Gold farming in games like World of Warcraft is now an industry worth an annual $500 million, according to a study from Manchester University reported by BBC News.
Gold farming, which allows users to use real money to purchase in-game currency in massively multiplayer games, has become a controversial issue in the genre.
Professor Richard Heeks, himself a gamer, turned his academic eye to gold farming and found that the industry currently employs an estimated 400,000 people --80% of which are in China-- making an average of $145 per month.
"I initially became aware of gold farming through my own games-playing but assumed it was just a cottage industry," said Heeks. "In a way that is still true. It's just that instead of a few dozen cottages, there turn out to be tens of thousands."
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