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By N2H
Welcome to Raph Koster's personal website: MMOs, gaming, writing, art, music, books.

China Hasn’t Banned Gold Farming

July 1st, 2009

What it has banned is spending virtual currency for real world items. In other words, it is more about defending the real world currency than anything else. I have mentioned in the past that many people in China regard the QQ coin (Tencent’s virtual currency) as solid enough to put savings in. Sounds like maybe the government thinks that is a bad idea.

This is a government restriction on the use of the quasi-Paypal-like currencies (mainly QQ coins) that are used extensively in China to pay for virtual game stuff. As announced they can now only be used to pay for virtual stuff, and you can’t buy real things with them as game companies were allowing to happen, nor can you gamble. This therefore is not about what gold farming clients do: use real money to buy these virtual currencies; it’s the mirror image. And it’s not about the major trade in gold farming such as World of Warcraft, which relates to other types of virtual currency. And it’s not about buying/selling in-game items. And it’s not about the power-levelling of avatars. Bottom line: it’s not about gold farming.

ICTs for Development

[via a commenter, via Blue's News]

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4 Responses to “China Hasn’t Banned Gold Farming”

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Reader Comments
  1. We Fly Spitfires said on

    So basically storm, teacup?

  2. Peter S. said on

    Called it. 8) But more importantly, thanks for following up by posting these added specifics.

  3. PlayNoEvil said on

    The QQ coin issue is key, but there are several disturbing implications of the regulation for Free-to-Play games which I addressed yesterday.

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