Magazine Article on RWT

[Anne Bonney]

I know it's been out awhile... so you may have seen it...

The January 2010 issue of Scientific American has a rather in depth article on how gold farmers work and how they have affected online gaming communities. It even mentions, albeit briefly, Runescape's efforts to curb real world trading.
Gaming for Profits: Real Money from Virtual Worlds
They only have a brief preview of the article online. If anyone is interested I can scan the entire article.

[Pizzaguy]

Interesting article although I didn't pay to read the whole story. My son created two accounts when he first started playing; Brian00127 and Brian00137. He didn't like something about Brian00137, so he offered him to me. I didn't know any rules, just started killing rats in Lumby. I leveled up until I was a level 72. I turned on the computer one day, and a pop-up appeared with runescape about 'buying gold'. Being somewhat computer illiterate (noob) I assumed it was part of the game; this is a good idea, buy money so I can afford better armor. Yes, I bought 5 mill. The next time I tried to log in, I found that my account, Brian00137, had been permanently banned. Duh! So, I started over again with Pizzaguy171. This time I read the rules. Sad but true.

[Max Barrows]

wow i had no idea they made so much money doing this. I hate gold farmers.

[cwadark0ne]

I used to play a game called racewarkingdoms and i used to live off selling gold and items. it wasnt against the rules though. when i sold my character and all my assests i got $15,000 for it. plus all i had sold prior to that i had to have made 25-30k over the 4 years I played.

[Anne Bonney]

Mhmm.. not all games frown on rwt.

My husband plays a game called EveOnline, where he can merch and pk to his heart's content. They will occasionally ban some of the gold farmer accounts, but often they simply turn a blind eye to it. They have even made rwt legal to the extent that player can spend in game currency to purchase card codes which can be used to pay the monthly membership fee. Which can really add up to quite a bit if you're like my husband and his buddies who all play 3+ accounts concurrently. He and his corp and alliance mates make a good bit of their money hunting the gold farmers for fun.

[nello]

gold farmers will always be here tho :/

[scootch]

Warcraft is the worst Kids Will buy it to. Takes along time to make just 1k gold,