In conversations with various people around Second Life and There it occurred to me that the term "gold farming" wasn't yet universally recognized. In virtual worlds with no monsters to kill or treasure to win, the idea doesn't even exist.
In other more "game-oriented" worlds, however, the situation is a little different. You can kill monsters, collect items, find "gold", and then sell it for real currency. There are those who attempt to make a living from this phenomena, killing monsters all day in order to engage in the grey-market trade of virtual goods. This is often a breach of the Terms of Service, and so legal battles often ensue. This is why eBay had to ban the sale of all virtual goods through their service, with Second Life items being the only exception.
Regular players often revile these "gold farmers" as ruining the game for everybody else. The arguments vary from unfair hoarding of in-game loot to providing unfair advantages to players who didn't "earn" it. Human rights groups are concerned as well, citing numerous instances of Chinese workshops where farmers work long hours under extremely poor conditions.
Here's a video clip from the upcoming documentary "Gold Farmers" that illustrates this last point:
On the flip side, the book "Play Money" shook up the world with stories of being able to make US$3,917 a month selling suits of armor. Of course, that was in 2004 and the workshops have driven the costs down dramatically since then.
In fact, it remains impossible to tell exactly how good or bad for the game gold farming really is. There are many opinions, of course, but hard data on how it affects "fun" or the in-world economy is a bit elusive. Besides, some game worlds (like Entropia Universe) actually encourage it as part of the game mechanic.
There's really only one thing that everybody can agree upon: real-money trading (RMT) of virtual goods will occur everywhere possible whether or not it's "allowed" under the ToS. If you're a world-builder, keep this in mind and design it in.
In SL I believe quite a few campers may actually be gold farmers. At various times I've seen large quantities of Linden listed on eBay at rates as high as 440:1 (linden to USD). The sellers seem to be based in China. I might be jumping to conclusions, but gold farming seems to be a logical conclusion to jump to.
That does sound reasonable Ronin. I've learnt to loathe campers in the short time i've been traveling in SL :)
I followed up on this today and wasn't able to find anything offering a better rate than 240:1. Do you have a link?
Onder - I've found the auctions fluctuate quite a bit based on market availability. When I first looked around eBay I found that the rates were no better (and usually worse) than what I could easily get on LindeX.
About a month ago I decided to take another look and found several vendors selling at rates varying from 300:1 to 440:1 (the two transactions I found at 440:1 were sold at auction).
I decided to see whether these were legit or not, so I went ahead and bought 50,000L at a rate of 370:1 ($135 USD). I waited about a day and the Linden eventually showed up on my account. A couple of weeks later I was in need of more Linden for a land transaction, so I tried to buy from the same vendor again. I made a PayPal purchase and waited. This time around the Lidnen never arrived. I finally got ahold of the seller who indicated (in very broken English) that the supply had run out. I finally had to file a PayPal claim to get my money back.
Take a look at this closed auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=003&sspagename=STRK%3AM...
50,000L sold at $138.49 USD.
Also, note the Buy It Now links direct in the body of the auction. The seller is offering 100,000L at $268.99.
This is just one seller. A couple months back there were three or four offering at similar rates.