Ge Jin, a PhD student from the University of California at San Diego has released a video clip of a forthcoming documentary he's making about the phenomenon. According to the footage, players spend up to 12 hours gaming in pretty poor conditions.

The players also apparently feel both empowered by their gaming skills and inferior in their virtual workplace, because western players look down upon them.

When I talked with the farmers, they rarely complained about their working condition, they only complained about their life in the game world. - Ge Jin (Terra Nova)

There certainly seems to be a big market for virtual goods. But there have been numerous stories about these Chinese "gaming workshops" before, and it's always difficult to tell how genuine they are.

Please take a look right here at the latest article on WOW Gold Farming from New Scientist Blogs!