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August 5, 2010
Using data from a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) called EverQuest II, Ph.D. student Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, working with Professor Jaideep Srivastava along with Brian Keegan and Noshir Contractor from Northwestern University and Dmitri Williams from USC have discovered that the social networks of Gold Farmers are similar to social networks of drug dealers. Gold farming, in the world of online gaming, is a set of illicit practices for gathering and distributing virtual goods in online games for real money. Just like drug dealers, gold farmers are discrete about the type of people with whom they trade, and they try to mask their behavior around to other players. The finding suggests that the criminal networks in online world and the offline world are similar.
Read more about Ahmad and Srivastava's work - Gold Farming. You can also read recent reports on their work at The Escapist, Gamezine, Kotaku, or Boingboing.
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