A lot of people are surprised when they learn that they can make real money as a virtual gold farmer by playing games on the internet. Yes, it is true that you can earn money online as a virtual gold farmer.

The gold that you make when you play online games is no longer restricted to the virtual world. It can now be converted into real currency that you can spend in the real world.

Read Also: You Can Make Millions Of Dollars On The Internet Selling Products On eBay

If you are an online game enthusiast, this is your chance to have fun and also make some hard cash every month. Some individuals reportedly make a full time living by trading virtual gold.

However, this involves spending a lot of time online playing games. First, what is virtual gold farming and how does it work.

• What is Virtual Gold Farming
• How much can you Earn
• Pros and Cons of Gold Farming
• Set up your virtual identity
• Selling your gold
• Just a little cash on the side
• Multiplying your efforts
• How Much Money do Gold Farmers Make?
• Is Gold Farming Illegal?
• How do RunScape Gold Farmers Make Money?
• Gold Farming Jobs
• How to Make Money Playing WOW
• World of Warcraft Real Money Trading
• Can You Make Money Selling WOW Accounts?
• Best Games to Gold Farm
• How to Make Money Farming Gold on WOW

What is Virtual Gold Farming

Gold farming is the practice of playing a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) to acquire in-game currency later selling it for real-world money.

People who hold full-time employment as gold farmers often reside in developing nations.

Gold farming is distinct from other practices in online multiplayer games, such as power leveling, as gold farming refers specifically to harvesting in-game currency, not rank or experience points.

The actual labor mechanics of these practices may be similar, and those who hold employment as gold farmers may also work as power levelers.

While most game operators ban the practice of selling in-game currency for real-world cash, gold farming is lucrative because it takes advantage of economic inequality and the fact much time is needed to earn in-game currency.

Rich players from developed countries, wishing to save many hours of playing time, are willing to pay substantial sums to gold farmers from developing countries.

The term has also been used to describe the wait times and chore-like activities players may perform in some freemium mobile phone games, allowing them to play without paying fees.

How much can you Earn

While reliable figures for gold farming are hard to come by, there are some estimates of the market for in-game currency.

In 2005, The New York Times estimated that there were over 100,000 full-time gold farmers in China alone, and by 2009 the number had increased to one million. And in 2006, sales of such virtual goods were thought to amount to somewhere between 200 and US$900 million.

Another estimate, drawn from 2005/2006 data, valued the market at not less than US$200 million per year and suggested that over 150,000 people were employed as gold farmers with average monthly earnings of US$145.

This same report estimated that 80-85% of all gold farmers were from China a fact which has led to prejudice towards Chinese players. 2008 figures from China valued the Chinese trade in virtual currency at over several billion yuan, nearly US$300 million.

Pros and Cons of Gold Farming

If gold farming seems a little shady to you, you aren’t alone. Many players have a negative view of the practice because of how it affects the game.

Even human rights activists have called into question the labor practices in gaming workshops. Still, there are defenders who have some surprising arguments for keeping gold farming alive.

Players dislike gold farming because of the way it changes the gaming experience. For one, it creates a whole class of characters who aren’t really playing the game.

Instead of interacting with other characters to complete quests and achieve a higher level, gold farmers simply wander through the game’s virtual world to collect currency and goods or advertise their services.

Some characters, known as bots, aren’t even controlled by actual human beings: They’re virtual players that gold farmers program to do the work for them.

Additionally, some players believe that gold farming creates inflation in the virtual economy. The thinking goes like this: Gold farmers focus so much on killing monsters and taking their gold that they’re flooding the market with money.

As a result, the value of the virtual currency goes down and virtual goods become more expensive and time-consuming to purchase. While some have questioned this belief – after all, gold farmers are simply collecting coins other players might have earned anyway – it remains a widely accepted theory in the gaming community.

The other main criticism of gold farming is related to the working conditions. Workers at some Chinese gaming workshops live in on-site dormitories and must endure 12-hour shifts, seven days a week with few evenings off.

Despite all this effort, the average worker made only an estimated $145 a month in 2007, leading some critics to label these operations “virtual sweatshops”. Some reports also suggest that Chinese prisoners are forced to play games for similarly long hours for no pay.

Nevertheless, gold farming has its defenders, too. Some suggest that because earning gold the usual way is such a slow process, MMORPGs reward people who have a lot of time on their hands and punish those who have busier schedules.

Gold farming helps to level the playing field. Others argue that it’s also a good deal for the developing countries. Of the more than $3 billion gold farms generated in 2009, most of the money stayed in the countries that hosted the service.

Compare that with the coffee industry, which, in 2002, generated $70 billion but contributed only $5.5 billion to the countries in which the coffee beans were grown. So how do you start earning?

