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Blizzard Cracks Down on World of Warcraft Ebaying 196

Posted by Zonk from the other-developers-could-take-a-page-from-their-book dept.
Last Friday Blizzard put up a message on the World of Warcraft site stating that Ebaying of in-game items would not be tolerated. This is the first time a MMOG developer has come out of the gate with so strong a policy, and combined with their tough policy on hacking is a heartening sign that community infractions will be taken seriously. TerraNova has commentary on the development as well. From the article: "If they do [succeed], we might have to start thinking of World of Warcraft as the first of a new generation of virtual worlds. It may not seem all that different in terms of some design aspects, but if its war against eBayers succeeds, it will end up being very different in terms of atmosphere."
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Blizzard Cracks Down on World of Warcraft Ebaying More

Blizzard Cracks Down on World of Warcraft Ebaying

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  • So happy. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eviltypeguy ( 521224 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:11PM (#11075151)
    I am so wonderfully happy to hear this. Like any game, people should have to earn their rank and position.

    I don't have any problem with someone using the in-game auction houses to get items, and I think this will help foster a much better sense of community.
    • >Like any game, people should have to earn their rank and position.

      No, the main point of games is that the player should have fun.

      After a certain point in the game, MMORPG are dependent on how lucky your drops are or how much time you can spend sitting in-front of a keyboard doing the same thing X times. For some people, that isn't fun.

      If a person is willing to pay to have more fun playing a game, what is wrong with that?

      • Re:So happy. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by eviltypeguy ( 521224 )
        No, the main point of games is that the player should have fun.

        After a certain point in the game, MMORPG are dependent on how lucky your drops are or how much time you can spend sitting in-front of a keyboard doing the same thing X times. For some people, that isn't fun.

        But World of Warcraft doesn't suffer from those problems. At no point have I felt like I'm in a level grind, and I've spent more time playing other games in the past than I have World of Warcraft with far more results.

        Other MMORPGs may b

      • Re:So happy. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by lobsterGun ( 415085 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:50PM (#11075587)
        The problem is that the items that folks buy off of ebay have to come from somewhere. ...That means that when I (a casual player) enter the Tomb of Dread in search of the (Ultra Valuable) Short Sword of Uberness, there is already some clown standing ther waiting for it to drop. And when it does drop he'll log that character out and log in another character to wait for it to drop again.

        and that spoils my gaming experience.

        Hence I don't play MMOGS that support ebaying.

        • >is already some clown standing ther waiting for it to drop.

          There is only one place to get a powerful sword that people want and there is a line-up. Its a problem with the game, not with people selling stuff on ebay.

          Or is part of the gameplay "waiting in line"?

        • Re:So happy. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by fireduck ( 197000 )
          this is solved by judicious use of instancing [worldofwarcraft.com], which WoW obviously incorporates. Simply make Tomb of Dread an instanced dungeon, and you won't have a single camper waiting for the Uber sword, as they'll all be in their own dungeons waiting for it.

        • Re:So happy. (Score:4, Informative)

          by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @05:02PM (#11076285) Homepage
          The problem is that the items that folks buy off of ebay have to come from somewhere. ...That means that when I (a casual player) enter the Tomb of Dread in search of the (Ultra Valuable) Short Sword of Uberness, there is already some clown standing ther waiting for it to drop. And when it does drop he'll log that character out and log in another character to wait for it to drop again.

          Of course, in WoW the major dungeons are instanced -- meaning you get your own private version of the Tomb of Dread, just as the ebay clown does, and both of you get your own uberloot without stepping on each other's toes.

          So, no, that argument does not fly at all.
          • Unfortunatly, your arguement, while at face value appears relavant, is completely wrong.

            Yes. The 'big' dungeons are instanced. However the majority of the 'uber' stuff you can get in them is bind on pick-up. Meaning it can not be traded, only destroyed (either manually or by selling to an NPC vendor.)

            The items which CAN be sold, traded, or just plain given away, are typically OUTSIDE those dungeons or are assembled from resources which can and are already being camped. So you still have a problem with bei
          • In addition, most of the rteally powerful gear is both level limited, and bind on pickup, which means that it cannot ever be traded once it has been looted. Blizzards binind process basically means that most of the really, really good items in the game have to be looted directly by their user. And the really excellent quest loot is tied to quests that can't be activated until you have finished other quests and you are at the proper level. It is nigh impossible to operate the kind of virtual item for real
      • If a person is willing to pay to have more fun playing a game, what is wrong with that?

