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New profit business "Gold Farming"

Nearly 500,000 people in developing nations earn a wage making virtual goods in online games to sell to players, a study has found. Research by Manchester University shows that the practice, known as gold-farming is growing rapidly, reported by BBC News. The industry, about 80% based in China, employs about 400,000 people who earn £77 per month on average. Rohan gold, WoW gold, Age of conan gold and so on... Big industry Professor Richard Heeks, head of the development informatics group at Manchester who wrote the report, said gold farming had become a significant economic sector in many developing nations. "I initially became aware of gold farming through my own games-playing but assumed it was just a cottage industry," said Professor Richard Heeks from the University of Manchester who wrote the report. "In a way that is still true. It's just that instead of a few dozen cottages, there turn out to be tens of thousands." In many online games virtual cash remains rare and many people turn to suppliers such as gold farmers to get money to outfit avatars with better gear, weapons or a mount. Some gold-farming operations offer other services such as "power levelling" in which they assume control of a player's character and turn it into a high-powered hero far faster than the original owner could manage themselves. Prof Heeks said very accurate figures for the size of the gold farming sector were hard to come by but his work suggested that in 2008 it employs 400,000 people who earn an average of 145 USD(£77) per month creating a global market worth about 500m USD.For example they sold rohan crone, warhammer cd key, age of conan gold, aoc cd key and made a hand. But, he said, the true size of the sector was hard to estimate - it could easily be twice as big. The quasi-criminal nature of gold-farming made it hard to truly gauge its extent, said Prof Heeks. In most online games all the activities associated with gold farming - gathering in-game cash to items to sell, buying game gold or sharing accounts - are a violation of the terms governing that title. Anyone caught engaging in any of these activities is likely to be banned from the game and have their account shut down. "I was drawn to write about gold farming due to my perception that it's a significant phenomenon that academics and development organisations are unaware of," he told the BBC. Already, he said, gold farming was comparable in size to India's outsourcing industry. "The Indian software employment figure probably crossed the 400,000 mark in 2004 and is now closer to 900,000," said Prof Heeks. "Nonetheless, the two are still comparable in employment size, yet not at all in terms of profile." Prof Heeks suspects gold-farming might be an early example of the "virtual offshoring" likely to become more prevalent as people spend more time working and playing in cyberspace. "It is also a glimpse into the digital underworld," he said. "Or at least the edges of a digital underworld populated by scammers and hackers and pornographers and which has spread to the "Third World" far more than we typically realise." Cashing out Steven Davis, chief of game security firm Secure Play, said gold farming had been around since the earliest days of online gaming but had mushroomed along with the popularity of gaming. The trade was clearly meeting a real need, he said. "When you get people with more money than time and time than money the two will find a way to meet," he said. While exchanges of goods and gold take place inside game worlds the deals are typically done via one of many hundreds of online market places and shops. Some gold farming sites employ just a handful of people but many were large businesses with hundreds of people on their books.Now the biggest business is trade of Age of conan gold. A hierarchy of gold farmers arranged by where wages were lowest was starting to emerge, said Mr Davis. For instance, the low wages gold farmers in Vietnam will accept means they now do for Chinese gamers what many in China do for those in the West."It's moving down the chain," he said.

Why Is There Such A Demand For Blizzcon 2008 Tickets?

In the gaming world, not many franchises come even close to being compared to World of Warcraft. The popular game boasts the largest online gaming community, estimated in the millions, in the world. For gaming fans and experts, conventions like Blizzcon 2008 are a way to mingle with other gamers, cosplayers, and game creators. Conventions are also where game companies try out their developing wares, show off their best products, and often announce and/or debut their next big thing. Blizzcon is no different. This year's convention, Macworld.com tells us, will have costume contests (for those into dressing like their favorite characters from World of Warcraft and other Blizzard games), a songwriting competition, a dance contest, a motivational poster contest, a diorama contest, and gaming competitions for Warcraft III and World of Warcraft players. Top prize in the latter will be $25,000 per player.Participation Awards may be a wow cd key. Everyone who attends Blizzcon 2008 will also receive a goodie bag, which usually contains some pretty valuable merchandise. At last year's Blizzcon, the goodie bag held a plastic key that Blizzard Entertainment revealed (ten months later, in July 2008) was a World of Warcraft CD Key to the forthcoming Wrath of the Lich King, the latest installment of the World of Warcraft saga. So, for those who are into gaming, Blizzcon 2008 tickets can turn out to be quite valuable indeed.

New Warhammer Online Power Leveling Research

Mythic Entertainment shared with us that the open beta test of their MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will start on September 7th. But most Chinese gold-farming operations have offered services such as " Warhammer Power Leveling " in which they assume control of a player's character and turn it into a high-powered hero far faster than the original owner could manage themselves. Now Chinese-based game service companies offering Warhammer Online Power Leveling is growing continuously. Looking over the entire Southeast Asian market, many of these companies are concentrated in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and other areas in India. North Korea is worth mentioning because the labor cost is currently the most inexpensive. The variety of services now offered include specific quest completions and PVP power-leveling. For leveling itself, according to the average price has dropped . The reasons for this are as follows: 1. The War Power Leveling companies increased, bringing huge competitive pressure. 2. The skill of leveling is more and more demanding. 3. The large-scale company's monopoly on cheap prices causes other companies to have insufficient funds. To compete, those companies have to reduce prices to survival.

There is no explicit legal rule to claim whether the service is allowed or not regarding - therefore, Warhammer Power Leveling needs a long period to be completely mature. Everyone is waiting to see what happens.