This ultimately begs the question: if temporary real world jobs and virtual gold farming are so similar, then why do so many young people seem to prefer spending their waking hours online? While staring at a computer, clicking the mouse, and killing imaginary monsters for 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week is an exhausting job, it is not more exhausting than other menial and potentially physically laborious jobs in China (Marolt). Furthermore, for many gold farmers, there is a very hazy line between work and play. Many players begin the game out of curiosity or genuine interest in the game. While mastering the fundamentals and concepts of the game, these players build personal online relationships and potentially gain an online presence in the game world. With that, many gold farmers are casual players turned into experienced players looking to exploit the economic landscape of the game. Researchers Peter Marolt and David Kurt Herold refer to these gold farming players as “playbourers”, a combination of the words “play” and “labourer” (Marolt). The playbourers’ personal/private achievements in online games are directly related to their professional play, while their hours and days of professional practice of gaming skills contribute to their achievements and their enjoyment when privately playing the game (Marolt). Marolt and Herold tell of reports of individual laborers in China who employ their professional skills during their spare time to obtain high-level in game equipment, which they then sell privately for large sums of money (Marolt). This allowed these players to quit their real world employment by starting their own gold farm and employing others to labor for them, which ultimately blurs the line between play and labor. 

The personal aspects of gameplay allow the professional work of gold farming to be much more enjoyable than other menial jobs at an individual level. As one gold farmer put it, “When so many people are playing together, it’s important to have fun. There is a sense of achievement” (Marolt). In another example from Marolt and Herold, a gold farmer spoke of a failed gold farm he partook in. After the farm failed, the owner of the farm encouraged him and other colleagues to continue to play online together until they were able to find another way of earning a living with their playbour through monetizing their skills to start another gold farm. In this case, the relationship dynamics within the gold farm were less like an employee-employer relationship and more like a relationship between friends who were attempting to earn a living by doing something they enjoyed. The player told Marolt and Herold, “Here we don’t have employer or employee. If we can make money, we share it. If we can’t, at least we are happy playing together” (Marolt). 

However, there are also players who work in gold farms much like workers of a factory or assembly line. Li Qiwen is a gold farmer in Nanjing, China who spends 12 hours a night, seven days a week, with only 2-3 nights off per month making a living through gold farming for WoW (Dibbell). For every 100 gold coins he gathers, Li makes 10 RMB, or about $1.25.  This is approximately an effective wage of 30 cents per hour. The boss, in turn, receives $3 or more when he sells those same coins to an online retailer, who will sell them to the final customer, usually an American or European player, for as much as $20 (Dibbell) (1).  These workers share a small commercial space alongside a rudimentary workers’ dorm approximately 30 minutes away by bus ride. Again, like other menial jobs that most migrant workers engage in, there is little difference between the wages, living environment, working conditions, and endless hours of gold farmers and other forms of migrant work in urban areas. However, although the gold farm Li works for is much more streamlined and based less on personal development/friendships than the stories Marolt and Herold told, Li and his colleagues would still prefer a job gold farming than working as a toy manufacturer or other tedious job (Dibbell). In an interview, Li’s colleague, Wang Huachen, who is taking time off after completing his law degree (before taking the test to practice), says that he believes he will “miss this [gold farming] job. It can be boring, but I still have a playful attitude. So I think I will miss this feeling” (Dibbell). Here, even though the working situation is much more rigid and traditional than the gold farms of friends in terms of the employee-employer relationship, the line between work and play is still obscure; in many cases, work can become play and vice versa.

However, there is another subclass of migrant workers who frequently engage in the gold farming community quite differently from the playbourers. Many Chinese workers face difficulties and are often characterized as being marginalized (Wong, Li, Song). A similar group of workers, prisoners, are also marginalized for their prisoner labor. With the rise of gold farming, many prison guards often force prisoners to farm for gold so that the guards could trade virtual currency for real money (Vincent). If the prisoners are unable to meet a particular quota, they are often punished physically through methods such as being beat with a plastic pipe (Vincent). In an interview, Liu Dali of the Jaxi labor camp stated, “prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labor… There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000 RMB [$770-935] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off” (Vincent). 

Here, there is a degree of sensationalism of this prison labor. A quick Google search of "Chinese gold farmers prison" brings up over 10 different news sites reporting the same article and content on gold farming in prison camps. While migrants are very much the epitome of precarious work in China due to their socioeconomic status, they are often overlooked because the idea of migrant labor has existed for many decades and is "government approved"(as the government is the sole reason for the Hukou system and thus, migrant people). As a result, specific sectors of migrant work are often sensationalized and become the representative image of precarious labor in China. 

Prison labor is vastly different from the examples and ideas explored in the previous few sections of this page. First and foremost, prison labor is forced, with the laborers having no say in the matter. Secondly, the laborers receive nothing, as they are prisoners. However, I point out this unique group of marginalized workers to emphasize and highlight the development of a new labor class as a result of the virtual gaming world. While the Chinese central government prohibited the trading of “fictional currencies” without licenses of trade in 2009, gaming workshops (gold farms) continue to exist in the thousands and prisoner labor still remains widespread (Dibbell). Because of the difficulty in regulating the virtual space and virtual economy, this new labor class is gaining more and more momentum within various areas of Chinese society.