Local Filmmaker Documents Real Sweatshops Farming Virtual Gold

KPBS | By KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published April 24, 2007 at 10:46 AM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

There are at least 100 million players logging in to online games all around the world. Various industries have grown up around gaming, including sweatshops of young players who acquire gaming items

Guest Host Alan Ray: All sweat shops, in the end, are alike. Workers are coerced, exploited, cheated, abused and often quite nearly imprisoned.

If you play any of what are called "massively multiplayer on-line role playing games," it's quite possible you're actually a customer in the sweat shops -- even if you don't know it.

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When you play, there's somebody on the other side of that virtual reality, quite often a teenager in China involved in what's now called "gold farming." Many work in the equivalent of sweat shops, but some actually enjoy what they do. And for many, the pay isn't bad.

Guest

Ge Jing Ph.D. student in the UCSD School of Communications, currently working on a documentary about China's gold farming industry.