Blizzard Hits WoW Gold Sellers in the Wallet

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Blizzard Hits WoW Gold Sellers in the Wallet



Many World of Warcraft gold and item sellers will now have to find a new way to peddle their goods, with PayPal recently taken out of the equation.

Blizzard is well-known for World of Warcraft [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102805-Blizzard-Squeezes-88-Million-From-Private-Server-Owner] that it deems harmful. One of Blizzard's toughest fights might be with gold and item sellers, who always seem to find a way to get past Blizzard's in-game defenses. Now, Blizzard has taken the fight to the real world.

Blizzard might not be able to stop the flow of virtual currency and items from gold sellers to World of Warcraft players, but it can stop the flow of real currency from players to gold sellers. It recently filed a series of complaints with PayPal alleging that certain accounts related to item selling and other transactions were violating Blizzard's intellectual property.

In turn, PayPal notified the accused account owners saying that they had to "remove all World of Warcraft merchandise" to comply with policy. PayPal is giving the owners a chance to either prove their innocence or stop selling virtual products and services.

Virtual goods will always be offered in exchange for real world currency in just about every commercial MMO, but if those that sell them against a developer's wishes can't easily take funds from their customers, the act becomes a lot more challenging. PayPal is widely used in the virtual goods trading industry, so Blizzard smartly took the right avenue if it wants to put an end to the practice as best it can.

Source: WoW Insider [http://www.curse.com/articles/world-of-warcraft-news/916724.aspx]


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bak00777

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Oct 3, 2009
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good, im rly sick of seeing gold sellers spamming the trade channel. Hopefully this will get rid of a decent chunk of them.
 

Gindil

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Nov 28, 2009
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Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.

-E- I've had at least 8 people quote me on this alone. Read further down the page where I explain this! Further, Baresark [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.261246-Blizzard-Hits-WoW-Gold-Sellers-in-the-Wallet?page=3#9858669], explains the "Guilty until proven innocent" approach and the consequences.
 

Jandau

Smug Platypus
Dec 19, 2008
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Ummmm... I don't get it. What's this supposed to achieve? As far as I know, opening a new PayPal account isn't particularly hard. So at best, this might turn into a game of whack-a-mole for Blizz, chasing down new accounts all the time. Unless it's a blanket attack against any and all people recieving money for virtual goods in WoW, in which case couldn't they simply not say they are selling stuff in WoW.

Admitedly, I don't know much about how PayPal works and the whole goldselling process (having never partaken in either), but I don't see how this might be anything more than an annoyance to the goldsellers...
 

Gxas

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Sep 4, 2008
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Gindil said:
Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.
How would this hurt their fanbase? A vast majority of people who play the game are 100% against gold sellers and spammers. How would this have repercussions?
 

InsanityRequiem

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Nov 9, 2009
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Gindil said:
Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.
How do you know that? I for one am a fan of Blizzard and enjoy playing their games. I also think Blizzard's doing the right thing. I find goldsellers and lootsellers to be a bane and a parasite that needs to be shut down. Best way to do that? Get rid of the means to feed them, which in this case, is to shut down their PayPal access.

I also detest people that buy from gold/lootsellers, but that's a different discussion for a different day.
 

dryg

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Feb 8, 2009
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Gindil said:
Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.
What?

Everyone hates gold farmers/sellers exept 10 year olds who make their parents buy gold for them because they can't play the game.
 

Gindil

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Nov 28, 2009
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Gxas said:
Gindil said:
Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.
How would this hurt their fanbase? A vast majority of people who play the game are 100% against gold sellers and spammers. How would this have repercussions?
First, this causes the gold spammers to go underground with their network. It also causes people to find other avenues to get the same goods. So instead of using Paypal, they might use Flattr or some other means.

In extreme circumstances, they may close their Blizzard account and play another game, citing privacy concerns.

The other problem comes in when it's Blizzard complaining to someone who may be innocent. Given how Blizzard has been acting recently (suing anyone for IP reasons) it's more likely that this can actually cause legal problems should someone actually take the 4th Amendment [http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22338] route. Not saying it'll happen but again, I'm pointing to all the things that could happen on the worst scale of things.
 

vxicepickxv

Slayer of Bothan Spies
Sep 28, 2008
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Okay, so they're going to switch to Alertpay. I fail to see this help Blizzard out that much.
 

Gindil

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LordOfInsanity said:
Gindil said:
Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.
How do you know that? I for one am a fan of Blizzard and enjoy playing their games. I also think Blizzard's doing the right thing. I find goldsellers and lootsellers to be a bane and a parasite that needs to be shut down. Best way to do that? Get rid of the means to feed them, which in this case, is to shut down their PayPal access.

I also detest people that buy from gold/lootsellers, but that's a different discussion for a different day.
Obviously, someone is using them. Nothing wrong with liking Blizzard games, but I find this akin to merchants hawking their wares in the middle of a flea market. People move on by if they don't want the goods. By trying to make this somewhat personal, I'm sure you'll find a lot of people will move around what Blizzard does and the game of "whack a mole" will begin.
 

