Anti-Chinese discrimination in WoW

It is not racism, it is just a factual observation that the vast majority of players playing from China on a US server are gold farmers that work for gold-selling companies. Most Chinese players who actually play the game, do so on Chinese servers.

If the opposite was the case, and American people working for gold companies made characters on a Chinese server, the same would be said about us.

Bottom line is that it's Blizzards fault for not putting an end to all the gold(and character)-selling companies.

god I hate racism. I'm no victim of it in my country but its sad to see racism seeping into games. I don't play online games (just my DS) either though a friend of mine says that your best avoiding asians in strategy war games, they're bloody good! so he says! its probably envy what the racist image creator has.

I think your cry of racism is a littttttle bit off the mark. If gold farming was coming out of, say, The Netherlands, playershave every right to want to avoid people from that region as chances are if someone's going to be farming, it's going to be them.



I don't see any stories about white folk sitting on the edge of their tower throwing racial slurs down at the Chinese. CHINA IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST MARKETS FOR GOLD FARMING IN THE WORLD. Cause. Effect. Please, meet Joystiq.

Please don't use the term 'race' to refer to the Chinese. It is an old term from the days when Europeans wanted to find a biological reason for their dominance in the world. The Chinese are best described as a society.

I think this is more of an example of light hearted stero typing. In general true chinese players have servers dedicated to them. When North American and European players encounter chinese (or indian) players on their server the odds are good that they are their farming for ige.com or ownyourgame.com. We have all seen these players standing in IF hocking their over priced loot with bad english. I have yet since beta run into a chinese player on a North American server that wasnt a gold farmer.



This being said I think the author of the article is being a little hyper-sensitive. Stop looking so hard for material pal.

http://www.killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&p=1958138#1958138



There's JP GM racism against NA players in FFXI. This makes baby jesus cry.

Not to mention "JP ONRY" parties. Somehow JP players believe a party will suck if someone speaks english, but english players will invite JP players with no problem.



"English/NA is not a race but JP is"

Racism off the mark? Labeling Chinese people in general as gold farmers isn't racist? The creator of the photo isn't even targeting Chinese gamers...he/she states clearly that ALL Chinese people are gold farmers. Thats stereotyping and thats racism.



As much as I love World of Warcraft, by far it does indeed give the cowardly racist the room to get away with nonsense because they have a virtual name & face. I guarantee these same individuals would never have the gall to say their ignorant thoughts to anyone in real life. But thats been my experience with online gaming as a whole; whether the arena be XBox Live, or any number of online PC games.



The sad fact is that it won't stop.



Online gaming gives a nice safe place from which to fling insults without the fear of being retaliated against. Homophobes and racists have found a new way to express & share their hate.

Why do you think I stopped playing Halo 2? Because it was full of nice, respectable, polite people who were there just to have fun? Close, but no. It's because online gaming is being over-run by 12 year racists (mostly from the (Southern?) United States) who will drop the N-bomb on just about anyone, white, black, Chinese, Mexican, whatever.

I agree, calling this racism is a bit much.



They aren't calling every chinese person a gold farmer, they're calling every person IN china a gold farmer. See a difference there? It's subtle, but it's a distinction.



It isn't based on race, it's based on region. Sure, most people in China happen to be Chinese, but not all Chinese people are in China. And not all Chinese people are being called gold farmers, just those in China.

You gotta admit, that picture is pretty funny.

Can you tell what race a player is in WoW? Shouldn't players be able to hide information like that? Are people just finding this stuff out by server names or are they only attacking Asian-sounding handles. I think "SSJDarkElf1293LOLZ" isn't necessarilly Asian even though the SSJ might logically imply otherwise. If it's because they're typing Chinese characters, how would you interact with them anyhow through the language barrier?

You know, I thought that racisim was dead. I figured that the "internet generation" was enlightened enough to realize that color and boarders mean absolutely nothing.



And then I got X-Box Live.

The Internets is relatively new. Over time, racist terms will be diluted and lose their meaning. People from all over the world will continue to meet and learn about each other's culture. Differences will slowly mealt away. People will realize that we are all a like and there is only one race; the human race.