Set up your virtual identity

You need to register with the game site and start playing games with your virtual identity. Virtual money will be made as you make progress in the game. This money is very valuable to players because it is required to make purchases and to get certain upgrades within the virtual world. Most of these websites have features that allow players to exchange gold currency within the game. This is what created the opportunity to earn money online as a virtual gold farmer.

Selling your gold

All that you need to do is to make as much gold as you can and put it up for sale. Virtual gold can be sold through third party sites such as eBay and several others. In order to generate a reasonable amount of gold to sell, you will have to spend several hours playing the game.

Gold can be gotten easily through repetitive actions called mining for gold in games such as World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is the world’s most popular MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games). One hundred WoW gold can be sold for about one dollar.

Just a little cash on the side

Earning money online as a virtual gold farmer will not give you a lot of money except you are ready to sit in front of the computer all day and all night. It is just a way to get a few dollars on the side. This is definitely not a replacement for your 9-to-5 job.

Your earning potential is directly proportional to the amount of time that you can spend playing the game. When you have more gold, you can buy better tools, armor and other equipment that will enable you to get gold at a faster rate. Most dedicated gold farmers make over $100 a month on eBay.

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Multiplying your efforts

Some people have found a way to turn this strategy into a business by creating bots (software programs) that can be used on online games such as Runescape. You can create several accounts on Runescape and run it with this tool for about a month.

This bot will train your accounts automatically and you will get gold at a faster rate. These accounts can then be sold on sites such as gold4rs.com and others. If you make more accounts, you will get more gold.

How Much Money do Gold Farmers Make?

The people doing the farming are called gold farmers, and they earn anywhere from $100-$200 per month. They’re typically young, some with only a modest education, and play games like World of Warcraft for several hours per day looking for gold (the in-game currency used to buy weapons, power-ups, and so forth) or leveling other people’s characters. (That’s called power-leveling.)

And while $100-$200 may not seem like much, gold farmers don’t usually have to pay for room and board. Nope, one of the perks, as it were, of the job is that you’re often provided with a roof over your head and a few grains of rice.

Is Gold Farming Illegal?

Gold Farming is the selling of virtual in-game items for real world money. It does break the terms of service of the respective games, but is it in violation of any real-world intellectual property rights or copyrights?

There are no statutes prohibiting making real world money from virtual game play, and in fact it’s now a $6 billion per year industry.

Apart from selling high-level characters to newbies (thanks to countless hours by some minimum wage worker somewhere offshore) and selling arcane weapons raided by coordinated teams of thieves (e.g., tomb-raiders), currency trading has been a hot commodity for years, and many currencies from virtual worlds trade above those of select South American regimes.

How do RunScape Gold Farmers Make Money?

The workers there play Runescape for very long hours gathering items that sell for large profits in-game (such as sharks, yew logs, or green dragonhide). They then sell their collected products to other players for runescape gold. The collected gold is then illegally sold for real world cash.

However, they may also just sell the gathered items because having human operated players makes them able to perform activities that are very difficult for macros to perform, such as fighting Green Dragons or dealing with random events. The second reason is because since they are not using macroing programs, it makes it harder for Jagex to detect.

Gold Farming Jobs

In the US it is generally a self employment position. A person with a lot of free time who can devote multiple computers to farming and manage them all. There is no real market for employment under them because they would never be able to afford the wages and the simple fact is you would make more money doing it yourself than working for them.

In China this is a little different, with minimum wages being so low that gold farming operations can pay children less than $1 a day to simply babysit farming bot computers, thus building a large operation for extremely low costs.

Work environments in the US are typically home office type settings with many computers stacked around all running at the same time.

Work environments in China are more akin to a factory but without the pollution of machinery. Rows upon rows of tables with racks of computers stacked up behind them running dozens of computers at a time. It’s quite impressive to see, but quite depressing to think about actually working there.

You aren’t playing the games, you are just watching a bot (a computer program) automate a character in a game and making sure none of the systems bug out and stop. So it really only takes one person to operate many.

How to Make Money Playing WOW

We believe that one of the best games to play and make a living from it would be World of Warcraft. Why is that?

WoW has been around for many years and for more than a decade people have been making a living from it. There are multiple methods you can use, as we will outline below, but you do have the potential to earn quite a lot of money if you know what you’re doing.

Twitch Streaming

Twitch is a great way for you to monetize your World of Warcraft gameplay. The interesting thing about World of Warcraft is that despite being very old as a game, a lot of people are playing it still and they are always finding new ways to have fun and enjoy their time.

With that in mind, Twitch offers subscription systems and people can donate to you if they like your energy, charisma, and gameplay. So it does make a lot of sense to try and monetize your World of Warcraft gameplay here. You can still play the game and have fun or just get paid for it. Which is exactly what you really need at the end of the day.

