Blizzard targets Warcraft gold sellers

By Fred Dutton Published 28 January, 2011

Merchants threatened with PayPal ban.

Companies and individuals attempting to sell in-game gold to World of Warcraft users are being threatened with a PayPal ban in a new crackdown by developer Blizzard on real money trading in the MMO.

According to Curse, Blizzard complained about the practice to online money transfer service PayPal last week, claiming the gold sellers were guilty of IP violation.

PayPal has since started mailing out letters to larger merchants, threatening to block their accounts if they continued to trade.

The letter read, "If you feel your sales do not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of the Reporting Party, please complete the attached Objection to Infringement Report by January 21, 2011.

"Should you choose not to object to the report," it concluded, "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."

Regular Warcrafters should be more than familiar with the gold selling phenomenon, courtesy of spammy pop-ups constantly appearing in the chat window advertising the services.

For the uninitiated though, the practice sees dealers posing as players to sell on gold, characters, powerleveling, and other items – often obtained through hacks or bots - for real world cash.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (50) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • trjp #1 1 year ago

    Jerry over at Penny Arcade made the most honest comment I've read about this whole thing a few months ago (although they've covered this way back to 2005). People get upset about gold sellers because they think they're "screwing up the economy" but the truth probably is nothing like that and people are just pissed that other people are skating through stuff/getting gear with a lot less effort because they can pay to avoid work.

    Blizzard are pushing their weight behind a crap argument here - IP infringement, WUT!? If PayPal respond to this it's more likely because they're hoping to get something back from Blizzard/Activision than for any legal reason (not even sure there is a solid legal reason).

  • Yodith #2 1 year ago

    I don't play WoW anymore but I always had mixed opinions on the gold sellers when I did.

    While on the one hand the spam was infuriating and they tended to strip mine entire areas of materials, I always noticed that availability of most major trade goods in the auction house plunged just hours after a ban wave. Gems, ore, leather, enchanting materials - the gold farmers did the dirty work that few others could be bothered to do and kept prices low enough that it was usually easier to buy and get on with the fun business of playing rather than spending tedious hours grinding out materials.

    What the net effect of gold farmers on the game is I'm not entirely sure but I suspect that the byproduct might be economic conditions that make it easier to get on with having fun rather than turning WoW into (even more of a) second job.

  • Optyk #3 1 year ago

    Aye, but one of the sources of gold of the sellers are hacked accounts. This can only be a good thing. They should also monitor these gold selling accounts and ban any players who are buying gold. IMO.

    Dems the rules for a reason.

  • SHPanda #4 1 year ago

    I'm surprised Activision haven't tried to make money out of the gold farmers.

    I dont play MMOs, but I dont see an issue here. If someone wants to cheat and save time, that's their choice, there's no IP issues either. They aren't using someone elses IP to make another product etc, they're just offering to play a game for someone basically. And I don't really see it affecting other players either.

  • Phredreeke #5 1 year ago

    It DOES affect other players, since goldsellers usually acquire their gold from HACKING other players accounts.

  • CaptainTrips #6 1 year ago

    "I'm surprised Activision haven't tried to make money out of the gold farmers."

    Why would they do that, when they could just press a button and sell gold themselves, a la SOE?

    I admire Blizzard for their stance on this - they want how far you progress in the game to be about how much time you put into the game, and not about how much spare cash you have. Plus, like someone said, gold farmers rarely "Farm" gold these days - they simply keylog people's accounts and completely strip them of up to six years of achievement by vendoring all of their equipment.

  • Gurgeh #7 1 year ago

    People confuse farmers with gold sellers. The "Farmers" collect gold, items and whatever else they can by playing the game. They are poorly paid people in poverty-stricken areas of the world, working on rotas, exploited by the companies that run the farming service. Separate to the farmers are the sellers. These are the guys who create level 1 accounts and spam trade offering goods and services. The sellers buy their items from the farming companies (not the people who do the farming, who get a tiny fraction of any profit), thus keeping a nice barrier between the people doing the collecting and the people doing the selling. Ban the seller and the farmers can carry on. Farmers in fact do not want to draw attention to themselves, since they may have put considerable time and effort in to level a character for farming. Sellers on the other hand will get gold any way they can; either from farmers, or hacked accounts or credit cards, and expect to get banned. Some are "legal", many are not.

