BBC Report on Gold Farming

[Etro]

Just spotted this on the beeb this morning:
Gold farming and its $500 million dollar market

[WindupAtheist]

Already, he said, gold farming was comparable in size to India's outsourcing industry.

[Venkman]

According to Manchester University anyway.

This is a report of the report. The second quote explains why.

Short form:

Nearly 500,000 people in developing nations earn a wage making virtual goods in online games to sell to players, a study has found.
...
The industry, about 80% based in China, employs about 400,000 people who earn £77 per month on average.

But in a statement to make any Scientist cringe:

But, he said, the true size of the sector was hard to estimate - it could easily be twice as big.

Heh. No idea how they "researched" this is if they basically concluded a number with a +/- of 100%. It's like a LoTRO-like "we have a million characters". But at least there's a number now.

[NowhereMan]

In fairness that may not be an error range but what they take to be an extremely conservative estimate, thus they might allow for a greater number but don't expect many less.

[Trippy]

Dup, merging.