A farmer is not someone who plays an MMORPG for fun- he/she plays it for profit, for the money that can be made from selling rare items or large piles of whatever currency the game uses. For example farmers will create databases of the best monster spawn sites and continually attack said monsters taking the rich loot left behind and selling it for money.

This can seriously unbalance the game which is why such transactions are normally banned. Farming causes inflation as important resources and loot are aggressively taken up by these farmers. This is can damage the game's economy and is irritating and annoying to players as well.

Farmers will also try tricks to find the best mob sites or money creating glitches. The may create fan-site and databases to which users contribute. When someone wishes to be helpful then may place information which the farmers may exploit.

Farming has a combined turnover of $880 million dollars and the whole issue is a legal grey area- who actually owns the game economies and the characters, the makers of the game or the creators of the player driven economy? It won't be long before developers will take this problem head on.

Farming is related to third world labour as people hire labourers (at a low wage) to farm the MMORPG. In an example case, a South Californian company "Black Snow Interactive" bought office space, several computers and hired several Mexican employees (at a low wage) to play the games Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot and farm them. It was the first "virtual-sweatshop" and made large amounts of money. Black Snow's accounts were frozen on both ebay and Ultima Online and a long court battle was drawn-out over the question of intellectual property rights. This undoubtedly going to become a deeper problem as more and more of our property becomes virtual.