Gil-sellers/Gold Sellers, a true life account

[Meeka]

This girl posted on her myspace today how she experienced a job as a "gold collector" for WoW. Really good read and I don't doubt that it happens.

blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=40191136&blogID=67869496&Mytoken=1d2dcc2d-f0c7-49b9-8f1d-f8344370e421

Sorry the link is broken... if someone can fix it, please do (and pm me about how to fix it myself? ><)

[Xaero]

seems to work alright for me

[zekk]

zomg teh meekahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

it says: This specific blog entry you're trying to read is currently set to be viewable to the blog owner friends only.
; ;

[estara]

I was able to read it

[_Code]

Corrected Link

the problem was one of the hyphens ends up being at the next line break on the page. So some browsers wouldn't recognize the second line as part of the link.

easiest way to fix it would probably be to imbed the link. its just like doing a picture file; the stanza is:

[ url=www.link-here.com]what you want to say[ /url]

without the spaces after the ['s

_Code

[_Code]

also, not to Hijack but here's the link within her blog to a news article about the slave labor regarding Gilselling, which is extrememly interesting.

and for those at work; here's a C&P of her blog directly:



Ayuka[/b]

IGE , The corrupt company
Current mood: relieved

I spent many hours on this after talking to a good friend about my past employment. It's for friends to understand more of my life and learn from my experiences.

I worked for a company Called IGE not too long ago for 4 months, before I went into college.

www.ige.com -- IGE, a diversified service provider and market maker, operates the world’s largest secure network of buying and selling sites for massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) virtual currency and assets on the Internet. IGE currently offers exchange services for many of the world’s most popular MMOGs, including both direct buying and selling services as well as a trading platform.

Tomo worked with me.. Our job was simple, we were given 2 well written pdf files , each one with over 50-60 exploits in World of Warcraft's system. We used 2 computers , decent specs windowsxp home , they only had basic programs with windows xp ( internet explorer , notepad etc. ) and World of Warcraft in the system.

We ran on lowest quality everything we were given 2 accounts one for each of us. These accounts contained 1 horde rogue lvl60 and 1 alliance rogue lvl60 on one of the most popular PvP servers.

We both did everything from teleport exploits , instant zone ins , tracking exploits etc. Just basic stuff at first. Within our first month Tomo and I wrote up 4-6 different scripts for IGE which they passed to the "24/7" gold farmers we had not known much at the time the conditions those people were working in so we had not put much thought into what we were doing. Each script offered us around 200-400 USD each. It really did not take much programming knowledge to write them , they gave us a basic macro program and told us to specify a script for a different part of a certain zone ( namely everyones favorite "Tyrs Hand" ).

After working for them about 2 months making a decent amount of money for a part-time job, They "promoted" us to a different level of gold farming.

Since one of the main "managers" was a good friend of ours he had explained to us one of the biggest ways IGE makes gold is not by having a couple hundred chinese boys and girls farming 24/7 for pennies on the dollar, but beleive it or not was through "fixed" epic drops off certain mobs ESPECIALLY when the server had an established economy. Every week we were given a note with a fixed location / time / and mob name that would drop a certain epic item , one example which I remember is a Carrion Grub in Eastern Plaguelands dropping an epic Glowing brightwood staff 2 times in one day one for Tomo an Alliance rogue and one for me a Horde rogue .. basically one for each market.

Our friend never told us how this process worked , someone could have cracked the drop rate code / corrupt Blizzard employees etc. I won't go accusing Blizzard to be totally involved in the business but it is possible.

Tomo and I had met a $2000.00 quota in 2 weeks , I remember us both walking into the office to get the check but this day was the day that made us both quit.

As referenced here in my blog and as many of you already know , IGE is a slavedriving sweatshop business..But of course they don't admit it , They pay children (16 years ) China/Japan/Korea and other poor countries to sit in warehouses to play 12 hours a day for 1$ an hour. Tomo and I had walked by a room with over 20 over worked / tired and miserable adults and teenagers sitting in front of computers playing World of Warcraft. We were both sick , we had written scripts so that they could sit in front of computers all day to make no where near enough money to get by.

