Every World of Warcraft player knows about gold miners, they’re the scourge of every MMO in existence. The Guardian is reporting that Chinese prisoners are not only being forced to do hard physical labour, at night they’re forced to earn virtual gold for their guards.

A man identified only as Liu Dali spoke with journalists at the paper, recounting his experiences at the Jixi reform-through-labour camp. He told of how he was forced to do manual labour during daylight hours but at night they earned money in Azeroth:

“Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "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/$770-934] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.”

We’ve been hearing tales for years of people paid to game in Chinese sweatshops but this is the first report of it happening in a Chinese prison. Check out the full article for more.


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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