This is pretty old but...

BoBo_the_seal

...this was the first time I've seen this article

http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/blacksnow.html

Just wandering if any of the Mythic guys had any more stories to go along with this.

- BoBo

Josh_Singh

that's so funny, I saw this today too! I saw the article at gamasutra about how blizzard is cracking down and there was a link to this article. Crazy man. But dont feel too bad for thos mexicans that got laid off at blacksnow, they all work at mythic now.;)

Neo_God

Ha! "Virtual Sweatshops" That's great stuff, Though I'm not sure if I would be unhappy workinh at one.

I was just in a conversation about this sorta thing the other day, because people are now selling WoW chars on ebay, someone was selling a level 60 character and asking $500 for it. Though I think someone did the math, and it worked out that the *estimated* time to create a level 60 character,and then selling it for $500, would only come out to being payed $2.50 and hour.

MoP

Then again they probably enjoyed getting their character up to level 60 in the first place. A lot of people don't like what they do for wages
And people like that probably either live with their parents, or have a day job and just play a lot of the game when they're not at work, so it's kinda supplementary income - pretty crazy prices though, I'd like to know who buys those, since for me the enjoyment is in levelling up a character until they are who you have created them to be...

Steve Schulze

Not quite the worlds first virtual sweatshop. If I remember correctly there was a story going around about some Korean criminal syndicate kidnapping game developers to work on an MMORPG because they are such big money spinners, particularly over there. While its probably an urban myth (perhaps someone can confirm or deny it...), that sort of thing does go down in various parts of asia rather a lot from what I can gather.

adam

Wow... I'm totally shocked. Smart, but pisspoor ethics to pull something like that off.

tpe

Check this out, virtual island only $26000

http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/12/14/1759253.shtml?tid=209&tid=187

Now thats what i call real virtual estate

tpe

rolfness

Im surprised no one has mentioned IGE yet, they are probably the biggest in the business, ebaying happens alot in Lineage2, shame really ...

Jackblade sounds like Lineage2, its a huuge game over there, they got TV shows didicated to it. Theres an article about it someplace, I gotta find it.. you will laugh your ass off