I'm a gold farmer. I am not Chinese.

somebody told me that im a farmer (and ninja also) just because i mispelled some words



funniest thing is that since beta, i have never seen a chinese farming, they are always american kids

Yeah, I can tell what race a player is in WoW. If it's green and ugly, it's an orc. If it's blue and ugly, it's a troll. If it's blue and creepy, it's an undead. See? Easy.

I'm glad that wowinsider found something to get riled up about out of wrongly applied political correctness.



I have been playing for a while and so far all gold farmers whom I have come across and I must assume that they do this for profit, have been from east asia. Considering the wealth distribution in the area it is safe to assume that they are most likely from China. At the same time I have not met a single Chinese on my server who is a normal player.



Now, why might that be? Maybe because there are dedicated Asian servers which means all those who are Chinese and actually just want to play are on their local servers? Hint: bad connections and language barriers make it an utterly stupid idea for them to play on servers in other regions anyway. Unless they just want to farm.



Conclusion: speaking of chinese goldfarmers is not racism, it is reasonable.

gold farmers are the next step in evolution!!!!!~!~! (don't know what i'm talking about) lol

but they're all gold farmers....

This would not happen if there was not a demand for it....but of course since there is a demand, there is a supply. It's like every illegal substance you blast the producer but say nothing about the consumer. Which in my opinion is the greater evil.

I just looked up "gold farming" on Wikipedia.



Seriously, that's a person's 9 to 5? Wow. It's a brave new world out there I'm glad I'm not a part of.

The definition of racism? Someone needs to buya a dictionary.



Meaning of RACISM

Pronunciation: 'reysizum

1. [n] discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race

2. [n] the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races



Here's the word you were looking for:



Meaning of STEREOTYPE

Pronunciation: 'stereeu`tIp

1. [n] a conventional or formulaic conception or image; "regional stereotypes have been part of America since its founding"

2. [v] treat or classify according to a mental stereotype; "I was stereotyped as a lazy Southern European"



Now, stereotyping could be USED in racism, but by itself does not necessitate racism. That image to me,as a non-WoW player, seems more a commentary on the stereotype that Chinese/Asian people have been shouldered with due to a more vocal/visible majority of players from their region being involved in 'gold farming'.



(definitions from hyperdictionary.com)

Frankly, I won't play WoW with someone who won't speak english. Look, I'm not racist here. I really don't care ordinarily, and I actually turn off my mic when playing on Xbox Live. I don't care who I'm beating, or who is beating me... but...



WoW is different. I want to be able to communicate with the person I'm playing with, that's why I'm playing an MMO in the first place. I've got the same amount of patience for people who speak "leet" or whatever.



I play on an RP server now, and if you don't speak english, I'm not going to play with you, nor should I be expected to. You can't RP effectively without having a comprehensive knowledge of this language, and you don't belong on that server.

Although probably no one is gonna take the racist remake seriously, it doesn't mean it should be tolerated. It's like if you steal a candy bar in a supermarket and got caught. It's not like they need that 99cents to boost their revenu, but they will still call the police.



#13 has an interesting point too. I think most people don't really care/know who the real gold farmers are. They just join the train to show other they're "cool".



Another point. For those who say all Chinese are goldfarmers because all gold farmers they met are Chinese. There are over 1.5 million WoW players are from China. How many have you met?

Looks like Joystiq isn't hitting its numbers and needed to manufacture some controversy to get more ad impressions.



Labelling this as racism is a stretch.



And as so many have said, if you want a racism story to post, just log into XBox Live.

See, I don't really care which people are Gold Farmers and which aren't. Chances are that some American players are just going to sell off their level 60 characters or gold for cash too. While this doesn't weaken the game economy in the same way, it's sort of in a similar boat fairness-wise.

Flat out, my complaint is soley with players who don't speak english on an American server. It's a game of communication. If I were playing a Korean or Japanese MMO, I wouldn't EXPECT to be able to play. I don't speak those languages! If you don't speak english, I'm just going to ignore you ingame.