Fr]anc[is

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May 13, 2010
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Why should paypal care if Blizzard is getting hurt? Doesn't doing this mean less paypal users? I don't get it
 

rekabdarb

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Jun 25, 2008
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Gindil said:
Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.
Are you kidding? The fanbase complains sure, but they don't do anything. As long as that heroin continues to pump into their vascular system
 

Invariel

The Wizard That Did It
Apr 10, 2009
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In the time that I played World of Warcraft, I never considered buying gold or items. It wasn't a part of the game I wanted to play. However, I don't see how they are "a bane and a parasite" in any way. A gold farmer that actively sits at the machine, playing the game and making gold to sell for effort is simply looking for a way to convert effort into cash, and likewise with an item farmer. Please note that this hypothetical individual is -actively playing- and not botting (which is an entirely different can of worms).

That selling gold or items is "violating Blizzard's intellectual property" is an outlandish claim as well. The sellers are making a trade of realworld currency for in-game equipment that took time (and maybe effort) to acquire. At no point (to my understanding) are people claiming that they made, own, or have any intellectual claim to the gold or items.

What Blizzard should be doing here to combat gold sellers and item sellers is to get into the business. Offer, at the WoW store, the ability to buy 10000 gold for some amount of money, or directly sell the marks required to get the top tier of gear. If necessary, offer gold sales that undercut whatever the underground market can provide. In this scenario, Blizzard -is- the mint - they don't need to worry about sitting around for hours to grind to 85 to fight the profitable monsters. They could, quite easily, cash in on this basic need for better stuff and kill the gold farmer market in the process - their prices don't have to pay anyone's salaries.
 

Archemetis

Is Probably Awesome.
Aug 13, 2008
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To be fair, Blizzard have probably made a small dent at best with this move.

But seriously, anyone who needs to buy gold in today's WoW needs to sit down and really think hard about where all there gold is going.

Having recently levelled a character from 1 to 70 in Cataclysm I can safely say that a character is never without gold (provided you never go near the auction house) .

I had 500 gold by about level 30-40 by 60 I spent most of that on a flying mount and the skill to use it, by the time I was level 65 I had made up the money I'd spent, plus some.

I'm now level 70 and I have about 600 gold.

That is more than enough for Cataclysm era characters to get by comfortably until such a time as they hit 80-85 content or start doing dailies.

The necessity of buying Gold has been pretty much removed from the game now.

Invariel said:
What Blizzard should be doing here to combat gold sellers and item sellers is to get into the business. Offer, at the WoW store, the ability to buy 10000 gold for some amount of money, or directly sell the marks required to get the top tier of gear. If necessary, offer gold sales that undercut whatever the underground market can provide. In this scenario, Blizzard -is- the mint - they don't need to worry about sitting around for hours to grind to 85 to fight the profitable monsters. They could, quite easily, cash in on this basic need for better stuff and kill the gold farmer market in the process - their prices don't have to pay anyone's salaries.
I get what you're saying, but with that course of action comes new issues, If people can buy gold, then they have an easy route to the items and other assorted goodies that require effort and time to obtain, and as Blizzard make their main source of income from the time people put into their game making items easier to get without any time taken to do so removes that.

If a person wants to buy a mammoth mount or an epic flying skill, they grind dailies for a few weeks, this means they'll also have to re-subscribe in-between that.

If Blizzard offered a means to buy gold, people could just buy the gold in about ten minutes, buy the in-game items and then probably get bored of having everything within a month.

If they were to offer that service, it'd more than likely hurt their business as opposed to preserve it.

Same with buying gear tokens, but then they'd have balance issues and complaints from all sides from people asking them to remove the feature.
 

DeadlyYellow

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Jun 18, 2008
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Judging by the comments, I have the suspicion there was someone here who engaged in such activities with RMTs.
 

The Diabolical Biz

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Jun 25, 2009
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Fr said:
anc[is]Why should paypal care if Blizzard is getting hurt? Doesn't doing this mean less paypal users? I don't get it
Probably because they fear a potential lawsuit, or somesuch. Who can blame them, in this era
 

Gindil

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Nov 28, 2009
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Fr said:
anc[is]Why should paypal care if Blizzard is getting hurt? Doesn't doing this mean less paypal users? I don't get it
Bingo. They'll find more private alternatives.
rekabdarb said:
Gindil said:
Blizzard is absolutely full of crap on this one.

I'm going to believe that more than likely this will hurt their fanbase a lot more than they know. There were probably other ways to do this but by enforcing this on Paypal, it's going to have severe repercussions on them.
Are you kidding? The fanbase complains sure, but they don't do anything. As long as that heroin continues to pump into their vascular system
They got Blizzard to roll back on privacy concerns. It may ramp up if Blizzard starts being dicks about it.