How screwed up does the world have to be that even our games are the site of global labor exploitation? As the New York Times highlighted yesterday, first world game players are actually paying to have third world workers "mine" for virtual gold in computer games, so that the first world workers can cheat.

We're not talking chump change here-- with tens of millions of real dollars exchanged for virtual gaming goodies. And sadly, Chinese workers mining for that virtual gold see the usual global capitalist exploitation. A Chinese worker takes about four hours to get 100 virtual gold coins and gets paid $1.25 for that effort-- or 30 cents per hour -- yet an end-user gamer will pay $20 for those coins, meaning middle-men take 96% of the value of the Chinese workers labor.

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