Former prisoner, Liu Dali told of how “Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour,” “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb a day, worth upwards to $900 USD. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.”

Dali states: “If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things,”

According to figures from the China Internet Center, nearly $2 Billion of virtual to real money was traded in China in 2008 and the number of gamers who play to earn and trade virtual credits has been on the rise.

It has been estimated that 81% of all gold farmers are located in China. There is also estimated to be over 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country.

I wonder if Leroy Jenkins knows about this?!?

Blizzard said today that those 10 million paying subscribers include 5.5 million players in Asia, 2.5 million in the US and 2 million in Europe. They said this number only includes active players but I think the internet cafe users, especially in Asia would tend to skew that figure considerably. Not to mention the fact that Chinese Gold farms primarily exist not for game play but to feed the lack of patience for US players who buy in game gold from them. Due to the economics of buying in game gold in real life its now a necessity to keep up with the inflation. Thus continuing to feed the Chinese gold farmers. So its like 5 million players supporting the other 5 million players.

For readers unfamiliar with WoW, there’s a lot of video on YouTube, including the following parody of Weird Al’s “That’s Your Horoscope Today”. It’s not the catchiest tune but it’s a good tour of what goes on in the game and it’s been viewed more than 4 million times. When you build software that becomes a platform for user generated content all about your software – then you’re in a pretty sweet spot.

View it here

Then it costs 10gold for the guild tabard design. I am thinking blue design on a white tabard. Maybe red on white. I think they will look sharp. Then it costs 90 silver per tabard. I guess we will try the “Knights of Druidia” as our first choice.

Our Characters have to be in the same proximity in order to sign the charter. So we will have to travel and be together to do this. Joy! One tactic we can employ if we are short is to get a noob to sign the charter and we bribe him with money or goodies. He can then choose to stay in or leave after the guild is formed.

I think the first 98 slots in the guild bank are free. Then we have to pay extra gold to unlock each of 5 more 98 slot banks. If its like regular bank then it goes 10g then 25 gold +++ etc. so everyone save up.