Chinese prisoners forced to produce virtual gold

12 hours of physical labor, followed by virtual labor. [Link]

A former detainee at a prison in Heilongjiang province, China, has told the Guardian about how he was habitually forced into playing MMOs likeWorld of Warcraft for the collection of loot, which the prison guards would then resell online for as much as ¥6,000 ($924) per day. Such totals would be the product of up to 300 inmates working 12-hour daily shifts, though predictably they saw none of the profits themselves. The unnamed source was at a "re-education through labor" camp where the usual toil would involve actual, rather than virtual, mining. The profitability of the online market has seemingly inspired prison bosses to move with the times, however, with business being so brisk that the computers "were never turned off."