Blizzard Uses PayPal to Combat WoW Gold Selling
Gold selling is a substantial problem in World of Warcraft. Using real-world money to buy the in-game currency is not just sad, but also illegal.
To combat the problem, Blizzard has appealed to online transaction company PayPal to asks sellers of the gold to stop in order to fall in line with their Acceptable Use Policy.
According to Curse, a letter from PayPal to one of the gold selling sites reads that they were “reported to PayPal as an Intellectual Properties violation by Blizzard Entertainment Inc. for the sale of World of Warcraft Merchandise.”
The seller can object of course (that is, if he’s not actually been selling the gold) but the letter reads that “you will be required to remove all World of Warcraft Merchandise from the website [url removed] in order to comply with the Acceptable Use Policy.”
Whether this will have an effect is another matter of course, but just a quick Google will still show up thousands of places to buy the WoW currency that haven’t been shut down. There’s also various other payment methods that could be used.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction: to get all those saddos to actually earn their gold instead of cheating.
via: MTV Multiplayer
I dunno. It always seemed weird to me. Beyond my comprehension.
You have about 80 years of life? You might spend some of that time playing a game, in which you may have fun and gain money and level up in the process, in which case, why would you want to spend real money on skipping that?
On the other hand, if you have spent that same time earning real world money and have less time to spend on gaming, then all you want to do is skip the grind and save some time. It’s sort of an exchange rate – your job is less fun but you’ll earn the money to buy in game gold faster. Seems like a simple choice.
Then you have Blizzard trying to regulate it, and I’m sure they have a good reason, but it still seems quite arbitrary.