        Nothing, if it's a single-player game. What would you think about a version of chess or monopoly where players could buy their way into a better position? Not much fun if you're the guy with less money to spend on the game. MMORPGs are no different, even though you're not always face-to-face with your opponent.
        • >What would you think about a version of chess or monopoly where players could buy their way into a better position?

          Chess and monopoly are zero-sum games. For you to "win", another player has to "lose".

          MMORPG are not zero-sum. You can have zero Uber-swords or 10 in the game, but it does not take away from your own advancement.
          • You forgot Poland... er, PvP.
            MMORPGs that include an active PvP environment are definitely zero-sum. Maybe a better example would be allowing counterstrike players to purchase better ping times.

            I'd also make the argument that impressing the masses with your Uber-sword is much less likely to happen if everyone knows you can buy them on ebay for $5.

    • Re:So happy. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Cecil ( 37810 )
      people should have to earn their rank and position.

      The problem with this mindset is that it ensures that the *only* way of investing yourself in the game is by investing time. This gives a unique advantage to the kids who find the time to play the game 40 hours a week, and 18 hours a day during the summer. Which in and of itself isn't bad, except that it alienates the "older kids" among us, myself included, who have full-time jobs and many responsibilities beyond that, because we're lucky when we can fit

      • Re:So happy. (Score:5, Informative)

        by eviltypeguy ( 521224 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:41PM (#11075505)
        I have maybe an hour to play each day at most. And Blizzard has specifically designed this game to be played by people who don't have that much time to devote to it. For example, the more time your character spends logged out and resting at an inn, the longer the amount of time that character will receive 200% of the normal XP given by quests, discoveries, and monsters. So I'm going to have to disagree with your argument.

        Because of how they've balanced the game, I've managed to get to my 24th level already with as little as I've been playing. Sure, there are people that are already at level 40, but it's not a grind, and it's fun.

        Besides, I feel my opinion is just as legitimate as yours given that i'm no "kid" either at my age.

        And before you use the old fart argument, my guild leader is 55 years old. I'm only level 24, and he's level 41 even though we've both been playing since day one.
      • 1) Life isn't fair.

        2) It's just a game.

        3) Try playing a "single player" RPG, along the lines of Star Wars: KotoR, Dungeon Siege, etc.

  • Economic Inevitability (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DLWormwood ( 154934 ) <[moc.em] [ta] [doowmrow]> on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:15PM (#11075218) Homepage
    How does Blizzard expect to enforce this? eBay isn't the only auction house on the web, and even assuming that they hire a largish tech team to spy^H^H^Hwatch many sites, they can't see everything. Battle.net account termination can only occur if Blizzard discovers the trade in the first place.

    If nothing else, people will just turn to older, more obscure venues like USENET to engage in trades, or even do it over e-mail or in person. How can Blizzard expect to stop the black market trade if world governments can't do it in the real world?

    • The quick answer is they can't. But Blizzard can wave it's ban stick around and hope to scare it's subscriber base into submission.

    • Re:Economic Inevitability (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rogueMonkey ( 669464 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:23PM (#11075312)
      Answer: 80/20 rule. Stop the 20% sellers that sell 80% of the stuff and the problem becomes marginal and can probably be ignored. How can we live in society with murder and rape? We try to catch as many wrong-doers as we can and convince others that they have more to lose from breaking the rules than from obeying them. We can't eradicate crime, but we can try to control it.
      • I seriously hope you didn't just compare the sale of virtual items to rape and murder. One being an interesting copyright issue which may not even be illegal, the others being rape and murder.
        • it may not be illegal per the laws of the land, but it is in the WoW user agreement. don't like it, don't use the service. easy enough.

          because it's also not illegal for Blizzard to thwack your account, losing you the use of your precious $200 staff of mightyness.

        • Re:Economic Inevitability (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Schemat1c ( 464768 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @05:17PM (#11076408) Homepage
          I seriously hope you didn't just compare the sale of virtual items to rape and murder.

          I didn't see anywhere in that post where rape and murder were compared to anything . I read a very clear analogy comparing the technics of real world crime control to it's virtual world counterpart.

          Maybe you should read the post again.

