Virtual sales aid poorer nations

8 April 2011 Last updated at 11:19 GMT Flying mounts and other items can be expensive in World of Warcraft and other games Up to 100,000 people in China and Vietnam are playing online games to gather gold and other items for sale to Western players, a report suggests.

The global market for such virtual game goods is worth at least $3bn (£1.8bn) the World Bank study estimates.

About 75% of that comes from so-called "gold farmers" who stockpile game currencies to sell on later.

Encouraging these in-game services could aid development in many poorer countries, said the report.

Virtual farms

Popular online games such as Lineage and World of Warcraft revolve around the gear that players gather to outfit their characters. Better equipment makes characters more powerful.

Some of that equipment can be found on monsters, as well as being bought from other players who have found or made it.

Increasingly, the report said, Western players who have limited time for gaming are buying game cash, gear and high level characters from people in China and Vietnam that are paid to play as a job.

About a quarter of all players of massively mutiplayer online games spend real money on virtual items, suggests the report. Some pay significant sums, with one player splashing out almost 5,700 euros (£5,000) on a single account.

This has led to some of the biggest suppliers becoming substantial businesses, it said, despite the efforts of many game studios to snuff out a trade that they believe undermines the game.

The largest eight Chinese suppliers of game gold have an annual turnover of about $10m (£6.1m) each. A further 50-60 firms have annual revenues of about $1m (£600,000).

Billion dollar business

The most up to date figures for global virtual sales suggests that the market was worth $3bn in 2009.

About 30% of the virtual currency being traded is "hand made" by human players, said the report; a further 50% comes from "bot farms" that automatically play the game and 20% is stolen from hacked accounts.

More cash from game sales returns to producers than from cash crops such as coffee

The supply chain getting the virtual goods to players was very mature, said the report's authors Dr Vili Lehdonvirta of the University of Tokyo and Dr Mirko Ernkvist from the University of Gothenburg.

They gave the example of a 100 dollar payment made via Paypal for game gold. After processing fees, the cash would be split between a large retailer ($30), a smaller farmer ($45) and the individual ($23) who had gathered the gold.

Coffee comparison

The high proportion of money from such sales that reaches those in the country where the work was done might mean that it could aid development in many nations, said the report which was co-commissioned by the World Bank and development organisation InfoDev.

It contrasted this situation with that of coffee which was worth $70bn annually in 2009 but only $5.5bn of that reached nations that farm coffee beans.

"This suggests that the virtual economy can have a significant impact on local economies despite its modest size," it said.

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Ministers halt some forest sales

11 February 2011 Last updated at 13:24 GMT Plans to sell-off state-owned forests have provoked a backlash The government has put on hold plans to sell off some English forests - but the main scheme could still go ahead.

Proposals to offload 258,000 hectares run by the Forestry Commission have attracted cross-party criticism and a public outcry.

The planned sale of 15% of state-owned forests will be put on hold, ministers said, as they "re-examine the criteria" for disposing of them.

Labour said it was a "panic measure" and would not silence the protests.

The government is allowed to sell off 15% of England's woodlands in each four year public spending period - and that is what the announcement relates to.

Public access

Ministers say the 15% sale - which will raise an estimated £100m - will still go ahead over the next four years but they wanted to ensure "the necessary protection for all public benefits of the public forest estate are in place".

Continue reading the main story Jeremy Cooke Environment correspondent, BBC News

This feels like a exercise in public reassurance by ministers who know that their proposals to transfer the 1,000 square miles of Forestry Commission land in England to the private and charitable sectors are hugely controversial.

The government is considering privatising all of the Forestry Commission land in England.

There's an on-going public consultation.

There's also legislation before Parliament which would make such a large scale transfer of land possible.

But today's statement refers only to the on-going, smaller scale sell off of Forestry land which began many years ago.

None of this has any immediate impact on the bigger picture.

But it is clearly a message to the public from the government saying: "Your forests are safe in our hands".

It has no impact has on the ongoing consultation on the remaining 85% of the public forest estate, the Department of the Environment stressed.

In a written statement to Parliament, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said the "revised timetable" for the partial sale would give time to consider public concerns about the stewardship of the land concerned and ensure proper safeguards were in place.

"In light of the government commitment to increase protection for access and public benefit in our woodlands, the criteria for these sales will be reviewed so that protections are significantly strengthened following the inadequate measures that were applied to sales under the previous administration," she said.

"Pending this review, no individual woodland site will be put on the market."

'Biodiversity'

The BBC's environment correspondent Jeremy Cooke said: "This small-scale sell-off has been going on for many years.

"What the government is saying is that they will not go ahead and sell off this season's 15% of Forestry Commission land until they have brought in legal safeguards to make sure that any land sold is fully protected both for biodiversity and public access."

Continue reading the main story

This is a panic measure by a government which has been spooked by the huge public outcry”

End Quote Mary Creagh Shadow environment secretary He said the government appeared to be sending out a "political message" that they are serious that legal protections will apply even after sale or lease of Forestry Commission land in the larger privatisation programme, if it goes ahead.

Ministers say they want to "move away" from the state owning and managing large areas of woodland and encourage a "mixed model" of ownership in which a range of groups will have responsibility for forests on a leasehold basis.

But plans announced last month to give the private sector, community and charitable groups greater involvement have caused a fierce backlash, with critics saying it could threaten public access and results in forests being used for unsuitable purposes.

Labour, who have accused ministers of "environmental vandalism", urged ministers to go further and rethink its entire approach to the future of English woodlands.

"This is a panic measure by a government which has been spooked by the huge public outcry," Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh said.

"This partial U-turn will not be enough to silence the protests."

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