I hate to say this but Online gaming bigotry isn't old and alot of times it is started by the worst of the worst. I don't know if anybody plays FFXI only but there is a large ammount of bigotry against american gamers. But while it is horribly wrong, there are origins to this. I Remember when dreamcast came out and Phantasy star online was availible, if you were really gully you tried to connect to japanese servers(YOU REALLY WANTED TO PLAY). Anyway to go on Japanese people finally got to see their american brother in arms and they helped giving them riffles and swords they wouldn't have gotten normally. BUt what happened is what happens everytime a Massive Multi Online RPG appears some people want to work and some people DON'T.



IF we want to call the Chinese gold Farms Fine But I bet nobody from american(and I am from america new york native) wants to admit that we are Horrible hackers and Cheats. The Japanese didn't like the taste they got, seeing People Using Cheats like GOD MODe and ALL Weapons, people who just started the game getting all the armor in the game with nobody to stop them. Sega wasn't making Big bucks neither so nobody was really getting stopped. On a whole japanese gamers stopped playing with american gamers cause of it. Problem is I notice this trend all the time, I play a free online game named Maple story there was hacks galore for no reason. Yet people would complain asian gamers wouldn't play with them and the Japanese version of maple story was biased against non-asians.



I used to play WOW(Lvl 60 Night Elf warrior Nobleslash!) yeah gold farming is real, just as real as all the different hacks that came out the first time the game went live also. So i don't subscribe to bigotry but I do know each side does their thing to ruin the game for people who want to play, and with every lie there is a little bit of truth mixed into it.

I've been called a nigger nazi faggot jesus freak jew about a billion times. Never in real life of course, but always online, in Quake or Halo or some forum.

This is human nature. To stereotye, to be racist, to treat others as inferior. Some are better at fighting and even overcoming that nature -- that temptation -- but it's there. And the online world brings it out more than anywhere else. It's always been a part of the internet, even when Usenet News was the only form of online group communication.

The removal of direct contact, of direct human interaction, brings this out. You're not "saying it to their face" and somehow that makes it easier, even okay... but you're still saying it to a person, and that's something the online world obfuscates.

Now the joke about it "making baby Jesus cry" was dumb. It trivializes something real, and more importantly, it wasn't funny (even Jesus jokes need to be funny). But is there really anywhere else to turn to overcome racism or stereotyping? Suggest it, I'll listen. And no, I'm not talking about rules and regulations and sister anne with the ruler banging the fingers...

I'm talking about the only real solution: a change of heart. Anywhere?

-Pie

No, the phrase "Making baby Jesus cry" IS funny. It just is. Saying that it "trivializes" anything is an insult to anyone with true faith.

I am a WoW player since the very beta, and I happen to live in East Asia. I speak Chinese, but am I a Chinese or am I not is a complicated political problem since I live in an island named "Taiwan".



We do have our local WoW servers, but there are several reasons for players in Taiwan to play WoW in U.S.



First of all, the local servers in Taiwan were launched in October, 2005. If any player in Taiwan wanted to play WoW in November, 2004, we have to join the servers in U.S. Since I, and many players in Taiwan, are big fan of Blizzard, we can't wait that long. I think you can understand if you are a fan as I am. God knows how much effort we made to break through the regional check of credit card in the WoW billing system.



It's all because of passion, a passion which made us want to meet Thall in person one year earlier, a passion which made us want to fight for the Horde one year earlier.



Most of us are not gold farmers and love to communicate. We just don't speak our identities loud enough to make every body knows where we are from, because we know many people will treat us as a noob or a farmer if we expose this "racial secret"

If someone calls people of all races the "N bomb" then it's not really racism it's just use of a word you may or may not like.

Let's not use the actions of a few to generalize the WoW population. There are those who will alway try and take advantage of the system, in all walks of life. Just throw a snowball at them when they gank.

Differences between people exist everywhere. I think its funny that the guy above said that saying "makes baby jesus cry" trvializes something that is real when many people on this planet belong to completely different religions. Religion, colour of skin, geographic location, attitudes, cultures, social class, citizenship!(a big one) practically everything in the world creates differences between people. When someone says "the USA is the best" or "jesus is the only right belief and other people are wrong" or anything that to them is a light hearted comment, to someone with different perspective (who definetly exists) it may be seen as something offensive or an attack.