    If you want an example of the kind of dubious multi-million dollar businesses that get involved in this read up on IGE, and ponder what kind of people would find it extremely useful to be able to exchange money this way.

    [link url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGE
    ]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGE
    [/link]




  • iokthemonkey #8 1 year ago

    So WoW is going to a Freemium payment plan?

    First stage, eliminate the competition.

  • CaptainKid #9 1 year ago

    Paypal is getting to big and powerful.
    Not much ethically wrong selling gold on some mmorpg, still Paypal thinks it needs to cut these people off from their service.

  • djed #10 1 year ago

    Ethics and law are loosely connected at the best of times, CaptainKid.

  • davisorle #11 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:14 09-05-2012

  • Arrahant #12 1 year ago

    Much better for the sense of accomplishment if all players have to go through the same trouble to score good items and/or lots of gold.

  • Mockerre #13 1 year ago

    Yodith:
    "While on the one hand the spam was infuriating and they tended to strip mine entire areas of materials, I always noticed that availability of most major trade goods in the auction house plunged just hours after a ban wave. Gems, ore, leather, enchanting materials - the gold farmers did the dirty work that few others could be bothered to do and kept prices low enough that it was usually easier to buy and get on with the fun business of playing rather than spending tedious hours grinding out materials."

    Heh. You just described the way world economy currrently works ;)

  • JohnnyFireBlade #14 1 year ago

    The irony for me with this story, is that it was originally reported by Curse. When I registered with Curse, I used an exclusive email alias which I registered just with them and no-one else. Within a few days, I received a WoW phishing email to that email address. Hence I find it a tad ironic that they're the ones reporting on the gold sellers who are likely the ones who sent me that phisher in the first place. I can only assume that Curse sold my address on to them.

    I know someone who got hacked and all of their stuff sold, so I'm very firmly against gold sellers 'cos they're just tossers. I report 'em as spammers every time I see them in chat.

  • Benno #15 1 year ago

    thats a ridiculous conspiracy theory

  • Fillem #16 1 year ago

    @Gurgeh: that is one fascinating read. Wow. A multi-million dollar company with it's hands in 2 of the major lookup-sites and founded by a former child star? Epic! :)

  • Jon1292 #17 1 year ago

    Everyone praises Blizzard for this, but Square Enix have been banhammering the shit out of gold sellers for ages now.
    It's something that should have been dealt with from the start, now it's all too little too late for Blizzard. They'll never get rid of all of them.

  • Benno #18 1 year ago

    its impossible to get rid of them without placing massive restrictions on gameplay

  • DirectAim #19 1 year ago

    Paypal sucks, someone needs to invest in a Paypal competitor and force ebay to support it, surely paypal cannot be the ONLY online payment method for ebay? Plus Paypal are wankers!

    Gold farming imo turns WoW from a boring grinding game to one that can be enjoyable and more fun, I personally have bought gold inorder to better equip my warrior and buy mounts etc. I think WoW becomes majorly boring when you have to go out farming for 6+ hours a day just to get a half decent item. Fair enough some people enjoy farming all weekend but when u have kids and time is important, buying gold, like I said can make a boring game enjoyable!

  • Optyk #20 1 year ago

    And you should be banned for it, it's because of people like you that people are getting their accounts hacked.

  • Phredreeke #21 1 year ago

    @DirectAim

    The next time you can't raid because one of your guildies got hacked YOU are responsible by supporting hackers by buying their stolen gold.

  • dirtysteve #22 1 year ago

    Gold sellers hacked my account, deleted my chars and created new ones just to spam the chat. Luckily the support team were stars about it, lifted my ban, and reinstated everything. After a full virus scan turned up negative, I still have no idea how they did it. Little pricks.

  • Benno #23 1 year ago

    does anyone whos played wow for more than a month or so not buy gold? i am pretty sure everyone has done it/does it

  • damoxuk #24 1 year ago

    You do realise that Curse and Wowhead is owned by IGE don't you?

    It might not be common knowledge but IGE is pretty dominant. If paypal can block ige paypal that will cripple them.

    Which is cool. :)

  • paulf #25 1 year ago

    @Gurgeh funny that blizz link to wowhead from the armory site considering all that

  • joe90 #26 1 year ago

    I honestly don't think the 'it messes up the market' holds water.. Im sure blizz have a hand in how the action house works, from a high level but im sure they do.

