The World Bank has said that the multi-billion dollar a year industry of gold farming and related third-party gaming services provides a benefit to poor nations, highlighting China and Vietnam among them, because of the income it derives for those nations. The World Bank is not condoning such activities, but saying that they are not all bad. Gamers everywhere may disagree with the bank on that point. And while it brings in money, from what Niko has learned about gold farming in China it seems that most of that money goes to the owner of the company doing the farming, and the poor souls who work 20 hours a day and live in squalid conditions are not getting much benefit at all.

After the recent news that Best Buy has closed all of its China stores (though maintains a chain of stores under a different name), it is refreshing to confirm what seems to be true by observing urban culture in Shanghai and Beijing: Apple is doing well in China selling iPhones, Macs, iTouches, iPods and now iPads. Niko will follow the progress and endeavor to calculate revenue of games downloaded for those devices as part of our emerging mobile devices coverage for China.

Netease announced official operation of StarCraft 2 in China this week. Gamers register and pay a monthly fee of 20 RMB, and then have access to both single- and multi-player modes. There is a free trial for seven hours of game play in 14 days as well (registration required). We estimate that there are at least a couple million Chinese gamers eager for this game.

Lisa Hanson has been invited to give a seminar at Stanford in the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE). The talk will take place April 27^th at 12 noon and registration is required (but free of charge). The seminar is entitled "Leveling Up: The Advance of Chinese Online Game Operators in China and Beyond."