Now when you verbally make a point to say something offensive to someone of another race it is not a matter of simply opinion. While I believe that being politically correct is even more rude than being nice, being polite and at least trying not to offend anyone is the sensible thing to do. I think the only real tangible and identifiable difference between people in this world is their attitudes, not their beliefs or who they are or where they come from. When a person is willing to harm someone else knowingly or heck even ignorantly that is a difference between people that is worth pointing out and not attacking but trying to change. Im not saying that the world should be a place where everyone says what everyone else wants to hear, people can still have opinions, as long as they present them from their perspective such as presenting a comment about "my religion is right and yours is wrong" instead in a less attacking way to someone of a different belief by saying "I believe that it is right for these reasons and because of X" which is much more likely to prove the point of telling other people why you are making that sort of comment when telling them they are wrong or telling them that their culture is full of X or are all X is not going to prove your point.



The people who go though life thinking that they are better or that try to make other people feel bad for no reason, similar to an American story I recently over-heard on the radio of kids beating up homeless people for no reason. Again I believe that who a person is, and the way they fit into the world is the only real tangible difference that is worth pointing out between people, doesnt matter who you are.



Offensive discrimination of people with any sort of difference, no matter what it is is not only pointless, its sort of a "personality stupidity" or another form of ignorance. That being said, this is the world we live in, everyone has an infinite number of differences whether its on a global scale or right down to the differences between people in close relationships.



If these sort of differences didnt exist would there even be a point to anything? Think about it... Thinking about the way the world works and trying to take a global perspective for once, no matter what your beliefs are, is in my opinion, the best thing for anyone to do to remind them what they are a part of.

"I don't know if anybody plays FFXI only but there is a large ammount of bigotry against american gamers. But while it is horribly wrong, there are origins to this."



I play FFXI, and while I wouldn't call it "bigotry", I can say there is a definate animosity towards non-Japanese players - the Japanese players rarely are willing to party with non-Japanese players. It's not about race/nationality, though. It's just culture-shock.



In the eyes of the Japanese players, everyone else is rude, self-serving, arrogant, and offensive (whether any of this is true is in the eye of the beholder, and I'm not going to argue it one way or the other). They are used to people behaving a certain way in a group environment, like MMOs, and are shocked, confused and offended when people do not behave that way. That's why most JP players in FFXI only seek other JP players to form a party. The language barrier can cause problems at higher levels, but the auto-translator in FFXI works fairly well - they just don't want to deal with "rude people."



And I can understand that, knowing how the game works. It can take upwards of two or three hours to form a party, depending on where you're at. If you're investing that amount of time _just to get started_, you don't want to have one or more of your party members drop off after 15 minutes of fighting mobs because "I'm tired, thanks for the PT, bye! *offline*". That's just rude - and it happens all the time. FFXI takes a commitment of time, and a commitment to others, and they don't see non-Japanese players as being able to commit to anything.



Right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, that's how they see things. You can see this as racism, or as people just not wanting to bother with disappointment and culture shock.

The presentation of this article alone started me off laughing.



"...who took a photo of a crowd of normal Chinese people and put the "Gold Farmer" tag over each person's head to make the point that everyone in China is a gold farmer."



I'm just glad that Joystiq explained how that was a photoshopped image (including the process) and its meaning. Otherwise, we might have gotten confused and wondered why people would walk around with a "gold farmer" caption hovering over their heads if they didn't want to be though of as such.



I think the guy should have made one caption say "Leeroy Jenkins" ...that would have been comedy gold. Pun not intended, but I'll take it.

If you want to live in a free society thats the price you pay. People can say what they want end of story. What they say may not be politically correct or widely accepted as ok behaviour. You may not like what they say, thats tough, deal with it they entitled to express their views as you are, its their opinion nonetheless and deserves to be respected so. They have every right to express it, just as anyone else as their right to express their views no matter what it is about wether it be their favourite football team or their religion. It is only when they translate into "physical" opinions that it is wrong and unacceptable.

Does it seem weird that all the information comes from basically a press release for a guy that seems to be pimping his site that tracks real world prices for gold and "power levellers" for World of Warcraft? I'd like to see what sources he is citing, or a link to a forum post or a blog post at least from someone who has experienced this.

