Fox News - 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." 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." The building up and trading of game credits is known as gold farming. Millions of gamers around the world pay real money for the credits in order to save hours of playing time. Gold farming is rampant in China and other developing nations. Many Chinese gamers have full-time jobs as gold farmers but The Guardian story highlights the first time it has been practiced in labor camps.
Am I the only one that thinks this is awesome? I mean aside from 1000's of nerdy teenagers who are rushing over to China to commit felonies right now?
The prisoner complaining about not seeing any of the money has a lot of nerve huh? Hey buddy, you're a convict, of course you're not getting paid to play video games. I've never played World of Warcraft before in my life (because I'm not a loser) but even I know crushing teenage nerds and trash talking online is a better way to serve time than toiling splitting rocks for absolutely no purpose. And it definitely beats the American alternative of anal rape...
China may be on to something here. I have to believe our judicial system's the costly appeals process would see a lot less traffic if everyone knew they were just going to prison to tool around on the computer for 16 hours a day. That's what con's call "easy time." Hell it almost sounds like vacation to me. I'd rather be in Chinese prison than my cube pouring over excel sheets stressed as fuck any day of the week.
UPDATE: Now With Video. My contention still stands, playing video games, even under duress, seems like easy time. Thanks to Newsy for the video.
pp
UPDATE: Now With Video. My contention still stands, playing video games, even under duress, seems like easy time. Thanks to Newsy for the video.
pp
