An article titled "Why a War on Virtual Gold Sellers Makes No Sense" got me thinking about the motivations behind playing massive multiplayer online role-playing games and why virtual economies can be both helped and harmed by "gold farming."

Gold farming is an Internet-age phenomenon in which players in less developed countries collect and sell virtual gold (common to games like World of Warcraft) to wealthier gamers in the developed world. This enables gamers who have the means to buy virtual gold to get ahead in the games without actually having to accomplish much of the grunt work.

Wagner James Au takes the economic viewpoint that the consequences of gold farming don't outweigh the risks.

Call me a radical, but when launching a big-budget online game, Wow Po  it doesn't strike me as a very good idea to risk alienating nearly a quarter of your user base right out the gate.

That, however, is likely to be the consequence of an extreme anti-gold-selling policy at Mythic Entertainment, the studio that developed Electronic Arts' new MMORPG Warhammer Online, which is widely seen as World of Warcraft's best competitor.

Mythic's Mark Jacobs makes a very strong counterpoint that gold farmers are destroying the game experience.

For years, lowlifes like (gold seller) IGE have told us, in defense of their behavior, that they a) are just providing a service; b) don't interfere with players' enjoyment of the game.

Well, I can't argue with (a), they are providing a service--just like maggots, wow gold I suppose--but I've always argued that (b) is total and complete BS.

Now, those old arguments aside, I can't see how this new generation of pond scum (new and improved, with 25 percent more scummy action!) can argue that their constant spamming of chat channels doesn't interfere with players' enjoyment of the game (I'm waiting for the whole "Oh, you can always just turn off chat" argument).

Having spent a bit of time playing WoW, I've been overwhelmed by the amount of spam on the chat channels--especially when I was too much of a newbie to turn it off.

There is a paradox of trying to succeed in a game by any means necessary versus the very point of playing the game. Gold selling is also contributing to both real and virtual economic development, providing jobs for people in less developed countries, and driving revenue into game companies, as more people look to advance their game play.