Pron, Gold Farmers, & … China
“There is an old Vulcan proverb: ‘Only Nixon could go to China’.” ~ Leonard Nimoy as Spock in STV1:TUC (via Roddenberry, Nimoy, Kohner, Rosenthal, Meyer, & Flinn)
In addition to their on-going battle of protecting their citizens from seeing boobies, China is also throwing down against gold farmers. In a new initiative that will ban the act of trading “virtual” currencies or goods for “real” currencies or goods, the jobs of an estimated 85% of gold farmers will now be up in the air.
I can think of about a million possible loopholes. For example, a company may have their workforce in China, but have their HQ in another country. The gold farmers still work in China, punching a timecard and providing a service while their payroll comes from out of the country where the actual exchange takes place. As such, I really don’t think gold farming will be affected in any significant way.
Which is kind of a shame, because I find gold farmers way more annoying than boobies.
More interesting is how this would effect anyone trying to cash out of Second Life. As there doesn’t appear to be any problem in purchasing virtual goods or subscriptions, it’s only those individuals that make money and want to cash out who will encounter hiccups. Unless I’m missing something, this effectively turns any Chinese in Second Life into consumer-only status.
I haven’t been following information on Entropia enough to know how this might hurt or help it.