The idea of penitentiaries profiting from inmate labor is hardly a new concept, but if reports from China are to be believed, the onset of the digital age has pushed this age-old practice to its newest evolution. A former detainee at the Jixi labor camp in Heilongjiang province, northeast China has come out with allegations that prison bosses are forcing inmates to play online games several hours a day, farming digital gold that guards then sell to other players worldwide, or used to purchase in-game items and other virtual assets.  

According to "Liu Dali", a former prison guard jailed for three years in 2004, he was one of about 300 inmates forced to play online games for several hours a day, the computers never being turned off. Prison guards and bosses earned the fruits of his labor, raking in between 800 to 900 dollars from his efforts, while he himself did not see any of the money he earned. This was on top of his usual assignments of making chopsticks from planks of wood, or splitting rocks in coal mines.  

The virtual gold farming business in Chinese prisons have also adopted a perverted view of the quota system. According to Liu, the punishment for failing to meet the quotas was quite severe. "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," Liu recalled. "We kept playing until we could barely see things."

A prison official belied Liu's statements however, saying that, "we do not allow our prisoners to have any contact with the outside world. If they were playing these online games they could easily communicate with other people." For its part, Beijing has made efforts to crack down on the shadow industry of the trade in virtual assets, and indeed, has prosecuted a gamer who made off with online credits worth around 3000 RMB, or around 480 USD.

Liu believes that even after his release in 2009 and the crackdown from the central government that followed, the illegal trade is still ongoing, and that somehow, the government itself is profiting from it. "Many prisons across the north-east of China also forced inmates to play games. It must still be happening."