Yes it is their decision they are not slaves but they are being taken advantage of and everyone who buys gold ( I'm sure most of WoW's player base ) supports it. We walked into that office took the check , and reported the building to authorities. It was shut down and moved I am sure to a different place within a week.

Read this , all true as I have experienced it all myself.

www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3141815

I hope everyone that has read this has learned something , think before you buy that 2k gold from IGE or e-bay sure your getting that uber-l33t EPIC MOUNT ! or that purple you have always wanted but your also supporting a corrupt business.

This is all my experience with IGE in a 4 month period make comments if you want but don't e-mail me about it.. and I did not link this on World of Warcrafts forums this was meant for my friends not for every single person who plays the game ,

STOP
sending me e-mails about it. I do not play WoW anymore

Just to make it easier

Very interesting story ^

_Code

[stahn]

She's cute!


I think I am going to stop killing gil sellers after reading that I didnt know it was that bad for them lol. And the G sellers in WoW are kind of nice honestly, they'll even protect you if someone is trying to kill you.


And I would love to get my hands on that exploit list XD

[estara]

I still don't like gilsellers...

feel sorry for them... but still don't like them...

[Itachisasuke]

they can all burn and rot in hell

[Meeka]

Thanks Code for helping out. I think the people who pay the gilsellers $1/hour can burn in Hell, Itachi... but those kids I guess didn't realize what they were getting into. It's like an electronic sweat shop... that suuuuucks. Imagine loving games as much as you do, thinking you're getting a dream job playing games all day, and then only getting paid like $10 to do it and play it the way someone else is making you. Oh, and you also really have no choice because there are no jobs available? I dunno. Sounds like a raw deal to me. I'm debating whether or not it's made up though, because I some how have a feeling that at least part of it is.

[_Code]

I dont know if $1 to us=$1 to them. Iono, I know I used to work at a gas station, making like, $7-8 /hr, and that job sucked sometimes. Imo I'd take the pay cut from what i'm making now to make $10 an hour to play games. I imagine its probably more like, $4-$5 in our means.

Dunno maybe less. But she even says in her blog there, its not slavery, they aren't forced to do it. There's been several times in my life where I've been desperate for work I would have 0 problems doing something NEAR what they're doing, and at that age, in that environment a steady job is better then nothing.

Personally, I still think its sucks, as far as the corporation goes; but they're excersizing good business sense. There's a market, and they're capitalizing on it. If they dont supply the product someone else will. I guess maybe my outlook is from being in the business world for a while. If I dont repair phones, the guy down the street will, subsequently, people will be more likely to go to their store, and my store will die.

I hate gilsellers, I agree, they suck the fun out of the game. But by the same token, I hate people that sell T shirts at concerts that charge $30 for a short sleeve, silk screened t shirt. Its all the same thing tho, capitilzation on supply and demand.

You can even boil it down to stuff that everyone in game does; I merc myself out sometimes, when there's a market. If someone has a demand to have an avatar killed now, they dont want to work for it or wait, I'll do it, for a cost. Pretty much the same thing.

I'm rambling, but either way, ya get my drift. Gilsellers suck, they dont play fair, and they suck the fun out of the game. But they're a fact of the game, and unfortunately, there not the only thing in the game, or in life for that matter, that sucks.

_Code

[_Code]

For all the so-called virtual sweatshops discovered, a lot of these young men and boys don't mind their jobs, and they aren't exactly working in sweatshop conditions. There's a world of difference between making sneakers and watching bots fight all day. However, they are underpaid, or as Smooth Criminal puts it, "They get paid dirt. But dirt is good where they live."

_Code

[Meeka]

the whole thing sucks. i think we could probably equate them to telemarketers too.... underpaid to annoy people 24 hours a day.

[Itachisasuke]

they can still burn in hell ^^

[estara]

/agree