This week we have news about activities that could affect virtual currency industry.
Blizzard has an update on the in-game
mail policy coming out for the WoW Patch 2.1.3. The update policy is especially set up to combat "the unlawful influx of currency" as Blizzard
put it. All mails with items, gold, silver, and copper coins will be delayed for one hour except the ones that are sent within the same account and
mails from Auction House. Meaning players can still transfer their gold and items from main characters to another instantaneously as long as they
belong to the same account. But gold sellers will find it more difficult to deliver gold to customers. This delay will probably give time to Blizzard
to inspect the transaction thoroughly.
Via
PlayNoEvil, The Online Game Anti-addiction System will be effective in China limiting the hours of play to three hours for
underage gamers. Many game operators have already installed monitoring and identity verification software to monitor the gamers profiles and
activities. Underage gamers going beyond three hours will be punished by reducing the experience and reward points by a half and completely wipe out
the account if they go beyond five hours. This policy could also prevent underage labor in gold farming industry.
Another documentary about gold farmers was recommended in
Danwei, a former reporter in China produced a film called Cybergoolies. The story is about WoW gold farmers in Zhengzhou, more details can be
found in
IMDB database.
Lastly, ever wonder about the number of players in your favourite MMO games.
MMOGData has
updated the website with more attractive graphs.
