Chinese Prison Labor Scam Revealed: Prisoners are Forced to Farm for Gold

into the picture.

And I don’t mean those who are in the industry, taking part in the development and eventual release of games.

Gamers who farm for gold and specific items, sell them and gain a real world profit. Any MMORPG’S Terms of Services will tell you that this is nothing next to legal and can cause one’s account and an IP block.

Nonetheless, people do it anyway.

Why? Because it sells. There is a real market for farmed gold, items and even accounts themselves.

Testament to that was this recent expose in China’s prisons where prisoners are forced to endure prison labor for pay. By day, they underwent physical labor and by night, logged on a MMORPG to farm for gold. It was found that the latter was more lucrative than physical labor, thus prison bosses and corrupt guards ended up regularizing the gold farming day-in, day-out, to sell online. Prisoners were given a quota of gold to be gained per session and were beaten if they didn’t hit the mark. These sessions would last up to 12 hours each time of forced gameplay.

12 hour shifts…with forced labor? Do these people even get a chance to sleep? Good grief.

And to make things extra horrific, it is STILL being practiced in Chinese prisons. As to which ones—we’ve yet to truly know the real numbers. Worse, prisoners are at high risk for this form of labor exploitation considering how difficult it is to crack down on these illegal enterprises. Although a directive on fictional currencies has been released in 2009, this has not done much help to the situation.

According to the Guardian-UK, 80% of online currency trade is centered in China. Yes, you can very well say that they are at the heart of this new but booming business. Gold farming has even become a full-time profession here. Talk about professional gaming! But when you think about the prison exploit expose—you wonder, so what percentage of that are illegal and legal? Such a bothersome thought.

So if you’re one of those who buy online currency or what not for your online gaming, it’s best to stop and think before you press that buy button. Think about where you’re possible getting your online currency. You might just be supporting something truly unexpected.

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