Gold Farming and Relationships

There are many different angles of how gold farming affects interpersonal relationships, and also which of the various relationships it affects. You could focus on the affects it has on the gold farmers themselves, and the relationships they would have, or not have, with their family and friends while they work the long hours in the computer labs. You could also focus on the relationship the gold farmers have with other MMOG players, as we learned in class the gold farmers are easy to spot by other players. And to take a different angle you could focus on the reltionships that people how hire the gold farmers to adavnce their avatars have with other players of the game. Basically I will talk a little about each of these in this blog because I think it is an interesting topic and I can't decide which I angle I want to focus on most.

From what we learned in class by watching a few youtube videos that documented gold farming it pretty much seemed like any other sweat shop from China that you would hear about. As discussed it may be a little better than the sweat shops where they make shoes or something since they are playing a game, but not much better. In the article The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer by Julian Dibbell, we read it talked about a man that quit a job building car parts to go work for a gold farming place so it must be a step up from that. But still, as an American and with the working conditions we expect here, I feel sad that people would have to work under the conditions they do there. It does not seem like they have any time to spend with family or friends, they just sleep in the smalls rooms they have at the gold farming shops and then wake up for their shifts. Does not seem like a life filled with meaning interpersonal relationships to me.

Also we learned from the article and from the class videos that other MMOG players see gold farmers as second class citizens (or less) in the game. In the article a story was told about a player attacking a gold farmers avatar basically out of spite, and also that this is a common thing to happen. In the video one gold farmer being interviewed said he felt inferior to the other players so they are not finding any meaning reltionships inside the game. So if these gold farmers are not finding interpersonal relationships in the game because players don't like them, or with their family or friends because they are living at work, where are they getting them?

To look at the other angle breifly, how are people who hire gold farmers to adavance their avatars gaining or losing interpersonal relationships? Well from one video we watched a lady had a young child and just could not keep up around the house and spend the hours she needed to gain experience for her avatar so she hired out. I actually think it is a good idea for someone in her position to do that. Think of the way her relationships with her husband child would suffer if she spendt all her time on the computer trying to advance her avatar and ignoring them. Now there is something to be said about the relationships she misses out on in the game when someone else takes over her avatar. In that same video it showed a friend of hers who also played the game telling her ha had tried to talk to her avatar but she ignored him. She then explained that she had hired someone to advance it for her. he told her he thought it was cheating and she should do it herself. But in my opinion I think she made the right choice by choosing to strengthen family relationships over casual friendships.