This is a comic about games and economics, and how the real life social and policital environment eventually filters into games and their economics.
Anda is a sixteen year old high-schooler, who starts playing MMORPG Coarsegold Online, after listening to a talk given by a girl-gamer in her school. She slowly works her way up and reaches a high level, and takes up paying jobs to eradicate gold farmers: gamers who retrieve items to be sold online illegally.
But during one of these jobs, she meets one of these farmers and befriends him. Raymond is a chinese teen, the same age has her, but he “works” sixteen hours a day in sweatshop like conditions, to farm for items in the game, and gets paid a pittance and no benefits. Inspired by a strike at her father’s workplace, Anda convinces Raymond to protest and demand worker’s rights, but that just causes him to lose his job, making things worse. Anda’s mother discovers the payments Anda has been receiving for her jobs, and without quite understanding the nature of the game, she cuts her out. And as if things could not get worse, Anda gets suspended from the guild too.
Does she regain her internet access? Does she get back into the guild? And most importantly, does she help Raymond get back his job?
The story is easy reading, and demonstrates the naivete of Anda trying to solve problems with the social and economic conditions in China, a world removed from her own. The artwork is absolutely gorgeous, and the game landscapes are magnificent.
A good, quick read, and a worthwhile one.