 2 points to make:
1) A crowd the size of the protests currently happening in Iran actually is something to be feared if they are armed.
2) A complete reliance on the state for one's protection creates a complacency and an orwellian love for "big brother". This point is more subtle than the first, but the more I study the issue, the more I realize how important it is. If a person is forced to rely entirely on the state (usually a police force) for his/her protection, this is not a good thing. Responsible gun ownership reminds one that even though good police protection is a wonderful thing, if there were no police, one would still be able to get along with one's life. This autonomy from the state is a good thing.
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Insightful)
Get with the time. Now there is a massive Chinese middle class that have more than enough food, and are trying to figure out what to spend their money on.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8113149.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Funny)
Rebel Farmer: The more you tighten your' grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your' fingers
Chinese Govt: Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on the World of Warcraft.
Rebel Farmer: No! Warcraft is peaceful, we have no weapons you can't possibly-
Chinese Govt: You will provide another target - a military target? The name the system! I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time. Where is the rebel base?
Rebel Farmer:
Chinese Govt: There! You see Lord British she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation, you may fire when ready.
Rebel Farmer: WHAT?!
Chinese Govt: You're far too trusting. Runescape is too remote to make an effective demonstration but don't worry - we will deal with your rebel friends soon enough.
Rebel Farmer: noo..
Parent
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:5, Informative)
The numbers aren't adding up because the exchange rate for Chinese currency to U.S. Dollars is incorrect and the author dropped some zeroes. One Dollar is equal to ~7 Renminbi, so one billion Renminbi should be $146,000,000.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
China may enjoy the tax generated from gold farming, but virtual commerce cannot be regulated and controlled like real commerce. Ignoring the interaction between Real and Virtual economies is headstrong and foolish, so from my vantage point it appears that China is letting some other country pave the way for virtual regulation rather than saddle itself with unique problems caused by this novel form of earning money.
Think of it this way, if gold farming really is worth $1b USD per year, this is equivalent t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, wait, are you seriously arguing that the Chinese government was smart to destroy the livelihood of 400K people to prevent the possible future destruction of the livelihood of 400K people? I take it you also support the death penalty for failure to wear a seatbelt?
BTW, the sale of virtual goods is "outlawed" in most of the games in which it occurs (without much effect) and gold farmers often move from game to game as popularity shifts, so thee are non-issues. "Gold Farming" is a legitimate industry - i
Re:Hundred Millions or Hundred Thousands? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a pretty safe bet that the figure is in the millions USD, but beyond that it's hard to say.
While my sample size is very small, 3 out of the 4 people I know IRL who play WoW have each dropped $200 on such services. If we assume that 1% of the WoW population [warcraftrealms.com] spends half that, and that each 8 characters represent 1 account, that gives us $772k by itself. And that's just a very conservative estimate for one game, since some self-reported figures are much higher [pollhost.com]. If we expand our assumptions to say that each 4 characters represents 1 account, and that 15% of those accounts have purchased $100 worth of gold or other services, we end up around $23M -- a number which I still suspect is conservative.
Parent
So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
But will they ENFORCE this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But will they ENFORCE this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
There is always India (Score:5, Insightful)
And suddenly thousands of Indian techies have opened Warcraft accounts.
Why? I don't get it... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not illegal to make Gold.
It's not illegal to Give Gold.
It's not illegal to Give real Money to someone else.
But somewhere along the way, selling Gold online becomes illegal. Wheras stating the transaction as a two-way donation easily bypasses the law.
Also - the big question - why would this become illegal? People do what they want with their money. If Blizzard was smart - they'd offer Gold at a price matching the market and get a cut on this. They've already ruined WoW four times over. Anyone who's played since the beginning can tell you how much more enjoyable it used to be.
Gold farmers also increase the amount of subscriptions that the game has, more money going into the developers... I don't get why they fight it so much.
To me - its the worst business logic I've ever come across, and games that have these microtransactions already involved will be the ones who come out on top.
Re:Why? I don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
This reminds me of the old Carlin skit on prostitution:
"Selling is legal, ****ing is legal. So why isn't selling ****ing legal?"
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
George Carlin had a lot of insight into bogosity, and phrased it in memorable ways.
While I'm not particularly in favor of prostitution, the court long ago ruled that sex acts between consenting adults are legal.
