Virtual Worlds #20: Putting Your Money Where Your Mouse Is

But these folks could be absolutely anywhere. Dark Horse's website is registered to an address in Taiwan, but there's no guarantee the people actually doing the work are based there, or even employed directly by Dark Horse at all. Apocryphally, most gold farmers and powerlevelers appear to be based in East Asia or the Pacific Rim, however, so it's possible to take the figures a little further than that.

According to the National Labor Committee, a New York-based non-profit workers' rights organization, a living wage in China is just 87 cents per hour. Looking online at freelance data entry services, it's easy to find companies or individuals prepared to transcribe "captchas" -- the little number and letter pictures you've probably seen when signing up for web site accounts -- for as little as 60 cents per hour. Although I don't think wages so low are morally justifiable, depending on exactly what Dark Horse pays, they are likely to be some distance from the worst offenders.

Not that this is any kind of justification, of course - but low wages in foreign countries aren't a problem that's exclusive to MMO services or data entry firms. If you've ever bought clothes at a chain store or owned branded sneakers, chances are the workers that produced those goods were being paid far, far less than what we'd consider a living wage. This, rightly or wrongly, is a fact of modern life, and avoiding it is next to impossible - but users of powerleveling firms see it in somewhat closer focus than most. How many man-hours does it take to make a pair of sneakers? I have no idea - but I have a pretty clear idea how many hours it takes to take a Warcraft character to level 50.

Should users of such firms -- and now I'm obliged to count myself in that category -- accept some moral culpability for this situation? I think so, but not significantly more than buyers of any other product that relies on low-waged foreign labor. This might be a large sum of money for a single transaction, but how much do you spend on intensively produced foreign products in a year? Debatably, it's an undesirable situation, but that money is just a drop in the ocean. If you're concerned about such things, there are more productive avenues down which to pursue change. Criticizing powerleveling firms for supporting sweatshops while wearing a few hundred dollars in Chinese- or Indian-made apparel seems hypocritical.

Besides, powerleveling raises moral concerns that are more specifically significant to MMO players. How would you react if you found out a guildmate had used a powerleveling service? If you're anything like me, you'd probably laugh. Cyril's a long way from being ready for the major guilds, especially on an old, highly populated server like Mal'Ganis. He'd need a lot more work on his woeful equipment for starters, not to mention another week or so's full-time play to bring him up to 60. It's hardly a golden ticket to the big time.

Some MMO players, though, will see a legitimate use for these services. It's easy to see a small-time guild identifying a hole in their regular line-up and having one member employ Dark Horse, or a similar firm, to level up an alternate character to fill that specific need. With the resources of an entire guild to tap, they'd have no trouble outfitting him, and without enlisting guild members to play the new character in rotation it's hard to see a faster way of doing it. If you need a high level alt quickly, and you value your time higher than $2.22 per hour (I know I do), it's automatically a good value proposition into the bargain.

Mind you, the prospect of paying not to play the game still seems backward. What other entertainment medium could spawn a concept like this? I guess it all comes down to what you consider the "playing" to be. If the high-end content is the aim, then the leveling process is just a grind. For me, though, I still haven't had a better time in WOW than that first time I ran the Deadmines, with a full group of my buddies, way back at level 17 just after the game launched.

Cyril just skipped all that. Or as far as I'm concerned he did. If I'm honest, I doubt I'll play him much. Although someone certainly put a lot of effort into building him up, the last time I saw him he was running around Newb Village, checking out starter quests. Given that Warcraft is (debatably) light on high level content if you're not into uber-guilds or hardcore PVP, I rather feel like I've missed out on the best years of his life, and I'm not sure that I'll take the trouble even to kit him out properly. Dark Horse's services may be slick and good value -- apart from the aforementioned security problems -- but I don't think I'll be using them again.

Recent columns:
- Virtual Worlds #19: A New Hope?
- Virtual Worlds #18: Underachieving and Under Assault
- Virtual Worlds #17: A Mythical Union

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