Yes, But They're Still Farming

I swear I read that without the “in America” and thought it was a policy statement by Blizzard hailing their success in rooting out Chinese farmers.

I don’t think this means we’re not a country that produces agriculture, it just means that modern farming practices are mostly automated, and therefore require less agricultural workers.

Plus I’m sure that number doesn’t count all the illegal agriculture workers.

The general idea in a way is fairly on the mark though …. Americans over the past century have moved from living in primarily rural areas to mostly living in urban and suburban areas.

Most people who farm are employed by some company (like, say, ADM) and with modern advents in farming, one person can run a very large farm and make a decent return doing it. But farming is very uncertain (see southeastern US drought) which means you go through boom and bust years. Not many people want that sort of life, can afford the acreage necessary to run a profitable farm, or want to live in that rural of an area.

Krugman is citing John Rogers on that. You can follow a trail of links back here.

The whole farming thing is complicated. Yes modern farms are huge and automated, but a big part of that is because the federal government subsidizes corn farms (and I think soybean as well). if those subsidies were not in place, we’d have more small farms. And less corn syrup and calories

States with fewer subsidies such as California all have smaller farms and generally the farmers are doing better.

So ironically the best way to get more farmers is probably to end subsidies, not the reverse. Europe should do the same. This would not only help us but help Africa and south america since they can’t compete in the market anymore due to the subsidies and laws like europes’ anti-GMO laws which are much less about health and much more about protecting farmers.

But consider this doomsday scenario; what happens when World of Warcraft becomes fully automated, and millions of gaming geeks actually have enough time away from the screen to realise they need to eat? There wont be enough real farmers left to deal with the sharp spike in food requirements…all will be lost! Quick! Send out for Pizza!!!

Quick! Send out for Pizza!!!

Don’t you mean Pandaren Express?

Based on this year’s primary season in progress, which starts bright and early in Iowa, what are the odds on removing corn subsidies and sugar tariffs?

Serious conversation, eh? Pretty low. Consider that Ethanol pretty much IS a corn subsidy and that we’ve refused free trade deals with Central and South America based on the power of the sugar lobby. Doesn’t matter who wins, subsidies are here for a while yet.

We are no longer an agricultural nation.

We haven’t been since about the start of WW2 (the official start that is). I’m glad there’s finally solid evidence of it.

yunk: a great deal of the reason why there are fewer farmers is because, given the option, most people choose not to farm and head straight to the city. Entirely apart from that, if we needed them to farm them farm profits would rise to the point the money lured a few of them back. But we don’t need more farmers. It doesn’t seem to me that farm subsidies have much to do with farming, honestly.

Boanerges: oh, I see now that you already said that. I think you are right!

kev moore: the solution to that would be to allow out-of-game “farming” in the real world to – for example – reward you with some sort of meta-game coupon which could be exchanged for goods and services in-game. We could call it ‘money’, and also have the government fly over farms occasionally and shoot at farmers.

‘Cause otherwise there’s be a HUGE exploit there, with people earning money out of game where it’s safe to advance in-game where it’s not.

What’s so wrong about gold-farming anyway?
- “The farmers are profit-seekers, they’re not real gamers”. Profit is of course evil, so profit-seeking is evil. 1. Well, without profits Blizzard (and all the others) wouldn’t bother developing the games. Blizzard=evil, but thanks for making the game.
2. We all have are different motives for playing these games. Whether it’s to escpae reality, socializing, fighting..These all give us some kind of satisfaction. The profits a gold-farmer is making is later exchanged for some kind of satisfaction too, be it food, clothes, cinema or perhaps escaping reality in a differnet virtual world. So what’s the fuss, you’ve all made your income somewhere and now you’re spending time and money on satisfaction from gaming.

- “Buying in-game currency for real dollars is cheating”. So this argument is based on the fact that some people have more real dollars than others, so they can buy success that others will have to spend time playing to achieve. Some people have more of this resource than others and that’s unfair. Now, is there another resource that is used for succeeding in the game? Yes, time. Does everyone have the same amount to spend in-game? No, so the unfairness argument fails. Pushing my argument a little bit further, given you cannot exchange your wage-income in a real job for in game currency, it is those with the most time on their hands that will be most successful in the game. Who’s that? Well, assuming you cannot be unemployed or a kid forever, it is the rich people. In summary, by being against trade you favour the richest people (anyway). In fact, all the players who’ve invested so much time in the game should find comfort in that what they’ve created has got a real dollar value.

Now some will say that it’s not just time and money that determines success in the games, it’s skills. I’m not the one to judge whether this is true, but I believe that making success in the game more dependent on skills is vital for it to be sustainable. As long as players feel that success comes down to time or time/money (when trade is free), they will eventually leave.

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“e” Said: “…stuff…”
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Yes, but what does that have to do with farming subsidies?

I Farm corn to crush?

e: “What’s so wrong about gold-farming anyway?”

It rapidly devalues the currency of the game by flooding the market with gold. Since there’s an excess of gold, the median price for any particular item vastly inflates. Because a player who is not buying gold is still getting the same gold earnings ratio for their playtime, their income is static. However, they’re now paying more and more for the same goods they payed for a day/month/year ago (if they can purchase them at all). This puts price points on gear well outside the reach of any sort of casual player, creating a massive barrier between the hardcore and casual. Thus, the casual player can buy gold, play more to earn more gold, live without the gear that the game is designed to funnel down to them or quit. None of those are desirable choices to present to casual gamers, who are the meat and bones of the MMO market.

More on topic, how come nobody mentions California rice subsidy? They not only take money, but California farm water subsidy, which is HUGE.

DJ Larkin,
I’m sorry if I didn’t make clear that my argument is general and not game-specific. I think you’re right about inflation but I think it’s wrong to blame gold-farming for the earnings-ratio being too low/rigid. This is due to the design of the game. If a player gets gold coins from slaying monsters, it’s like printing money and if there is no drainage, inflation results. SL seem to have tackled the problem by not having any set earnings-ratios and by keeping control of money supply.

A lot of days I wish I was farming instead of being a systems analyst.

“Sadly, there does not seem to be a money sink deep enough to prevent gold farming and its attendant inflation.”

Surely it’s the other way round – the need for money by average or casual players is increased by these money sinks, resulting in more demand for farmed gold?

The only way to prevent farming is for the act of farming itself to have diminishing returns. It’s quite difficult to do that, although perhaps some system simlar to rest XP would increase the number of characters/accounts a farmer would need and therefore make it uneconomic.