Gold farming mogul comes clean

by Jennie Lees on Jan 20th 2006 10:00AM

It's rare to hear gold farmers speak up and give details on their business, which is exactly what the folks at Terra Nova have unearthed. Despite the stereotype, not all gold, plat or gil farmers in massively multiplayer games are Chinese; an American farmer who made something approaching $150,000 in a year from platinum harvesting has come forward on an Everquest board to speak out.

This history of gold farming in Everquest, from a first-person perspective, is fascinating. However, if this farmer is indicative of the profession, then it seems that foreign competition and the use of exploits are seriously threatening "home-grown" farmers' businesses. As Terra Nova points out, the question is whether anyone other than the farmers really cares.

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Tags: everquest, Gold farming, GoldFarming, PC

Reader Comments (1)

You could do some great case studies in economics with these MMORPG's. They would all be wise to start policing their black market very tightly, as this just showed the profound effect it can have on gameplay.

Also, he mentioned the 400+ employee Chineese gold farming businesses, which sound a lot like big agribusiness to me. It seems that even when you throw together a work of fantasy with orcs and dragons, it can't completely escape reality, atleast when it comes to dollars and sense...