[Ferret Overlord]

http://www.joystiq.c...ination-in-wow/

Apparently AIM has gone to the side of complete IDIOCY.

The image that accompanies this post is a perfect example of the sort of racism that has become pervasive in Blizzard's World of Warcraft game. Because a number of those who farm gold for money are from Asian countries, some players treat all players from China as gold farmers: in a word, rudely. The photo above was created by a WoW player who took a photo of a crowd of normal Chinese people and put the "Gold Farmer" tag over each person's head to make the point that everyone in China is a gold farmer.

Treating an entire race of people poorly because of the actions of a subset of that group is the very definition of racism. Unfortunately, in our experience, all online games tend to bring racists out of the closet.

We'd like to think that more gaps are bridged than bridges burnt by online gaming, but stuff like this doesn't give us much hope.

They say that all online games have now brought racists "Out of the closet."

Someone explain to me how racism is suddenly only realized in games?
Last time I checked, Nazis, the KKK, and so many other hate groups are still in existance. But noooo, a few pictures that make fun of stereotypes (Which, I might add, have been in existance for around a century) and the whole community's up in flames!

I appreciate all the people, even if they can't type, who combatted this article.

Generalization pisses me off.

[Raktor]

Yeah, Tanny isn't our gold farmer *Shakes fist*

She's our hot British model who gives us encouragement

[Pureblade]

I agree Ferret, this really P'd me off..how can they call that racism? If someone thinks that is being racist they need to look around at the real world. That isn't discrimination...that's a joke about Chinese being gold miners, and is pretty funny. I seriously doubt anyone from China was offended by that. What a sad article...

[Neraphym]

If you are considered to be racist, you are looked down by everyone in society. We view racists as complete idiots. With the internet, however, we can't put that to a face. We don't know who it is and we can't do anything about it. This gives racists the confidence to act... something they normally would not do if not for the fact that they remain in annonimity behind their computer screens.

And yeah, its just a joke. As long as they don't spam public chats with asian characters, I don't mind any of them farming for gold.

[Spikeout]

We're all a little racist, it's never going to go away. There's just people who keep to themselves and people who take things too far.

This post has been edited by Spikeout: 20 January 2006 - 02:56 AM

[Aaron]

I saw "Gold Farmer" being repeated several times while playing in-game today. I know it is meant jokingly, not seriously. I think this news agency is taking things a little too far.

[©allum]

I doubt he made that picture to discriminate against Chinese people. He probably made it to make fun of the people who generalise. People don't know what satire is. Like my Gay Club sig

PS. On the official WoW forums people want to ban all Asian IP's from the US servers because China = Asia obviously.

EDIT: http://www.killingif...1958138%3Cbr%3E

This post has been edited by Leftyy: 21 January 2006 - 07:47 AM