virtually inhumane

I like my computer games. Yes, I do.  So it bothers me a lot when I hear about humans finding ways to turn my enjoyable diversion into an evil enterprise.

Online games usually have some kind of "money" inside their game world.  People perform tasks inside the game world (kill creatures, solve problems, etc.) to earn this money, which they then spend on rewards that they find valuable.  A generic term for this in-game currency is "gold".  The term comes from a common use of "gold coins" as a generic representation of wealth in a fantasy world.  From this gold comes the new term "gold farming" in reference to people who participate in a game for the sole pursuit of in-game currency that they can then sell in the real world for actual currency.

There's a long history of gold farmers being blamed as Chinese nationals.  The reputation comes from the chopped English often used by gold farmers as they attempt to sell their in-game gold.  Well, the Guardian published an article that says these gold farmers are sometimes involuntarily performing these tasks.  They may actually be Chinese prisoners forced (on pain of assault) to produce these in-game transactions.

Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do.

"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."

... "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," he said.
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam

I'm quite confused as to what I want to do about this problem.  First, I want to state clearly that I have never purchased in-game money from gold farmers for any game that I have ever played.  I do not support this activity because of how it distorts the in-game experience, entirely separate from any issues of outright exploitation.

I find that I'm unable to conceive of a second step to pursue.  This level of human depravity for economic gain has caught me quite by surprise.  I'm not sure how to combat it in the environment of my treasured computer gaming.