Gold Trading Exposed: The Sellers2009-08-13 00:00:00Last week, we kicked off our four-part weekly feature series on gold trading - the grey market for in-game currencies, services and items in MMOs - with an introduction to a shady business that's outwardly condemned by players whilst being supported by 30 per cent of them.<p>Future instalments will look at real-money trading from the perspectives of MMO players and developers, but this week, Nick Ryan talks to the the farmers, spammers and website entrepreneurs who fuel this trade. Are they evil hackers and credit card fraudsters, downtrodden workers, or neither? And what do they have to say for themselves?</p><p>What do "gold sellers" actually do? Sit in a den somewhere, plotting crimes and flogging victims' credit card details, in order to fund their drugs and prostitution empires ... or is the picture of the hard-pressed Chinese worker on the edge of starvation wages more accurate? The truth is, probably, a mixture of both, with many "legitimate" gold farming and selling businesses keen to distance themselves from the criminal element in the industry. No-one knows for sure, because that industry is so fragmented and located in distant cultures like China.</p>Money makers<p>Gold sellers, or real money traders (RMT), make their cash in three ...
Gold Trading Exposed: Introduction2009-08-13 00:00:00It's a multi-billion dollar trade, yet denied in public by most players. In the first of a four-part weekly feature series, Nick Ryan reports on the current state of the thriving grey market in MMO currencies, characters and items. Future instalments will look at this shady virtual business from the perspectives of the gold traders themselves, the games' players, and the developers who make and run MMO games. This week, we offer an overview of this burgeoning and controversial market - and wonder why, if it's such big business, so few admit to doing it.<p>Is gold selling like pornography: something more of us do than admit? A shameful secret, something indulged alone and at night, in front of the screen; or during a lunchbreak, safely away from a partner, when a quick credit card or PayPal transaction will go unnoticed by others in-game?</p><p>Secret or not, we all hate 'gold sellers'. Apparently. Despise them, even. Ask your friends or colleagues: how many will openly admit to buying services from a gold farmer? Not many. And the ones that do probably harp on just as loudly against them as the next person.</p><p>But just who are these scourges of the gaming world? You probably know them as the anonymous figures plaguing your trade...