    • Re:Economic Inevitability (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:29PM (#11075391) Homepage Journal
      eBay isn't the only auction house on the web, and even assuming that they hire a largish tech team to spy^H^H^Hwatch many sites, they can't see everything.
      It wouldn't take much to whip up some bot scripts that troll various auction sites for keywords and such. Sure, sellers could try the whole 1337 writing style stuff that spam has become so notorious for, but that will just make the items less likely to sell due to seeming fraudulent or at least unsavory. Yes the eBay alternatives would be harder to track than eBay, but the customers won't be as plentiful. eBay is sure to help them out citing copyright and trademark violations.

      I think Blizzard has a good chance of severly curbing auctioning or at least making a royal pain in the ass to do. If they manage to make it almost as hard as actually earning the item, then they have won. The final word being Blizzard's of course. They can can/ban you for anything they feel like and not care much about false positives if they so choose.

      • If they manage to make it almost as hard as actually earning the item, then they have won. The final word being Blizzard's of course. They can can/ban you for anything they feel like and not care much about false positives if they so choose.

        It is this kind of issue that keep me from playing MMORPGs in the first place. (The closest I've played is Diablo II.) Having these kinds of restrictions on ToS, level ranges, account balance ceilings, etc., reminds too much of the Real World that I play games to esca

        • It is this kind of issue that keep me from playing MMORPGs in the first place. (The closest I've played is Diablo II.)
          We have something in common then. :D I can't imagine paying maintenance costs... er... a subscription for a game just to have some sweeping rules change or other "technicality" screw up all of my planning. Saw that happen to too many folks on the old versions of EQ. I can get ripped off in the real world, thanks.

      • Re:Economic Inevitability (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kaa ( 21510 )
        I think Blizzard has a good chance of severly curbing auctioning or at least making a royal pain in the ass to do.

        I very much doubt it.

        First, Blizzard has no legal basis to prevent anyone from posting things like "Selling blue 1H sword +20 Str +30 Sta". Sure, the EULA might prohibit it, but the EULA isn't binding on, say, a website which hosts a board.

        Second, it's trivially easy to arrange sales over boards, IRC channels, etc. etc. Paypal works without Ebay perfectly well. And it's not like it's hard to
        • True, Blizzard has no legal basis to keep people from advertising, but they do have the legal basis to find the person selling the "Blue 1H sword +20 Str +30 Sta", smack them, kick them off the game, and then find the guy that bought said sword, and delete the item.

          It's called the 'Its My Sandbox' principle. If you don't like how Blizzard runs their game, there's a good half dozen others out there.

    • First of all, Blizzard will never be able to keep up if they try to catch and ban each party in a transaction.

      What they need to do, is go after the major sellers/sites which are selling ingame goods. And from the wording on their site, it appears that they're going to start doing just that.

      I don't think Blizzard will have any problem just outright suing/prosecuting anyone they catch selling ingame items. When you think about it, sellers are really committing fraud by selling something that's not theirs to
    • I think you're overestimating the difficulty here. Blizzard is banning accounts, a rather large cost to being caught so their rate of catching people doesn't have to be very high. Imagine they employ a single clueful techie even half time to find any infringements. It won't stop all sales obviously, but it would stop most sales between people who didn't know each other already, reducing item sales by several orders of magnitude. Would you buy/sell something if there is a non-negligable chance you'll los
    • obviously people who REALLY REALLY want to buy / sell gear will probably be able to find a way. but if blizzard can keep it sufficiently underground, that is, off the major auction sites, then it won't be prevalent to a) ruin the game for others or b) support the foreign sweatshops that populate everquest.
    • Seeing that a lot of these are very good items it does remove a significant incentive. Now the area where Blizzard will have issues with is the in game money system. Gold is something that people will sell and its hard to track any stackable item.

      Now, what I am waiting for is these companies being held liable for downtime. They love to toss around the term "service" but that is last thing they want to be classified as.

      If an ISP had as much downtime as some games they would be out of business or have re

  • hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ack154 ( 591432 ) * on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:19PM (#11075263)
    I just did a quick search and most of the things I saw were a couple gold pieces or something and the people were strictly claiming in the auction that the "item" is property of Blizzard and that the person is paying for the time to gather it and process the transaction...

    I wonder what Blizzard thinks of that? Still bad, I assume?

