Prisoners In China Forced Into World Of Warcraft Gold Farming

Prison is a very bad place to wind up if you break the law in the US or the UK. Prison is an even worse place to wind up in some countries like China. Prisoners in Chinese labor camps are forced to do all sorts of things like break rocks in coalmines and dig trenches during the day. At night prisoners then spend their time playing World of Warcraft, gold farming for the "prison bosses" to sell for real world money. The revelation comes from a former prison guard named Liu Dali.

Liu was a former prison guard that was jailed for illegally petitioning the central government about corruption in his hometown. Liu was incarcerated in the Jixi labor camp for three years. Other than killing goblins to make virtual currency to sell for the prison, Liu also says they were forced to carve toothpicks and chopsticks from planks of wood.

Liu told the Guardian, "Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labor. There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off." Liu also claims that prisoners that fell behind in their daily gold farming quota were forced to stand with their arms raised while the guards beat them with plastic pipes.

[via Guardian]