"In the eyes of the Japanese players, everyone else is rude, self-serving, arrogant, and offensive (whether any of this is true is in the eye of the beholder, and I'm not going to argue it one way or the other). They are used to people behaving a certain way in a group environment, like MMOs, and are shocked, confused and offended when people do not behave that way. That's why most JP players in FFXI only seek other JP players to form a party. The language barrier can cause problems at higher levels, but the auto-translator in FFXI works fairly well - they just don't want to deal with "rude people."



I agree Americans are rude, self-serving, arrogant, and offensive - in comparison to Asian societies. This has more to do with genetics and the difference in testerone levels in the two races. In particular whites vs asians. Principally, most whites in America descended from the gallic races (barbarians) in Europe who were extremely vicious. That's why Rome didn't last longer. Also, that's why Japan and China rate as the last two countries in frequency of sex/month versus America and Australia. Testerone levels, my friends! Also explains, why Americans like FPS shooters so much.



=P Let's change the subject...

Just by posting this you are giving fuel to the racists. Please ignore and move on.

"34. If you want to live in a free society thats the price you pay. People can say what they want end of story."



I think this is an interesting comment. Free society and freedom of speech never included harassment or extreme offensiveness. For example if someone lived in a "free country" where people had the right to murder, it does not mean that it is globally acceptable, right. The laws of a free speech society allow us to be ourselves and is meant to let is be who we want to be and not be restricted by anyone or any government or group, and even in "free societies" the laws usually point out offensive speech in the form of harassment or many other forms. Living in a "free society" doesnt mean that anything goes. When Howard Stern speaks about stuff onto the airwaves he is forming an opinion, one which other people take offense to for example simply because it is differnt than their belief. If howard stern blatantly targeted someone- (that being said there is no law againt calling an entire society something really as far as i know, but on an individual basis it is wrong, but wouldnt that make them both wrong all the same?) howard stern would be in legal trouble. Free speech and free society is a legal issue, and it in any society or country certainly isnt perfect.

Free society is meant to capture the idea of living without the fear of being harmed, with your own ideas, and where you live free from oppression. That being said some people take that idea too literally and think its all about themself "i can hate this person and offend them because i have the free right" is not correct because the general idea of that "free society" is one where not only YOU are free from harm and free to be what you want to be, but where EVERYONE is and in order for everyone to be in that sort of harmony everyone would techniccally have the responsibility not to harm, harass or oppress anyone else otherwise the term "free society" is meaningless. (sry about the spelling grammar errors if there are any, dont have time to read over this again right now)

Actually, I'd take non English speakers as an RP challenge.



I mean it's not like the Alliance or Horde are homogenous. They have every right to be almost completely alien to their nominal allies being from widely different cultures and heck, species.



So I'd just assume the guy/gal, like any even remotely realstic world, happens to speak a different language that my character simply doesn't know. I find it laughable that the average Night Elf happens to speak Common (or honestly, that all humans can speak Common for that matter).

For the post with the definitions, while the definitions are correct, ostracization is an emotionally abusive behavior, which makes it still racism, and not just stereotyping.



For every single person that says "most farmers are chinese, therefore its ok to call all chinese farmers", "cause and effect", and all those other ""logical"" reasonings, then you might agree with my Japanese mother who seeing that the large percentage of poorer neighborhoods were populated by African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, concluded that I should stay away from all "Blacks and Mexicans" According to your arguments, that is a logical assumption based on overwhelming support.



Guess what? It's still racism. Is it just stereotyping? No. Look into a Chinese person's eyes and tell them they are a farmer because they are Chinese. That is racism.



Abuse isn't just physical. Abuse isn't always severe. Ignoring someone based on their race isn't non-offensive behavior based on logical conclusions. Its active racial discrimination.

