


Cheap labor from inland provinces had washed into more cosmopolitan cities, and these real-life farmers were promptly pressed into service farming gold. Gold farming in China was experiencing swift growth c. This model, with full-time gold farmers working long hours in cybercafes, was outsourced to China and initially served demand from Korean players. 2001 reports describe Korean cybercafes being converted into gold farming operations to serve domestic demand. While in the past players used eBay and PayPal to sell each other items and gold from games like Ultima Online and Lineage, contemporary, commercialized gold farming may have its origins in South Korea. What began as a cottage industry in the late 1990s became increasingly more commercialized in the 2000s with the growing popularity of massively multiplayer online games. The term has also been used to describe the wait times and chore-like activities players may perform in some freemium mobile phone games, allowing them to play without paying fees. Rich players from developed countries, wishing to save many hours of playing time, are willing to pay substantial sums to gold farmers from developing countries. While most game operators ban the practice of selling in-game currency for real-world cash, gold farming is lucrative because it takes advantage of economic inequality and the fact much time is needed to earn in-game currency.

The actual labor mechanics of these practices may be similar, and those who hold employment as gold farmers may also work as power levelers. Gold farming is distinct from other practices in online multiplayer games, such as power leveling, as gold farming refers specifically to harvesting in-game currency, not rank or experience points. People who hold full-time employment as gold farmers often reside in developing nations. Gold farming is the practice of playing a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) to acquire in-game currency, later selling it for real-world money.
