History
What began as a cottage industry in the late-nineties with players using eBay and PayPal to sell each other items and gold from Ultima Online and Lineage, the sale of in-game currency has become increasingly more commercialized with the growing popularity of massively multiplayer online games.
Today's gold farming may have its origins in the MMORPG Lineage. 2001 reports describe Korean cybercafes being converted into gold farming operations to serve domestic demand. This model, with full-time gold farmers working long hours in cybercafes, was outsourced to China and initially served demand from Korean and Western players. This type of operation was experiencing swift growth c. 2004. In 2011 The Guardian reported that prisoners in Chinese labor camps were forced to engage in gold farming for the benefit of prison authorities.
Academic studies of gold farming reveal that the social networks of gold farmers are similar to those of drug dealers.
Read more about this topic: Gold Farming
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