World of Xenophobia

Another odd but somehow entertaining piece about the problem of "Chinese farmers" in World of Warcraft.

Articles about "gold farming" and other bizarre MMORPG issues have been popping up frequently lately. The latest iteration is that some legitimate Chinese Warcraft players are being shunned by suspicious Western players, who assume that the Chinese players are gold farmers out to join up with an adventuring party, then snatch the best treasure and run at the first opportunity.

Having played the game semi-regularly for a few months now, I can't say for sure that I've spotted any of these infamous gold farmers (although reading all the recent stories about them, you'd get the impression that nobody but gold farmers plays these games). I have run across a few people behaving rather suspiciously, but obviously it's hard to tell from their in-game avatar if somebody is a foreign sweatshop worker or just a "legit" player with exceedingly poor communication skills and an alarmingly intense obsession with acquiring treasure. I guess I just like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Only on the internet, eh?