Abstract
This article scrutinizes the widespread practice of gold farming in China through two-plus years of field research conducted in 13 gold farming studios across five cities involving 64 participants. Informed by current research and theoretical deliberations on digital labor and co-creative production, the analysis offers insight on the rationales, motivations, and perceptions of gold farming through the practitioners’ perspectives of studio owners, managers, and players. It also explores the role of gold farm studios in the business cycle. Our discussion contextualizes gold farming as a special type of fan labor through transformative gameplay enmeshed in the global game capitalist market and contributes to the understanding of China’s youth-led game culture in general and the variegated intricacies of the trade of gold farming in particular.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2370-2390 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | New Media and Society |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 1 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2017, The Author(s) 2017.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the Office for the Vice President for Research at the University of Kentucky awarded to the lead author. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the Office for the Vice President for Research at the University of Kentucky awarded to the lead author.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Office of the Vice President for Research | |
| University of Kentucky | |
| Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships, Purdue University |
Keywords
- China
- digital labor
- fan labor
- gold farmers
- gold farming
- online games
- video games
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication
- Sociology and Political Science