That being the case, it seems - at least to this layman - that the law is on shaky ground in dictating how said consent may be achieved. Whether it's by flowers, dinner, and clever small talk, or whatever the going rate in cash is, consent is consent.
To make matters even cloudier, the court has also
Re:Why? I don't get it... (Score:4, Informative)
It's not illegal to give money to someone else.
It's not illegal to drive.
It's not illegal to drink.
Things aren't always just the sum of their parts.
Parent
Gold farming is the fault of MMORPG companies (Score:3, Interesting)
I like WOW and I have liked many other games before that.
The problem WOW faces is that gold has to be used to buy one particular feature from a NPC no player can substitute for, epic flying. While "normal" flying and such gets you there, epic flying is so many times as fast that it not only becomes a status symbol it has become a requirement for many people. If they had put the effort into making it obtainable by quests that people could do during the course of their play or even a few group quests they c
Re:Why? I don't get it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also - the big question - why would this become illegal? People do what they want with their money. If Blizzard was smart - they'd offer Gold at a price matching the market and get a cut on this. They've already ruined WoW four times over. Anyone who's played since the beginning can tell you how much more enjoyable it used to be.
I've played the game from the beginning. And the only reason I'd even consider calling WoW more enjoyable back then is because it was new. It's still fun today. I don't buy in on the idea that they've ruined the game four times over.
However, I do believe they'd gut the game following your advice. Who wants to play a game where you just buy a win? You do, apparently.
Granted - Activision / Blizzard seems to be toying with the idea. The collectible game loot cards, website advertisements, and Pepsi advertising campaign shows where they really want to go. Microtransactions are likely just a matter of time. And then you'll have your wish - WoW ruined.
Parent
so we are so lazy now (Score:3, Funny)
we have to pay the chinese to have fun for us now? What's next, do we pay them to have sex for us, eat for us, pee for us...
Re:so we are so lazy now (Score:4, Insightful)
Farming gold isn't what most players find fun about MMO's, hence peoples willingness to pay for it.
Parent
Re:so we are so lazy now (Score:5, Insightful)
We pay the Chinese to do the grunt work so that we can focus on having fun.
Which just illustrates why these games are b0rked. If people are willing to pay to avoid an integral part of the game, maybe you've done something wrong.
Parent
Nothing to do with Gaming (Score:5, Informative)
In full disclosure: I work in the financial industry currently.
This ban has nothing to do with gaming, gambling, or local economy.
This is likely a direct response to MASSIVE money laundering.
Joe has $100,000 worth of illicit cash.
Joe strikes a deal to buy $100,000 worth of virtual currency in WoW. Joe smuggles the money. (Many times Joe can even hire the kid down the street and pay him cash...)
Joe turns around and over several months sells the gold BACK to the gold farmers and claims the sales as legitimate income. Selling it at a 50% loss he can convert $100,000 into $50,000 of legitimate funds. Even more so when he acts as a virtual broker (IGN anyone?).
While this is a simplified scenario but we are talking BILLIONS of dollars a year are now going through these kinds of channels.
I've seen locally here in the US $300,000 attempts and laundering money this way (through a combination of FF Online, LOTRO, and Maple).
While it is getting easier to deal with this now that the gaming companies are willing to share some data I can only imagine how hard is must be in Asian markets where channeling cash to chinese gold farmers is easier with the shorter phsyical distances. Oddly though, in my experience, I have seen more Korean and Indian gold farmers then Chinese.
Never had a problem with gold farmers, never will, but I have serious doubts that this ban has anything to do with gameplay.
I think this is in response to the forged bonds that were intercepted in Italy. They are worried about organized crime shifting large sums of money (which require laundering) through the virtual economy.
If I am an evil overlord and I have to get 4 billion to my agents around the world the easiest thing to do is buy a billion dollars worth of WoW gold, have all my agents log in with characters. Divvy up the gold then have them sell it off locally or back to the gold farmers at a loss.
No quicker way to distributed that much real world money then through a network of games.
Re:China seems to want to enhance its image... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather do straight data entry typing than be a gold farmer...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And most likely you would be running several computers at once and using various hacks, working like a dog. Any semblance of it being a fun game would be completely gone, replaced by simple drudgery.
how is that ANY different than your average MMO player?
Re:China seems to want to enhance its image... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your average MMO player has a choice of activities. To use WoW as an example, you can do quests, you can run instances, you can do battle grounds, do some world PVP, level an alt, do silly seasonal quests, etc. As a gold farmer, you do one and only one thing... farm the most valuable items out there. You don't have the opportunity to do anything else, because doing anything else is a waste of time and isn't what you are getting paid for.
