Prisoners in China are allegedly being used to ‘farm gold’ in online games, which is then sold to gamers by prison guards.
A report in The Guardian cites the testimony of Liu Dali, a former prisoner at the Jixi Labour Camp in Heilongjiang province, who was imprisoned in 2004 for “illegally petitioning” the central Government about corruption in his hometown.
He alleges that he was forced to break rocks and dig trenches during the day, and was one of around 300 inmates who were forced to play online games through the night.
“Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour,” said Liu. “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000 Yuan (£470-570) a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.”
Liu stated that if he couldn’t fill his work quota, he was made to stand for long periods with his arms in the air or was beaten with plastic pipes.
“We kept playing until we could barely see things,” he said.
Advertisement
Related Stories
- Diablo III breaks records on PC May 24th 2012 at 10:39AM
- NCsoft creates City of Heroes Summer Blockbuster event May 23rd 2012 at 4:31PM
- iPad boosts April online sales to strongest in 18 months May 22nd 2012 at 10:53AM
- EA offers to publish crowd-funded indie games via Origin May 21st 2012 at 1:50PM
- Diablo III launch day server woes May 16th 2012 at 1:32AM
- Sims 3 adds Diesel-branded Stuff pack May 10th 2012 at 4:46PM
- Google unveils Cube web game Apr 30th 2012 at 11:03PM
- Risen 2: Dark Waters lands on PC Apr 27th 2012 at 4:15PM
- Gaming firm Mionix secures investment Apr 18th 2012 at 10:40AM
- NCsoft gives headstart to gamers who pre-purchase Guild Wars 2 Apr 12th 2012 at 9:34AM
