Influx

When you think of sweatshops, you tend to imagine an Asian factory staffed by thousands of young female workers, but there’s a new kind of sweatshop springing up to cater for Western computer gamers.

People like playing massively multiplayer games, but often they are not prepared to spend their valuable time and energy playing the games in order to acquire status and currency. That’s not a problem because the hard labor of acquiring status can be sub-contracted to game player workers in other countries.

The rise of virtual sweatshops has been known for some time, but there was little real reporting about them.

The “Virtual China” blog, found an article about this new industry that had previously been published in the Harbin Daily.

Here is a rough translation of the key points.

“Workers earn meals, a bunk in a dorm, and 600-1000 RMB per month (roughly 80-120 USD) working 12 hour days. They work in 2 shifts so as to maximize the production of virtual assets and characters, and while they “play,” Chen handles the business side of things. Most of those who run the shops are Internet bar owners. In several Internet bars near Harbin’s technical and provincial universities, the reporter saw dozens of computers set aside for proxy playing.

Worker Chen is 22 and after proxy playing for almost one year is now making 1000 RMB per month. The work is “painful but fun,” he says. Sitting at the screen playing for 12 hours at a time is physically and mentally exhausting. And living conditions are pretty bad: the 34 male and female workers use 17 computers in two shifts, and live, sleep, and eat together in small room with bad air. But Chen has no academic degree. And he manages to fulfill the quota set by the boss every day, which earns him an additional bonus.”

Is this just the start of something bigger?