{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title":"DIGITAL LABOR THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780415896948","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","uuid":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title":"DIGITAL LABOR THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY","normalized_title":"digitallabortheinternetasplaygroundandfactory","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780415896948","isbns":["9780415896948","9780415896955","9780203145791"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":267,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/DIGITAL%20LABOR%20THE%20INTERNET%20AS%20PLAYGROUND%20AND%20FACTORY","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/search"},"page":{"printed_page":189,"pdf_page":196,"physical_index":196,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"912c6423e8cf19c160f9ff515de5b68224cf139388b032a564823f35133c7c30"},"chapter":"DIGITAL LABOR","content":"Unlike the Internet itself, MMOs have always been a global medium, with many games originating in Asia.⁵ Korea has been a major player in the industry from its beginning, but Asian players are numerous evenin U.S.-run MMOs such as Blizzard's WoW; in 2008, the number of simultaneous players on Chinese WoW servers exceeded 1 million, the most that have ever been recorded in Europe or the United States (“Blizzard” 2008). Thus, although gold farmers are typecast as Chinese, most Asian players are leisure players, not player-workers. WoWsells Chinese, European, Japanese, and U.S. versions of its game software and also organizes its players into groups once they are signed on. MMOs support thousands, sometimes millions, of players from all over the world simultaneously in a live environment; therefore, to make the game playable and pleasurable and take pressure off of resources and space, players sign up to play on a specific “shard\"or “server\"when they create their user accounts. These servers are divided by region and language to facilitate efficient connections and handshaking as well as to promote social discourse between players who speak different languages, but users can choose to play on any server they wish. Blizzard disables virtual currency transfers between servers, which means that each server contains its own economy. Thus, players who engage in real-money trading can be found on every server—MMO virtual property resellers such as IGE offer level-ups, gold, and other property on every server in WoW.\n\nLike the biblical poor, in the world of MMOs, gold farmers are and will probably always be with us. Perhaps because most digital game scholars are players themselves, the economics of gold farming are usually discussed in the scholarly literature in terms of their negative impact upon the world of leisure players, who buy gold because they lack the time to earn virtual capital through “grinding or performing the repetitive and tedious tasks that are the basis ofmost MMOs.\n\nDon't Hate the Player, Hate the Game\n\n189","previous_page":188,"next_page":190}