Post Informative Content on YouTube

If you dislike the idea of being live but still want to generate a community around your World of Warcraft knowledge, YouTube is the way to go. This platform is great for you because you can showcase a plethora of information as you see fit.

You can create video guides, you can talk about news, or you can show off some of the clips you have from your gameplay. You will get to insert ads in your videos and the more views you get, the more income you will receive. So it’s certainly a great idea if you want to make money from World of Warcraft.

Gold Farming

Once you reach the max level in WoW, you will be able to focus on farming gold from quests. Gold is very important for people in WoW as it’s the trading currency, so you can sell it for quite a bit of money if you’re careful. The trick here is that you will have to pay hours and hours every day.

It will be pretty much like a job, but you get to do whatever you want and that is obviously going to pay off. If you want to make a career playing video games, World of Warcraft is definitely a good starting point. And you can shift the game later on when this one is not as popular.

Power Levelling Characters

A lot of people don’t want to spend their time playing the game at a lower character level. So they are willing to pay you to bring their character to the highest level. Usually, this kind of service is acquired for good money, so you can easily make money from World of Warcraft just by leveling up other people’s characters.

You can even go onward and focus only on PVP or a variety of other things like that if you want to speed up the process. The customer won’t care as long as you bring him to the desired level in the end.

Speed Levelling

Speed leveling is different because you either select a specific level you want your character to be at, or you will play with that person to help them level up. There are people that prefer this kind of approach, however it all comes down to you and what type of services you want to share to begin with.

Sell Accounts

Creating accounts is easy in WoW, and the best part is that there’s no major restriction when it comes to selling accounts. That being said, a good account can sell for thousands, so there’s definitely money to be made here. Yes, it will take time to level up one or more characters, but being able to earn so much money is definitely one of the reasons why people still play World of Warcraft and enjoy it.

Sell Items In-game

There’s also the option of being able to sell items inside the game. World of Warcraft does a very good job here with their store. You can sell items for gold or for real money, that’s up to you. If you want to sell for the money you will have to do that on a separate website. But the possibility is there for sure.

Making money from World of Warcraft is definitely possible and it does have the potential to help a lot when it comes to earning more income. However, it will take some time for you to master the game and how it works.

But you can expect to earn quite a lot if you know what you are doing and pay a lot of attention to the game market, trends, and so on. Yes, playing videogames can be financially lucrative if you know how to do it.

World of Warcraft Real Money Trading

RMT is an act of buying or selling in-game items, currency or services that you can not receive from the official vendor (In this case, Blizzard Entertainment), so you resort to buying from third-party vendors that are not endorsed or sometimes even acknowledged by Blizzard Entertainment.

For example, before the WoW Token, there was absolutely no way you could buy gold from Blizzard Entertainment. So what did players do? They resorted to buying the gold from other sources, like websites or their friends or colleagues, paying them real money in exchange for in-game money.

Back in the Vanilla days of World of Warcraft, there weren’t many service providers, except for the (usually) Chinese gold sellers. These were the people who would spend hours upon hours farming gold and selling them to players. Back in the day, World of Warcraft gold was actually very valuable. You absolutely needed the gold.

For example, the training for the epic mount, and the epic mount itself cost a combined total of 1000 gold. In 2005, 1000 gold was worth about $90-$130. That is actually insane when you think about it. Today, 100k gold is worth somewhere around $6 to $8, depending on the provider.

Can You Make Money Selling WOW Accounts?

With Warlords of Draenor now launched, there is a greater demand amongst old players to get back into WoW. Make some money on your time investment, and sell your WoW account today on the world’s most secure player to player trading platform.

Don’t bother with unsafe forum trading sites, except to advertise your WoW account and get buyers interested. But ALWAYS complete your trades with 100% security in mind, and use PlayerAuctions to keep yourself protected from unsafe buyers, and to deter those who might want to scam you.

Do you have extra toons you don’t play anymore? Do you have an account with World first titles? Whether you are wanting to pay for your college books, or to put a down payment on a new car, selling a wow account can be your best bet to taking back your time investment in world of Warcraft.

With each new expansion, demand for accounts increase, and Warlords of Draenor is no exception. Cash in a few bucks, with the platform which lets YOU determine your own price points and keeps you safe.

At PlayerAuctions, selling a World of Warcraft account is as easy as A, B, C! Here’s how you can help other players start their adventure while infusing your pockets with cash at the same time.

1. Log in or create an account (if you haven’t already done so)
2. Make an Offer – Create an offer on the World of Warcraft page at PlayerAuctions. With thousands of active users daily, we can give you the best chance for you to sell your WoW account in the quickest time possible.
3. Wait for the buyer’s confirmation – The buyer will then confirm the account and verify its legitimacy and if it is as specified in the offer. Once a customer completes the payment process, you will receive a notification from us. You can communicate with the buyer via our on-site messenger where you can agree to the terms of the sale.
4. Receive payment – You’ll receive your monetary compensation after the confirmation process. This can be done either thru your bank account or AmazonPay. The buyer gets to enjoy the game and you get to enjoy your earnings!

