Confessions of a retired gold farmer

The behaviours of burgeoning communities of online gamers in their chosen form of escapism, be it SWG, Everquest or A tale in the desert(that one was lost on me) never cease to surprise me. Moreover, I was bowled over when I discovered that people were willing to part with, frankly, exorbitant sums of cash to acquire rare items, gold and other MMORPG paraphernalia. But I doubt even the foresight of Nostradamus could have predicted just how lucrative playing MMORPG's could be for a few canny individuals.

Having realised the potential market for Ultima Online gold pieces, one particulary shrewd UO player rigged a clandestine system that netted him 9bn gold pieces over the course of 2 years - with a market value in excess of $100k! The anonymous player retired last year and has just revealed his secrets and tools of his trade in a post on Markee Dragon, the contents of which prove to be a fascinating read. Special attention should be paid to the ICQ logs between this UO player and one of his rival 'farmers'. You can almost taste the venom...