虚拟交易价值

题记：虚拟交易的市场规模已非常庞大。据Korea Times报道，韩国一年的虚拟交易额达到1亿美元，而且大部分来自打金人，现在这些弱势群体组织结合起来了。

附原文，

Korean gold farmers form trade association

Does gold farming need its own trade group? Some South Korean gold farmers think so. In the wake of the Korean government’s consideration of a bill that would regulate the practice, the country’s gold farmers have banded together to form the Digital Asset Distribution Promotion Association.

This isn’t as strange as it sounds, considering the size of the market. The Korea Times reports that item trading in Korea alone is worth $1 billion a year, with the majority of that coming from gold farming.

Although most online games do not allow the practice, the ban is easy enough to circumvent. Sites widely advertise their services for popular games like World of Warcraft, and will provide gold, levels, or items for a fee. One site looked at by Ars Technica is sophisticated enough that the price of buying gold for WoW varies by the server used; 1,000 gold for use in Undermine will cost $400.99, but that same amount in Wildhammer costs only $230.99.

But the most interesting thing about these virtual economies may be their parallels to real-world ones. Globalization, for instance, is a hallmark of the farming community. The largest and best organized farmers are in China, where young men often play games for 10 to 12 hours a day, helping players from wealthier countries gain that +5 Sword of Unholy Smiting.

The practice is so widespread that it is the subject of a “documentary in progress” by University of California-San Diego PhD student Ge Jin. The piece isn’t finished yet, but Ge and his team have already visited and documented several Chinese gold farms and have amassed some fascinating footage (see a trailer for the documentary).

Is it exploitation or simply the logic of the market? Either way, it’s big business, and many of the gold farmers interviewed for the documentary seem happy enough with the fantasy world in which they live most of their lives. If Korea does take action against domestic gold farmers, their Chinese rivals stand to benefit even more from the increased business this would bring.

Those who loathe the practice often cast aspersions on the farmers, but it’s worth remembering that hundreds of thousands of players in wealthier quarters of the globe are actually the ones fueling the market.

打金人也需要有他们自己的商会吗？南韩的打金人就这么做了。随着韩国政府考虑对虚拟交易进行规范，韩国的打金人于是联合起来成立了数字财产销售促进协会这么一个组织。

这听起来并非匪夷所思，因为虚拟交易的市场规模已非常庞大。据Korea Times报道，韩国一年的虚拟交易额达到1亿美元，而且大部分来自打金人。

尽管大多数的网络游戏禁止虚拟交易，但要避开官方封号也很容易。许多网站四处广告他们为游戏提供的服务，像当前流行的《魔兽世界》，这些服务包括出售金币、道具，游戏代练。据Ars Technica观察，网站服务的价格体系非常成熟，比如《魔兽世界》，每个服务器的金币价格都有所不同，1000个金币在服务器Undermine卖400.99美元，而在Wildhammer只卖230.99美元。

《魔兽世界》的经济特别的健壮，以至于玩家可以在游戏中从事任何活动。

最有趣的是，虚拟社会与真实社会就像一对孪生兄弟。例如，全球化的现象在打金人社区的也同样存在。最大最有组织性的打金人是在中国，那儿的年轻人一天游戏10-12小时，帮助富裕国家的玩家打到顶级的装备。

这种交易活动分布如此的广泛，加州圣迭哥大学的博士生Ge Jin把它作为论文“documentary in progress”的主题，论文还没有完成，但是Ge Jin和他的团队已经参观记录了几家中国的打金工厂，收集了一些具有吸引力的影片。

这是游戏的破解还是市场的逻辑？不论如何，这个行业规模很大。而且被采访的许多打金人似乎在虚幻的世界里生活地很快乐。如果韩国采取行动禁止国内的打金活动，那么他们在中国的竞争对手将从不断增长的虚拟交易中获取巨大收益。

那些憎恨虚拟交易经常中伤打金农夫的人，别忘了那些成千上万来自全世界富裕地区在这个市场中添油加醋的富人。