    • Re:hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MindStalker ( 22827 ) <mindstalker&gmail,com> on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:37PM (#11075469) Journal
      Still not allowed by blizzards policy. Sugar coating the legal language isn't going to help you. If you want to trde, use the in-game trading system, which lets you trade virtual-items and virtual-money for other virtual-items and virtual-money. Blizzard can afford kick the players that are only there to make money off the system, so they will do it. The other MMORGS would do this too, but they are probably scared of turning away subsribers, when in reality, banning this activity could ulimatly bring in new subscribers.

      • If you want to trde, use the in-game trading system, which lets you trade virtual-items and virtual-money for other virtual-items and virtual-money.

        So how much virtual-money does it take to play the virtual-game for a month? Division by zero error, you say? Until you can use in-game money to pay to remain playing, pretending you can trade within the game economy is a joke.

        Blizzard can afford kick the players that are only there to make money off the system, so they will do it.

        No, they really

        • Interesting point, while I firmly believe most MMORPG players are not in it to make money, and would prefer people not buy their way into the system, and really hate the people with bots just so they can sell off good items. You do have a point that there probably is a large amount of people who do sell off their old junk, thus making the game more affordable to more users who are being suplimented by people with money to burn. It will be interesting to see how getting rid of such actions will influence the

          • Interesting point, while I firmly believe most MMORPG players are not in it to make money, and would prefer people not buy their way into the system, and really hate the people with bots just so they can sell off good items.

            Why would you hate that? If someone can "game the game" (as it were) with a bot, doesn't that just point to the fact that that aspect of the game isn't worth your individual human effort to play? Wouldn't items so farmed actually be correspondingly cheaper than items that had to

  • Pointless for newbies (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dekks ( 808541 )
    From my brief time in beta, I was under the impression that most of the good items can't be used until a higher level anyway, so the only thing you could really get that would be useful is money, and a newbie probably wouldn't make much use of a few million gold anyway one would think?
    • Well, you could probably pick up a character too while you're at it, though I don't quite know how that might work.
      • Selling characters is easier to detect than selling items, though, because someone has to keep paying for the character after it's been bought.
        • But there's nothing in-game to signal the transfer. If I buy the game with cash, pay the first month or two with pre-paid game cards, and then sell the account to you, the only trail is real-world, as opposed to selling an item or gold, where the transfer happens on Blizzard's servers. If we cover our tracks, there's no way for them to show that you didn't just buy the game yourself. Stuff like that would be limited to a very small scale, though, since attracting a lot of customers requires some amount o
  • Blizzard is just pissed cause the company is not able to capitalize on these items. If they WERE, they wouldn't be complaining.

    They should setup some kind of tax system where they get 20% of the profit when you buy from ebay etc. If you don't pay the tax, they'd send down a grim reaper to fuck your character up.

    • Re:Blizzard Tax (Score:3, Informative)

      by MindStalker ( 22827 )
      Oh, I'm sure they could capitalize if they want to. Other games have. Blizzard has made a concous decision that they want their game to be different. Why must you assume the worse?

    • Re:Blizzard Tax (Score:5, Insightful)

      by servognome ( 738846 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @05:05PM (#11076310)
      The problem is it sends them down a dark legal road where they admit items in game = real money.
      Server goes down and characters are reset - somebody then sues Blizzard because they lost their possessions worth $4000; they also become responsible for losses due to scams, bugs, nerfs (hey my $2000 ubersword got nerfed and is now only worth $5), etc. It also changes the dynamic of the game from entertainment to profit.

  • I hope it works (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @03:47PM (#11075567)
    ebay, IGE, etc have trashed other MMORPG economies. There isn't any way to get it all. Most (I'm speaking from my experience with FFXI) won't do anything or very little to stop it because they don't want to lose a paying customer.

    All Blizzard needs to do(and I hope they do):
    -Sue a couple people ebaying money/items/characters.
    -Kick about 200 or so accounts for trying to buy/sell to IGE.
    -Threaten IGE with legal action and ask for a list of their customers/dealers (ban those accounts too).

    This will put enough fear in your average player to being things to an acceptable level.

    Oh, before anyone tries to say this is what the RIAA is doing - it's not. It might be if RIAA suing people for downloading an MP3, selling it to a web company, then sold to someone else marked up by 80%.

    It might cost Blizzard some lawyer money and less in monthly reviews in the short term. In the long term they won't need to worry about players waiting for a new MMORPG with a fresh economy, and lack of high level ebay fuck-tards.
    • > Sue a couple people ebaying money/items/characters.

