According to statistics available, in china there are more than 100,000 gaming workshops that hire hundreds of thousands of young men to play online games such as Lineage and WoW. In order to make a living, they work hard day and night in dark net cafes, deserted warehouses, confined offices or at home.

Mmosite correspondent in China honorably brings this special interview. And the following comes the second part of the interview. Hope you will enjoy it.

Interview with Mr Lin, who had opened a workshop for 2 year and works for a virtual items trading company now.

MMOsite.com: Why did you decide to open a gold farming studio? Do you remember the first bucket of gold you dug?

Lin: At the very beginning, I wasn¡¯t aware that in-game money could be changed into real cash. At that time, I was fond of Lineage II which was in open beta in the US, so I joined the test with my classmates. We were English major, so there was no problem for us to communicate in the game. Because we were familiar with Lineage II, we leveled very fast. Soon, we became the very few high-level players in the US servers. Then we heard that the in-game money could be sold for real cash. We were shocked when we got to know that 1 million in-game money could be sold for 1000 yuan. But later, we got to know that in North America, 1 million in-game money could be sold for 200 US dollars.
At first, we didn¡¯t want to make money through farming gold. After all, we didn¡¯t lack money. But we were tempted when we reached quite high level and saw many studios were farming gold there. Coz we had high level characters, we didn¡¯t need to farm gold in low level areas. We farmed equipment in high level areas and earned our first bucket of gold.
Following that, the Lineage II open beta ended and players had to pay for playing. My classmates didn¡¯t want to spend money playing, so they gave their accounts to me ~ I didn¡¯t want to waste such an efficient team~ so I rented some computers in a net caf¨¦ with another classmate ~ we hired several gold farmers and trained them ~ then my gold farming studio career began ~ I was responsible for the night shift ~ and my classmate responsible for the day shift ~
Everyday, I had to sell in-game money or equipment for RMB, but most farmers didn¡¯t know English, so it¡¯s not easy for me to be a boss. But at that time, Lineage II was in its prime time, though a large number of studios joined the business and the in-game currency decreased to 200 yuan per 1 million, still I had a decent income coz we were so high level that we could monopolize the area where we farmed gold.

MMOsite.com: Then? What about the relationship between you and foreign players?

Lin: Not much to say then ~ basically when we met Americans, we speak English ~ coz we¡¯ve got very Western style names ~ even some French would speak with us ~ nobody suspected that we were farmers ~ and studios didn¡¯t dare to challenge us ~ we were 20 levels higher than them ~ and we¡¯ve got very powerful equipments which were unmatchable.
~ I was very happy doing gold farming business ~ and earned quite a lot ~ when we met French, we spoke French (my classmate can speak French ~) and when we met American, we spoke English. But later, we¡¯ve got to close the studio coz we missed too many classes and exams ~ basically the studio started in March 2004 and ended in September 2004.

MMOsite.com: Then you switched to doing brokerage?

Lin: Yap, collected in-game currency and sold them on ebay.

MMOsite.com: Say something about this experience.

Lin: Actually nothing to say ~ NCsoft banned my inventories, so I sold my ebay account and quit. I was very happy running the studio ~ unlike other studios, I paid quite much to the farmers ~ they could earn 1200 yuan per month if they worked hard~
Coz we were high level ~ and had powerful equipments ~ other studios wouldn¡¯t harass us. On the contrary, we often helped some American players bully those small studios ^^~ Coz those studios often monopolized an area. At that time, unlike most studios, I didn¡¯t bully newbies ~ instead, we got well along with other players ~ only those studios which couldn¡¯t communicate with foreign players would fall into conflict with foreign foreigners. So, I think the key point is that studios must communicate with players. Many conflicts were a result of bad communication.

MMOsite.com: What?s your view on the status of Chinese gold farmer£¿

Lin: The human resource cost in China is very low. There are studios going bankrupt everyday. Some have their total accounts stolen. Some have no money to pay the workers and escape right away. They have no risk taking ability. Once a game gets unpopular, the studio and its workers will confront a painful choice. Either give up this unpopular game or select a new game, or quit the business completely.

Workers are always at the bottom of the food chain. Most workers had no job before they engaged in this industry. To them, loosing job only means to start again. Every day, numerous studios close and numerous open. Workers can always find a job. It¡¯s more comfortable for them to sit before the computer 12 hours a day than to carry bricks 12 hours a day, isn¡¯t it? Apart from meal and sleeping times, they can just work mechanically (many studios use botting programs in order to reduce cost ~ but this also increases the risk of account banning ~ and the in-game money will be called black money ~ low priced but not sell well), so they won¡¯t stay in this industry for too long ~ the longest is about one year. But China is so populated and many people are out of work, so there are always new comers joining continously.