PlayerAuctions also gives PowerSellers, major benefits as incentives such as earlier payment disbursement (within 24 hours after account delivery completion) on top of direct access to the Power Seller management team and increased Buyer Trust.

For you to qualify as a certified PlayerAuctions PowerSeller, you’ll need to have a minimum of 100 successful sales under your belt, plus a minimum positive feedback of 97% from our users.

Best Games to Gold Farm

The games that were most profitable in previous years and will remain profitable include:

1. World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft remains a lucrative MMORPG that has been lining the pockets of gold farmers for over 10 years. Blizzard is the most popular company for MMORPGs, and the company has skyrocketed to fame with World of Warcraft.

Unlike other titles on our list, WoW has numerous methods of monetization.

The company has over 10 million players and over 100 million accounts have been created. Legion, the latest expansion, brings about a world of new challenges for players and has put the game back on the map after a drought of subscribers.

WoW doesn’t report their subscriber numbers anymore, but the data is out – the game is surging again.

The new expansion brought about the Demon Hunter class and several updates which have kept people playing the game.

You can offer numerous services:

• Sell in-game gold
• Sell game accounts
• Sell rare items or crafted items
• Sell leveling services
• Sell runs through raids
• Sell arena ranking services

The best part about WoW is that there are millions of players who want to gain the competitive edge to overcome the competition. Guilds are competitive, too, so there are always new customers willing to buy your services.

2. Clash Royale and Clash of Clans

Clash Royale and Clash of Clans have helped Supercell become a dominant force in the gaming industry. The mobile company thrives on micro-transactions, and they’ve made tons of money doing so.

Clash Royale is a new release for a company that has continued their success under Clash of Clans. The two games have led the company to become the second top-earning mobile company since 2016.

The value in these games comes from game accounts.

Accounts need to have a few things to have value:

• High levels
• Great stats
• Gems

Clash of Clans is a freemium mobile MMO that has been around since 2012. The game is highly addicting, and led way to the development of Clash Royale. The latter was introduced to the public in January 2016 and combines elements from collectible card games, MOBA and tower defense into one.

Nothing is stopping you from selling your accounts for top dollar.

3. League of Legends

League of Legends (LoL) is a popular MOBA and is the most watched game on Twitch. No other game redefined the way people game as much as LoL did in 2016. The game is a true classic in every gamer’s eyes, and has remained at number one for two years straight.

LoL is free to play, so it’s easy for gamers to start playing and get hooked.

When first firing up the game, you’ll find that this is a team strategy game that revolves around groups working together to complete a main objective. Champions get stronger through the game and will gain experience to unlock abilities.

It’s an addictive game, and items can be purchased in-game.

Gold farmers can make money by offering:

• ELO Boosting Services
• Game accounts

Diamond 1 Master Boosts are selling for $230, with Platinum to Diamond boosts selling for as much as $120.

4. Overwatch

Overwatch obliterated the gaming industry with $585.6 million in sales in 2016. The game is offered by Blizzard Entertainment, which has developed numerous games that players can monetize.

Overwatch is a lot of fun, and it’s a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter.

The game is available on PC, Xbox One and PS4, so there are players of all ages and skill levels playing the game. Teams of six work together to complete an objective, and each player chooses a predefined hero to help secure and takeover key points on the map.

Cosmetic rewards are earned in-game, and casual and competitive play is offered.

Overwatch has two main methods of monetization that gold farmers can add to their business model:

• Sell accounts
• Sell boosting services

The introduction of competitive play has opened a key avenue to making money. Players want to boost their character’s status in the game through competitive play, and you can offer this at a high price.

How to Make Money Farming Gold on WOW

Every experienced World of Warcraft player knows that gold in the game becomes less mandatory during the endgame. Players are using their currency to buy consumables for the raid, repair gear now and then, and occasionally purchase various vanity items on the Auction House.

It is common knowledge that some of the most hardcore and dedicated adventurers have tons of unused gold in their backpacks. Of course, it can be spent on Game Time Tokens but only to a certain limit. What can they do with the rest of the gold? The answer is simple – sell it for real currency.

Getting rich in games has never been easier. With MMOAuctions, you can post what you have to sell free of charge. When your auction is up, everyone visiting our website will be able to see it. You will naturally gain interest in your trade and sell resources as time goes by.

Since all users at our site are trustworthy, you don’t have to worry about getting scammed. We monitor all transactions made between our customers and provide them with the tools necessary to avoid scammers (Scam Killer database keeps you safe and secure). Start farming, set up your shop and become a seller!