China: Making Playing Video Games Suck Since 1872

A labor camp in northeast China: break rocks and dig trenches in open coalmines by day. Slay demons, battle goblins, cast spells at night.

That's right, being a prisoner in some places in China means...being forced to play video games!

But it's not the fun and games it sounds like.

The prisoners were used to build up credits for the prison guards who would basically trade them for real money. When you can amass enough of it, this fictional gold can be worth a whole lot of real-world money to gamers who use the digital gold to progress in games. One of the former prisoners said it was an even more lucrative project than the hard manual labor they were forced to do.

300 prisoners working for 12 hours a day, they could earn up to 570 British Pounds a day doing this. The prisoners, of course, would get none of it. While you may think that's hardly an injustice, considering these people are incarcerated for being criminals, although it may sound relatively benevolent to be forced to play video games, the prisoners would be forced to play until they couldn't even see straight. And if you dare fall behind on your mining – beatings with pipes are your punishment.

This is serious business. It's also illegal.

China's central government made it illegal for any businesses not holding the proper licenses to trade fictional gold, but it's not an industry that can just be easily regulated. Some people think that the illegal exploitation of the prisoners of these places is not only still going on, but in large numbers.

Turning video games into a terrible punishment...

Is nothing sacred?