Parent
Re:China seems to want to enhance its image... (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding is that most of the gold farmer "workers" work on a quota system. Of course the quota will get moved up depending on possible performance. It's not about maximizing yields, it's about hitting the quota dependably.
When labor is that cheap, it's probably more effective to hire additional workers than it is to squeeze every last drop out of the ones you have.
Anecdotally, back when I played MMOs, I was once asked to hold onto some surplus in-game cash for a farmer. He wanted to set it aside so if he had a bad day, he could use it to get over quota and avoid punishment.
I recall reading an article about this somewhere (Gamasutra?)... the gold farmers didn't want to make too much gold for their bosses, or their coworkers would get mad. Excess earnings in a session were hidden to (1) save for a bad day (2) sell independently for income or (3) play the game themselves. It was a really interesting look inside gold farming at the basest level.
Parent
Re:China seems to want to enhance its image... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've done buisness with gold farmers in the past, and they were quick to contact me directly to solicity my next sale - to them, not to their employers. I think this is all a bit less Charles Dickens than people are making it out to be. Certainly it's better than typical jobs for kids in the West's industrial revolution.
Parent
...it's probably more effective... (Score:5, Insightful)
When labor is that cheap, it's probably more effective to hire additional workers than it is to squeeze every last drop out of the ones you have.
Spoken like a man who's never had a truly crappy job. Squeezing every last drop out of your workers is its own reward. I knew a restaurant manager once who stole tips off the servers' tables "just to remind everyone who the big dog is." I knew a lawyer who refused to pay his staff a living wage or work them less than 60 hours a week "so they won't have time to go find another job." Hell, even John McCain refused to honor our commitment to pay for our soldier's college expenses because, and I'm paraphrasing correctly, if our soldiers knew they could come home and go to college, no one would want to stay in Iraq.
Sometimes treating your employees like crap is more about shoring up your own inferiority complex than it is smart business decision. If you haven't experienced it directly, go reread Thomas More and George Orwell to get the gist of it.
Parent
Re:China seems to want to enhance its image... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is still a hundred times better than working on a farm for a living. Life is hard in rural areas, and making any kind of living outside of farming is a huge step up from what your parents likely did. Even if the work is hard and demanding by our standards, people in the 'first world' live decadent soft lives that don't know what a real lifetime of work would look like if it slapped us in the face.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It would certainly be a job, not a game; but not a substantially grimmer one than a nontrivial number of first world service jobs, much less third world peasant/sweatshop stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Would that include things like an online book or some online services?
I was thinking of software licenses... since it's like having bought something, but not really -- so it's virtual property.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
All of the non-gold-selling Internet business that comes to mind involves either selling a real good (although that real good consists of data) or performing a service, not selling a virtual good.
You seem to be confusing real goods on the Internet that consist of data with virtual goods. (Note that a real good consisting of data -- like the contents of a website -- can easily, though perhaps inconveniently, rendered into data in a more "physical" form. I cannot give you WoW gold via any physical means.)
Re:Why would China do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
One reason might be that building an industry that is entirely reliant on the whims of a foreign company could leave them holding the bag for thousands of idiots who thought they had a job.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It just seems this isn't the real or whole story, though.
Encrypting the client-server protocols, makes it harder to hack the "game". Sort of.
That also makes it a great tool for secret communication about counter-revolutionary activities ranging from simple gossip about Tienanmen square, to money laundering.
Its an interesting public admission that a video game company can make a government-proof encryption/authentication/communication system.
Re:Why would China do this? (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect that the article is actually blowing out of proportion the MMO currency trading side of things. A quick googling shows that evidently gambling is illegal in china and the government has gone to lengths to crack down on it:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/China_steps_up_anti-gambling_campaign [wikinews.org]
If :
A) MMO currency trading is not a notable contributor to China's GDP
B) Virtual currency makes bypassing gambling restrictions easier
C) China is genuinely interested in curbing gambling
It sounds to me like banning on-line currency trading is a no-brainer as it will criminalize the entry point people would use to get around local gambling restrictions. Any problem with MMO currency trading is purely incidental.
And I doubt China cares about the cost the rest of the world pays for [Titansteel Bar]s on the auction house..
Parent