Maybe prisons in totalitarian, communist regimes get a bad rap. In America, citizens have to pay to play World of Warcraft and similar games but, at least in China, they have prisoners doing it and not paying anything at all.
Oh wait, maybe it isn't that great. Leave it to the Chi-Com to take the fun out of video-gaming. The Guardian lists the story of "Liu Dali", a pseudonym for a prisoner from 2004 to 2007, who was forced to play video games in 12 hour shifts to generate game 'currency' the guards would then sell for cash.
Hey, I could play video games for 12 hours straight, though after a day of forced labor it might not be so much fun. So enjoy those cheap chopsticks you get with your Chinese food, my friends, they were made using Chinese prisoners. We aren't even allowed to make our prisoners pick up the garbage on the side of the road.
"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," the anonymous former prisoner told The Guardian.
That hot orange girl in WoW could be a Chinese male prisoner.
It turns out that gamers in decadent western countries are more than happy to pay money in order to not have to work 12 hours per day generating game currency. Does China mind that 80% of all 'gold farmers' are in China? Not at all, they regulate it - it's unlikely prison guards are buying licenses, though, so if you are in America eating Chinese food using cheap chopsticks and buying gold online, you are most surely going to a Hell of Double Cultural Violations unless you feel appropriate liberal guilt.
