Of interesting note during my playing of various MMORPGs is a group I ran into while playing the "Pay-for-Perks" MMORPG, 'Maple Story'. I ran into a group of korean kids grouping together, farming for important key quest/smithing/money items, for the purpose of selling them on eBay of the sorts. As I watched their fluid and extremely impressive mathematic approach to farming, I asked them how long they'd been farming this sort of thing. They told me that they worked in a sort of "sweat shop", where they were paid low-wage hourly costs to farm equipment for their "boss"/"company" to sell via the internet for higher prices. At first, I found this to be more than suspicious, but combined with research I did online and the pure consistant day-in/out methodical approach this team had to farming, I came to acknowledge it as the truth. All of the players in question claimed to be under 14, and their mastery of english(and even Korean, which I speak fairly fluently), seemed to agree with that claim.
So, if other countries are making a business approach to online game farming, it is only a matter of time before America takes a more "ethical" approach to the same thing - which, as law progresses and the courts come into more awareness of just how capital the mmorpg gaming market is becoming, will most likely prove to see some legal restraints/changes involving licensing, reselling, and taxing.
But who knows how long such things will go under the radar?
|