Guards ask Chinese prisoners to hunt Online Gold

Beijing, May 27: A former Chinese jail inmate revealed that the jail guards forced them to spend their nights playing online games in order to win credit for their guards.

According to a report in The Guardian, guards asked detainees to play online games throughout the night after 12 hours of physical work during the day time. Liu Dali (not real name), the 54-year-old prisoner at the Jixi labour camp in the northern province of Heilongjiang, disclosed that they were asked to make credit, which is known as 'Gold Farming'.

Around 300 prisoners worked 12-hour shifts in the camp to make credit for guards by playing popular online games like World of Warcraft. Jail guards trade this gold in the games, which were collected by detainees, for real money by selling it to players in United States or Europe.

"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour. There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp," Liu Dali said.

"I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb (£470-570) a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off," he added.

The ex-jail inmate also said that the guards used to punish them severely if they couldn't finish their quota. Inmates have to spend days either breaking rocks or assembling car seat covers and nights playing computer games.

"If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things," Dali revealed.

OneIndia News