Some people feel that a game should stay a game (Blizz included). Some people hate to see inflation destroy the economy of a game, making only the cheaters and those willing ot pay RL money to cheaters win (anyone who played Shadowbane knows exactly what that is). Some people care about the game being fair for everyone, not just for those with more disposable income. Some people hate having to spend three times as long to finish a quest because some guy that doesn't speak English keeps stealing your kills, when there are perfectly good areas to do the same thing without taking away from those who are questing (praise be to the Devs for Tyr's Hand!). Some people find it rude when non-english speakers open a trade window and either put a lockbox to be unlocked without one word (let alone a please or thank you) or say "You food make me now". And, yes, some people are simply too young (never forget hidden the diversity in ages in MMOG's, not everyone has yet learned how to behave in the world without getting beat up or ignored) or too stupid to realize they are nothing but racist bastages. Fact is, there are a lot of reasons to not like farmers, and that's a shame for the actual foreign gamers. It is also too bad that supposed quotas drive the farmers to behave so poorly on the average (money to buy food, clothes, necessities of life, etc.). Do farmers take away from the game? Probably, although once you get in a raiding guild the best gear you can buy is about as good as the worst raid drops.



The worst part of it all is that no farmers would exist if there weren't a market for it.



Oh, and really, only the people in the last group will ever do more than rant from time to time and throw the occasional snowball or two. And they are probably just waiting for an excuse anyway. Lets not blow a funny photoshop job into a scandal.

racism / sexism are about the only thing in WoW that i block people for. the /ignore command needs to be properly used and racists can congregate in their own little world (emphasis on little)



the good news is the majority of WoW players are NOT racists. the ironic news is that 100% of WoW players are gold farmers. some of us just suck at it more than others.



no need to mention any particular nationality even if they are better at gold farming than you are. get over your bitter pathetic little self.



/bow

"Right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, that's how they see things. You can see this as racism, or as people just not wanting to bother with disappointment and culture shock."



Assuming that American gamers will simply leave your party after 15 minutes is quite simply discrimination. "Culture shock" is no excuse for any sort of exclusion. Just as JP gamers in FFXI see Americans as deserters, many well-off neo-nazis see african-americans as thieves and murderers because that's "all they're exposed to."



I don't play FFXI, but I'd feel like crap if I was consistently told that I couldn't group because of my nationality. I'm not chinese, but I'd feel like crap if people told me I couldn't group because I'm a gold farmer. **There is no excuse for exclusion or racism, whether you are Japanese, American, asian, white, or anything.**

I agree completely with Uhrz here. However, I'm going to look at another aspect, which is dealing with the racist.

"racism / sexism are about the only thing in WoW that i block people for. the /ignore command needs to be properly used and racists can congregate in their own little world (emphasis on little)"

The ignore command is not helping the situation at all. What does a racist care if one less person out of 5-80 people in a zone is listening. Though, I believe that they most likely are trying to get attention, or invoke reaction, so making a large fuss over it isn't the best idea either. I tend to deal with racism calmly, if there is no apology, I file a report.

The excluding of a member from a party due to their lack of a grasp on the english language is also a problem I happen to come across atleast once a week. Normally, I tend to argue for the person being discriminated, and then leave if they do not agree to keep that person / re-invite them. My theory is create a big enough inconvenience for those responsible of such prejudice as possible.

These things never seem to happen in CoH atleast on the EU servers.

Are racists right? Of course not. As long as they are not hurting anybody, ignore them.

Alot of farmers on the American servers are Asian. Okay big deal. Alot of them are also American. I bet you alot of the American farmers are on Asian servers to. I bet they get shuned to and as well they should. I dont ignore anyone due to race on my server. I also dont assume they are farmers unless they are lvl one in the Undercity selling masses of rare and epic or even legendary items. Then if they are a farmer i dont care where they are from. Now if someone is in your group and nnjas your stuff doesnt speak English well and is without a guild or the ability to "chat" with you chances are good they are Asian. Thats just a matter of deduction, are you going to be 100% right each time you assume this? No of course not but in general you will be. This is more of a stereo type than racism. I wish we had more Asian players that speak English playing. Thats why i love these games i get to meet people that are in places in this world i may never see. To me that makes it worth while. I have learned alot about others b/c of this. Bleh my rant is pointless, whatever. Enjoy the game :)

LOL cry me a freaking river guys. This has got to be the most retarded blog post....ever

#7 I think thats a little of the pot calling the kettle black. I'm sure there are some racist southern gamers. I've also heard northern and midwestern accents sling epithets like "nigger" and "diry jew." Blaming it all on those "ignorant white trash southern rednecks" isnt fair either. Ignorance / racism / stupidity comes in all shapes sizes and regions.