Too lazy to be lazy. I'm (nearly) speechless:
One of China's newest factories operates here in the basement of an old warehouse. Posters of World of Warcraft and Magic Land hang above a corps of young people glued to their computer screens, pounding away at their keyboards in the latest hustle for money.
The people working at this clandestine locale are "gold farmers." Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they "play" computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash.
That is because, from Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them.
I find this fascinating and disgusting at the same time. I was surprised to learn that people were willing to spend hundreds of hours and lots of money to acquire "goods" in virtual worlds, with the result that real markets had arisen around them. Now a handful of Chinese are making a living by helping people acquire the goods in these virtual worlds. What's next, people swapping their real spouses for a date with a virtual one? I just don't get it. We need Marshall McLuhan!
