12. Chinese Prisoners Are Forced To Farm World Of Warcraft Gold
BlizzardSeeing the government-run education sector make use of games is one thing, but what about the penal system? In China, some prisoners are reportedly forced to work in tough labour camps during the day, and during their "downtime" periods, will then be additionally coerced into mining gold from the mega-popular MMO World of Warcraft, which prison guards would then trade for real currency. In an
interview with The Guardian, one of the former worker drones claimed that, "Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour...There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day." Over the years, China has become a notorious hot-bed for the trading of virtual currencies such as this, and with up to 100,000 Chinese citizens working as gold farmers full-time, it's clearly a lucrative business, especially if you can use incarcerated individuals who may well have the perception that they have no right of refusal. Of all the corrupt schemes we expected to hear about in Chinese prisons, this certainly wasn't one of them...