There’s been some mixed reporting on this news today. Apparently, in a move that is likely to be as effective as their attempt to curb copyright infringement, China has moved to ban gold farming in virtual worlds. For those of you who don’t know, gold farming is the trading of virtual currency for real currency (the ban does not include trading real currency to purchase virtual goods). The article I read cites that several billion yuan (1 billion yuan = 146 million US dollars) was traded last year. Apparently, 80-85% of gold farmers originate from China, and generates “jobs” for hundreds of thousands of people. However, it was later reported that the government wasn’t really banning gold farming, but the reverse of it. (Love their picture of “gold farmers”). In other words, the government isn’t banning the use of real currency in exchange for virtual money; it is banning the use of virtual money to purchase real goods.

Some of my participants had the prepaid cards the article mentioned, and most of them use QQ, the social network of choice in China (I think that’s fair to say). The makers of QQ, tencent.com, has been issuing these credits but will be working with the Chinese government. By the way, I just noticed that QQ works on two levels: as “cute cute” and as two giant “kawaii” (“cute” in Japanese) anime-like eyes.