Posted on 05/26/2011 2:15:37 PM PDT by americanophile
A former prisoner of a Chinese labor camp claims guards are forcing detainees to play online games as part of a huge money-making scam.
Liu Dali told The Guardian website that guards traded the credits inmates built up playing games such as World of Warcraft for money.
"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labor," he said.
"There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5000-6000rmb a day.
"We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."
Dali -- not his real name -- is aged 54 and was sent to Jixi re-education camp in Heilongjiang province in northeast China, in 2004.
He said he would spend his days either breaking rocks or assembling car seat covers and his nights playing computer games.
Dali said that if he didn't complete his credit quota, the guards would punish him: "They would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Our delightful trading partners.
Kinda takes the fun out of gaming.
I don’t understand this. Play WOW for money? How does that work?
A story which I will relate....having nothing to do with WOW, but another similar game. The folks in charge got around to putting special weapons into the game...which you could find or acquire. My associate in the office (a lovely lady with a hot temper)....was checking her charge card account one day at the office and noted a $25 charge with no real explanation.
She called her husband...an Air Force Fire Chief on base, and he admitted that he had bought an invisible weapon. There was this long pause after she repeated “invisible weapon”. He tries to explain. Then she spent two minutes reminding him of the various bills that they have to pay and this was fairly stupid.
After the call, I defended him for a minute....that he needed some little pleasures in life. She put it bluntly....invisible weapons are worthless.
So a year passes, and she moves onto Florida with her husband. She sends me an email one day. The previous evening....her husband came out to the patio as the sun was going down and she was just sitting there relaxing. He had puffy eyes and had been weeping. He’d been kicked out of his “team” and was not going to be allowed back into that gaming group. She spent half an hour consoling him...a grown man...who’d been kicked off some video WOW-like game for aggressive-like behavior.
Looking at this story...for all one might know....it might have been a dozen Chinese prisoners who were gaming with this guy, and they just got tired of his aggressive style. Who knows?
Grind for in-game money so lazy players can pay an hour or two’s RL salary to save 20 hours of gaming time. The “smarter” outfits sell you the gold then steal your account a week later, strip it for more gold to sell, then parcel it out or use it for pushy in-game advertising.
American nerds are going to flock to China to get busted for littering - so they can play WOW “for free”...........................
sounds like an urban legend doesn’t it?
This is not insignificant. I have had the opportunity to be invited into a group of Sr gamers who have spent tens of thousands of dollars on equipment and gaming charges. They are absolutely addicted, spending 6 - 10 hrs daily at the keyboard gaming. Ther worse nightmare is the failure of their group. These are people they have met online who become, over a period of years, fast friends. Several in my acquaintance have married.
Saw this in Ultima Online.
My friends played for a while, and eventually bailed, but they made real money selling their castle sites before they left.
I tried for a while but never saw the attraction.
Let’s see now, Work outside breaking rocks all day or sit at a computer playing WOW. Gee, how terrible for these prisoners/SAR.
Try sitting, malnourished and in fear for 12 hours a day in front of a computer as a slave to a prison guard and being beaten by pipes if you fail to do as your told and then tell me about it...
Still beats breaking rocks while malnourished and in fear and being beaten by pipes if you fail to break enough rocks during the day. If you asked the prisoners I bet they would all speak up for playing WOW as opposed to doing hard labor, all other things(fear, being beaten, not getting enough to eat)being equal.
The rocks always break, but WoW has a habit of offering up no decent drops at all when you’re most desperate for quick cash. Given a choice between a definite day with rocks and threat of a beating at mercy of the RNG...hand me the hammer, please.
Well, whether one type of slave labor is better than another isn’t really my point.
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