    In the past I have brought gold, I want to play the game, do the dungeons etc.. but with a job/wife/2 kids and everything else I do not have the time to make the gold farming, and you need gold to get the good stuff, I have only done it a couple of times to boost my profession so I can then make stuff to sell 'cheaply'..

    So i have mixed options, hacked account bad, selling the gold..meh, If it was a real issue then blizz would have stopped it ages ago, its like the 'war on drugs' .. it will never end, and they don't want it too..

  • drhickman1983 #27 1 year ago

    Gold sellers hack accounts. Though players should be accountable for their accoutn security to a degree, it's still possible to get caught out. A guildmate of mine bought a new phone and had to switch to a new mobile authenticator. in the 5 minutes it took to switch the authenticator his acocunt was hacked. And he's a very security concious fellow, if it can happen to him I can see how ti can happen to anybody.

    And "does anyone whos played wow for more than a month or so not buy gold? i am pretty sure everyone has done it/does it" is such a falsehood is laughable. In 4+ years of playing WoW I've never bought gold. None of my guildmates have bought gold, and some have been playing since launch. Stop trying to justify it to yourself.

    So I applaud this ban.

    If nothing else maybe we'll see less retarded gold buying spam in /2

  • Captain_Beardface #28 1 year ago

    To those that would claim gold buying simply allows one to 'skip' to the fun parts of the game - where does it stop? Buying dungeon gear at level 85 (or rather, an equipped charcter) so you can get straight to raids? AFK grinding Battlegrounds for Honor so you can be competetive in higher rank arenas? The 'grind' is part of the game, in some ways it makes it more annoying, in some it gives your achievements depth. If you skip those parts you're a cheater, and you shouldn't expect people to treat you any differently that guys using bots and hacks.

    I've recently quit WoW but damn, why would anybody even spend their money that way? Up to level 84 I got over 7k gold, just gathering stuff while questing. Getting money is very, very easy these days.

  • DrStrangelove #29 1 year ago

    Damn those evildoers! WOW is not made for making money!

  • trjp #30 1 year ago

    There's a big difference between playing the game to farm gold and hacking people's accounts to steal it. Given that Blizzard offer the authenticator to most players - hacking should not really be an issue anyway...

    You cannot 'admire' Blizzards stance on this - they allow most 'banned' activities to go on for eons and then have a crackdown once in a while. In the past they've shown massive double-standards by not blocking people automatically when caught (because gold farmers pay subs too!!) or region-locking their servers etc. etc.

    I'm actually amazed Activision haven't pushed Blizzard into offering 'ready to roll max-level characters' - it will happen sooner-or-later, in fact I think the only thing which may be stopping them is the likely cost (given the gouging their other character services indulges in it's not going to be cheap!!)

  • Benno #31 1 year ago

    And "does anyone whos played wow for more than a month or so not buy gold? i am pretty sure everyone has done it/does it" is such a falsehood is laughable. In 4+ years of playing WoW I've never bought gold. None of my guildmates have bought gold, and some have been playing since launch. Stop trying to justify it to yourself.

    All I got from that is that you dont buy gold. You have no way of knowing if your e-friends buy gold, its not something people advertise.

    As for it messing up the market. It does, and to quite a significant extent. Its simple economics - increase the money in circulation and you'll get inflation. It makes the prices higher and unaffordable to all but the hardcore, so then people buy gold to afford stuff. Its a dangerous cycle.

  • drhickman1983 #32 1 year ago


    "All I got from that is that you dont buy gold. You have no way of knowing if your e-friends buy gold, its not something people advertise. "

    I speak to my friends. I consider them real friends, I've met most of them several times now, we have rl guild meets about once a year. If I can't trust what they say I can't trust anybody. if you doubt your own friends that's sad.

  • Red-Moose #33 1 year ago

    @Benno: "As for it messing up the market. It does, and to quite a significant extent. Its simple economics - increase the money in circulation and you'll get inflation. It makes the prices higher and unaffordable to all but the hardcore, so then people buy gold to afford stuff. Its a dangerous cycle."

    - Perhaps explain it to the Federal Reserve and Bank of England :)

  • Benno #34 1 year ago

    Yes Hickman, I am sad...

