The Gold Guide You Need, Not the Gold Guide You Want
Who googles “how to organise world of warcraft gold making into a regular routine in order to get steady reliable gold” ?
Gold Queen is getting old. She’s seen a few tricks. She’s seen fake gold guides. She’s seen dupers. She’s seem farmers, botters, She’s seen internet marketers, clickbait, buzzfeed, SEO tricks, podcasting, blogs, forums, google make their own video channel, then give up and buy youtube. Seen Justin TV become Twitch, become internet gaming sensation. Seen dozens of blogs rise, and fade away, several podcasts, several youtubes, forums, and twitch streams. That gives a unique insight into the way goldmaking content has changed over the last 10+ years.
Gold Farming Was a Massive Taboo
I vividly remember the first time that a World of Warcraft Goldmaker labeled their stream “gold farmer” on Twitch. And how it was an ironic joke, a laugh at the clickbait headlines. Because no one would lower themselves to call themselves a farmer. Farmers were as bad as botters. It was an insult.
I see that day as an important turning point in Warcraft Goldmaking, and not in a good way.
The Quality of Gold Making Guides Has Not Decreased
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking goldmaking content creators! You guys do a difficult job, and are selfless in hunting out new ideas, and giving them away to the community.
But something bad has happened to gold guides, and it’s not your fault.
Since that first day that a livestreamer tempted fate with the “Goldfarmer!” title, and broke that taboo, the see-saw, the teeter-totter unbalanced.
Previously, goldmaking blogs, forums, the occasional podcast, were run from the point of view of the guide writer. Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, and then how to put those steps together.
Afterwards, goldfarming guides were run from the point of view of the guide reader. The guide reader did not give a fudge for steps, organising, routines, crafting, weighing up addons, or anything except “Fast Easy Gold Farm”
The viewer was not interested in
- Organising
- Selling psychology
- Routines
- Crafting
- Wise storage
- Stock keeping
- Keeping the economy in balance
- How to post items on AH
- Stack sizes
- Times of day/week
- Alternative items
- Ethics
- Opportunity Cost
The viewer was interested in
- Appears fast
- Appears easy
- Big Numbers
- No apparent barriers to collecting items
- Cut n pasting stuff into some addon they don’t understand
- Easy to get to
- Easy to start
- Entertaining voice
And naturally, the goldmaking content creator, wait, the Gold Farmer, created what the viewer wanted.
3,850,000 results
The trend for fast easy video guides was born.
The term “Gold farmer” is now normal, fashionable even.
GoldMaking Content Creators are Getting Burned Out
So where are all the goldmaking content creators going? They play World of Warcraft, then discover something really awesome, which is the goldmaking community, and start pumping out content, yet 12-18 months later, they’re gone. And it’s not a lack of stamina. It’s not a lack of intelligence, innovation, or willingness to help.
The average five year burn-out rate in the game industry fuels a self-perpetuating cycle of studios easily exploiting the labor of younger workers who lack an older generation of workers to guide them towards organizing for better career conditions.
And it's only getting worse. https://t.co/7aJeZPHILg
— Game Workers Unite International (@GameWorkers) June 2, 2018
I would argue that gold farming creators are busy feeding “easy free fast gold farming” viewer demands, hoping to get views they need in order to attract better advertising revenue, and to support their work. Then we lose the content creators, and another group of new creators appears, ready to fill the gaps. Google bats its eyelids innocently, and keeps scooping up the advert dollars. In 2017, Google’s ad revenue amounted to almost 95.4 billion US dollars.
Here at TGQ we are super lucky that we have no adverts
- No masters to please
- No google overlords
- Our independent blog is totally supported by Patreons
TGQ Gives You the Guide You Need, Not the Guide You Want
There is more to gold making than gathering a large amount of items in a short amount of time. There’s more to goldmaking than entertaining soundbites, and showing off big sales numbers.
We try to bring you a mix of opinions, strategies, routines, tips that you can put together to make a strategy that works for you.
We also have the free goldmaking email course, if you want to take it a step further. Recently updated, and ready for Battle for Azeroth.
Sometimes what you need is encouragement, to just keep doing what you’re doing.
Sometimes what you need is a reminder to look at something you’ve forgotten.
Sometimes what you need is just a friend for the journey.
That’s my job.
About the Author
Warcraft’s longest running Gold Making blog, The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande since 2010. Working on her 14th level 110, she has 9 years expertise in making gold, 19,000+ achievements, 1593 days played, over 39 million gold earned, and now playing World of Warcraft Legion live on www.twitch.tv/thegoldqueen The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling, snatch lists, and farming gold making. Want more updates on Warcraft Battle for Azeroth? Support our Patreon for exclusive pre-release Gold Guides.
