MMORPG=>RMT

Real-Money Trading (or RMT, Real Money Transaction) is a phenomenon that occurred with the birth of online-gaming, especially in the genre of MMORPGs (see also Virtual economy).

The case works as follows:

1. A player advances in the MMORPG and obtains in-game currency.
2. The player will then sell the currency on online auction sites, such as eBay, or to companies such as wowmine.com or IGE.
3. Other players will purchase, or bid on, the currency through transactions (usually online).
4. The company, or player, will then hand over the virtual currency to the buyer.

This has caused a serious problem within many online games as it deals with real money, and not that of the virtual world. However, this action is technically not illegal (other than possibly breaking the terms and conditions of the contract with the game operator), but primarily goes against the wish of the producers of the game and is shunned by many avid fans.

A farmer is a general term for a MMORPG player who attempts to acquire ("farm") items of value within a game, usually in order to exploit the game's virtual economy. This is usually accomplished by carrying out in-game actions (such as killing an important creature) repeatedly to maximize income. More broadly, the term could refer to a player of any type of game who repeats mundane actions over and over in order to collect in-game items.

A gold farmer is a player who farms items for the sole purpose of sale to other players via an out-of-game venue, such as eBay or IGE (also called RMT - Real-money trading). Since there is significant real-world demand for in-game gold, gold farming sometimes is taken very seriously.

Follow the money
For every reseller of gold, there's a wholesaler who supplies it to gamers with real money to burn.

Now, let's go into the field for a firsthand account of another part of the online underworld.

 Early last year a small Southern California company called Black Snow Interactive made a business move you could almost call shrewd if it weren’t so surreal. They rented office space in Tijuana, equipped it with eight PCs and a T1 line, and hired three shifts of unskilled Mexican laborers to do what most employers would have fired them for: