First, file this one under “why am I not surprised:”
Ogre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese
December 9, 2005
By DAVID BARBOZAFUZHOU, China – One of China’s newest factories operates here in the basement of an old warehouse. Posters of World of Warcraft and Magic Land hang above a corps of young people glued to their computer screens, pounding away at their keyboards in the latest hustle for money.
The people working at this clandestine locale are “gold farmers.” Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they “play” computer games by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash.
That is because, from Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them.
Second, I’ve discovered a webbed version of a cool old 80s game “Alter Ego” (linked review is scathingly funny, BTW) when trying to find a better downloadable copy of game. Sadly, rather than abandonware, it seems to be still owned by Activision even if they’ve long since stopped selling it. But the web version seems fun and pretty acurate to the original even if it’s a bit slow to play and not quite the same as the old 40-column CGA version.