E-Sweatshops?
This article, about slave wage workers in MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, for the uninitiated) is one of the most interesting I've read in a while. Apparently, trading in-game credits for real-life cash is big business these days, and the people at the top are employing a small army of workers to raise that virtual money.
For whatever reason, I find this idea unbelievably fascinating, and have been planning to work it into my writing for some time. In fact, "The (Untitled) Regular's Story" again, a short story/novelette about The Regular's life before the events of Blurred Line, focuses on elements quite similar to those that appear in the article. With any luck, I'll get around to working on it again sometime in the near future (and by near, I mean...you know...ever).
For whatever reason, I find this idea unbelievably fascinating, and have been planning to work it into my writing for some time. In fact, "The (Untitled) Regular's Story" again, a short story/novelette about The Regular's life before the events of Blurred Line, focuses on elements quite similar to those that appear in the article. With any luck, I'll get around to working on it again sometime in the near future (and by near, I mean...you know...ever).
1 Comments:
I read an article the other day about a guy in Japan who got arrested for sending bots to mug other players so he could sell their money and items for real world currency. It's kind of creepy - in addition to player-made trading sites, some MMORPGs actually use a currency exchange instead of making you pay a monthly fee. So you can play for free, it's just that if you want to get anywhere in the game you have to buy in-game currency.
Also, if you want to hear a scary example of how involved people get, google "you stole my cloudsong". A cloudsong apparently being a sword in some MMORPG. Warning: excessive swearing.
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