False Alarm: Gold Farming Still Legal in China

Earlier this week, we (along with every other tech/gaming site on the Internet) reported that the Chinese government had put the kibosh on gold farming once and for all – something that, to many, sounded like a dream come true. Well wake up, because reality has decided to toss a cold bucket of water on your spam-free fantasy land. Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester explained:

“This is a government restriction on the use of the quasi-Paypal-like currencies (mainly QQ coins) that are used extensively in China to pay for virtual game stuff.  As announced they can now only be used to pay for virtual stuff, and you can’t buy real things with them as game companies were allowing to happen, nor can you gamble.”

“This therefore is not about what gold farming clients do: use real money to buy these virtual currencies; it’s the mirror image.  And it’s not about the major trade in gold farming such as World of Warcraft, which relates to other types of virtual currency.”

So there you have it. Rumors of gold farming’s death were greatly exaggerated. Shame, too because BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD AT WWW.AREYOUBUYINGGOLDYET.COM, YOUR SOURCE FOR GOLD THAT YOU CAN BUY.