I BECAME a millionaire many times over last week, albeit in a virtual world.
Handing over $50 to a gold farmer, I bought more than 100 million mesos - the virtual currency used in the hugely popular multi-player online game Maple Story.
The nature of gold farming is changing and it is enough to worry the authorities.
Amid a backdrop of an increasing number of gaming accounts being hacked into for the virtual goodies they hold, Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee said recently that criminals have found 'efficient ways' of profiting from cyberspace.
But what is it about online gaming that drives people to part with hard-earned cash for virtual money and items that have absolutely no value in the real world?
In a word, prestige.
And prestige comes with a price.
There are two kinds of gamers: the social and the hardcore power ones.
Chances are, social gamers would never turn to gold farmers to improve the skills of their characters. They play for the chatter, banter and communal bonds they share with other like-minded players.
On the other end are the power gamers - individuals who carry out painstaking research to see how to create the best or strongest character and seek the best equipment to gear their online avatars.
Their bottom line is all about efficiency: how to be the best at what their characters do in the shortest possible time.
It is not unusual for power gamers to conduct experiments in the game to calculate the amount of damage they dish out, what they term as damage per second, a virtual measure of efficiency.
Power gamers simply want the reputation of being the toughest, baddest and smartest in the virtual worlds they are in.
They want to be the first to reach the maximum level, to beat the most treacherous dungeons, to own the most powerful weapons and armour. They want bragging rights, pride and prestige.
Veteran gamer Terence Teo, who has been playing for almost 10 years, said: 'You want to have something others do not have, you want to be the top dog, you want pride, you want respect.'
And this is where gold farmers step in with their services of power-levelling, bringing a character to the maximum level in days instead of the months it normally takes, and selling virtual gold - which allows players to buy the equipment that, ironically, are also put up for a price by the gold farmers.
But are gold farmers doing something wrong, at the very least, in ethical terms?
Gold farmers say they offer a service - and that is not far off the mark. For the power gamers with deep pockets and who can ill-afford the hours needed to get a certain item, gold farmers are, at the very least, a tolerated menace.
A civil servant, who is an avid game enthusiast and has been playing for about five years, said: 'If the farmers can help me get what I want in the shortest time and if I can afford it, then why not?'
Game developers have always held the view that it is wrong. Gold farmers are making money off virtual items that do not belong to them. The intellectual property rights of the game world belong to us, not them, the developers say.
But don't gamers also have a right to the virtual items, seeing how they are the ones who spent hours playing to get them, the gold farmers argue.
The scenario is not unlike a farm owned by game developers that invites farmers to plant apple trees. After months of sweat and toil, the trees blossom. When the farmers try to sell the apples, the owners say: 'Everything on my land is mine. You can't sell them.'
But in many cases, even if the farmers sell the virtual property, do developers actually lose anything in the first place? It is not as if they are losing revenue because they do not compete with the farmers to sell virtual gold to the gamers.
So what is the issue? The problem is that in the long run, gold farmers destroy a virtual economy and ruin other players' enjoyment of the game.
Playing every minute of the day, gold farmers have the best chance to get the best equipment in the game and most gold dropped when they kill monsters.
By setting the price of the equipment that they sell to other players, they control the demand of gold in the virtual world. This, in turn, allows them to set the price at which they can sell the virtual currency in the real world. In the long run, this creates a situation in which they control both the demand and currency prices in the virtual and real worlds.
Gold farming is entrepreneurial. It satisfies a fix in the short run, but perhaps it is best to remember why people turn to gaming in the first place.
It's about enjoying the journey, not about being top. But, of course, my power-gamer friends would say: 'Loser.'