  • FortysixterUK #35 1 year ago

    You are sad fux who are negging people who by gold, and sadder still if you think its ok for people to choose not to spend their weekend grinding mats and instead want to play the game.

    Sony got it right a long time ago when they officially sold "in game" currency. Blizzard are slow to react to most things and have certainly lost their way with the game economy of wow, they should start with selling currency, as this would give another option to people who have limited wow time.

    On the other hand, Account hacking is a terrible thing, but Blizz must have known this was possible when they set the game up, and saw fit to profit from the situation by selling authenticators. Blizz are not trying to ban gold sellers for ethical reasons.
    It's purely business. It's something in their game they can't control, so they seek to ban it.

    I choose to ignore the following fact because I enjoy the WOW experience for the most part. Here's the fact.
    Blizz/Activision are primarily a money making machine, that's all they are interested in, everything else comes second, and they are not your friend.

  • Xensor #36 1 year ago

    Gold sellers? Feed 'em to the pigs, Errol.

  • Gastrian #37 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 17:56:43 13-04-2012

  • Phredreeke #38 1 year ago

    The problem is goldseller acquire their stock from hacked accounts. They're pretty much virtual fences.

  • Benno #39 1 year ago

    The majority of gold they sell is farmed, by gold farmers. People like you and me, botting a farm character all day, making 1000s of gold and either selling it to private buyers or selling it in bulk to gold farming websites which then resell at a profit

  • Gastrian #40 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 17:56:43 13-04-2012

  • darkmorgado #41 1 year ago

    You are sad fux who are negging people who by gold, and sadder still if you think its ok for people to choose not to spend their weekend grinding mats and instead want to play the game.

    And I guess I'm even sadder than that because I know how to spell.

  • goatjugsoup #42 1 year ago

    I think it's about time they finally decided to do something about this

  • Phredreeke #43 1 year ago

    Goldsellers used to sell farmed gold. Nowadays it's cheaper to sell gold from hacked accounts (either acquired from phishing or from freelance hackers) than to employ people just to farm it.

    Of course, you're gonna ignore that, because farmed gold is more comfortable than stolen gold :)

  • Spekingur #44 1 year ago

    My battle.net account got "hacked" by a goldseller that enabled my 10 day trial for WoW. Well, I say hacked but here is the best part. My computer was not infected by any keyloggers, viruses or other such things that might have grabbed my login. I have never given out my user and pass. So, somehow they got the account access and as far as I know it wasn't from me.

    As far as this goes, I feel like PayPal is allowing itself to be pushed around. First by the US government and now by major game companies. Yay?

  • sneetch #45 1 year ago

    @Spekingur
    My battle.net account got "hacked" by a goldseller that enabled my 10 day trial for WoW. Well, I say hacked but here is the best part. My computer was not infected by any keyloggers, viruses or other such things that might have grabbed my login. I have never given out my user and pass. So, somehow they got the account access and as far as I know it wasn't from me.

    That happened to a friend of mine too, he hadn't logged on in about three months and hadn't entered his Battle.net account and password in that time and suddenly his character was running about Stormpeaks, farming gold. I put an authenticator on my account that day.

  • Spekingur #46 1 year ago

    What authenticator?

  • Sutorcen #47 1 year ago

    Xaxaxaxaxaxaxa this is hilarious xaxaxaxaxaxax "Blizzard targets Warcraft gold sellers" yeah right. Now whεre have I heard this one before???

  • nooneyouknow #48 1 year ago

    Yep, I too can attest that my account has been hacked without any sign of a keylogger, virus, etc. I was quite lucky though - none of my characters had been touched, all they had done is created a single character (with the same name) on a few different servers...

    This is a really good step - read a BBC article that a while back claiming that a stolen WoW account is worth more than a stolen credit card number, if you can beleive it. If true then why would it not be the target of organised crime? Sure it's not like the mafia or violent crime but it can still hurt people financially.

  • Phredreeke #49 1 year ago

    Well, did you use the same password for WoW for any other sites? Did you ever log on WoW on another computer? Did you ever buy powerleveling services without changing your pass afterwards? Did you ever open any mails from "blizzard" saying your account was under investigation?

  • AOFanboi #50 1 year ago

    @Spekingur:

    Blizzard Authenticator
    Bind on pickup
    Trinket
    Item level ??
    Use: Generate a number to authenticate your Battle.net account much like for an online bank.