World Class Villains

An interesting article that serves as a decent history lesson as well as a different viewpoint on real money transactions (RMT) in MMOs.

If you take the view of the article, it’s interesting to consider that RMT / gold farming can be a positive influence on employment in developing countries since it pays well enough and the work (although repetitive) isn’t hard. It isn’t nearly as cut and dried, and obviously RMT does have a dark side, but is good to have another perspective on the issue.

UPDATE: To link back to a relevant article on the author’s blog.