      There is no law against selling and buying stuff.
      • Okay then.

        I'll buy your neighbor's car from you and lets see how far we get.
    • Sorry, but IGE, ebay, etc have not trashed other other games economies. This includes FFXI, a game I also came from. Compared to the overall exchange and transfer of money in these game's economies, the money sold by IGE and players is nothing. Nowhere near enough to make a difference to the economy. In game problems like money dups have far more of an effect.

      Second, you think any of the things you suggested Blizzard does would work? Not a chance. How is Blizzard going find how the accounts of playe

    • Why?

      Because law is about how you phrase the argument: What they can say is that they are not selling virtual non real items they are asking for reimbursment for the their time spent, the object in itself is free. And there is nothing they can do about that.

      Of course that assume someone has the guts/money to take a battle otherwise the big company usually win.
  • It seems to me that another thing they have done is to create Soulbound items. I could be wrong, but many of the nicer items are bound to you once you equip them. So, if they change that to automatically bound as soon as you receive an item, the only thing you can do with it is sell it to a vendor.

    So, the only really valuable thing worth selling would be the in-game money. Boring.

    • Soulbinding sometimes triggers just on pickup. This is a PITA. It means that if you find something cool while soloing that one of your friends' characters could use, you can't give it to them.
  • I'm interested in seeing how this plays out. I've been on the fence with Blizzard (didn't exactlly like their use of DMCA even through I could see the logic of their case against the B.net clone) but having played WoW this last week, I've been nothing but impressed by their product.

    For those of you who don't know, WoW comes with the ability to customize your UI, adding, changing and removing functionality through a combination of XML and Lua scripting. They've already said that if you can do it with what t

  • Intersection of reality and fantasy.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by vhold ( 175219 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @05:15PM (#11076396)
    I can't say that I've stayed away MMORPGs strictly for such a simple reason, but getting rid of the ebay overtone to the game would definitely improve a game like this slightly.

    The idea of people spending $$$ to get ahead isn't what intrinsically bothers me, it's just the fact that the suspension of disbelief is dispelled when what should be a fully contained alternative universe intersects at the most fundamental level with the real one.

    Also, I'm willing to admit that the kind of people that are willing to farm in one way or another all day in order to make a buck I'd really rather see move on to another game. They have a vested interest to make all kinds of forum arguments that everything should be more scarce, time consuming and difficult, along with having the time and persistence to be a very vocal minority.
  • Ebay is sending this to anyone selling WoW accounts or items:

    **PLEASE READ THIS IMPORTANT EMAIL REGARDING YOUR LISTING(S)**

    We would like to let you know that we removed your listing:

    XXX

    because the intellectual property rights owner notified us, under penalty of perjury, that your listing or the item itself infringes their copyright, trademark, or other rights.

    We have credited any associated fees to your account. We have also notified the bidders that the listing(s) was removed, and that they are not ob
    • >because the intellectual property rights owner
      >notified us, under penalty of perjury, that
      >your listing or the item itself infringes their
      >copyright, trademark, or other rights.

      What I would like to know is exactly WHAT illegal activity it is that they think one is doing. Copyright infringement? In what way? Trademark? Exactly what? And so on. Just generally and vaguely claiming "intellectual property" and infringement just doesn't cut it. What exactly do they claim?
  • ...And here's why.

    MMORPG live teams can't stop trading/brokering for the same reason the RIAA can't stop P2P, namely that the moment a company or group tries to step on it in one place, it will spring up in 10 different others. Blizzard might be able to intimidate/ally itself with Ebay so that *they* as one site/network don't allow WOW trading, but how many other trade oriented sites are there? You're also forgetting private transactions which can happen very easily. If the particulars are worked out on IC
  • Good. Shelling out real life cash for a virtual item is probably the first step towards major signs of addiction.

    What's the point in shelling out cash for something that everyone has an equal (albeit slim) chance of obtaining at some point? It's like paying for a royal flush in poker.
  • Blizzard is not the first to do this. Sony, Mythic and others all have policies restricting the sale of in game items for real world items.
    Some have already contacted the major auction sites saying that sales should be forbidden.

    What will happen is that you will be an initial handfull of people banned or punished then they will stop. It cost to much money to prevent it and even then you cannot stop the majority of it. If they were really serious about it go after the companies that sell money in game
  • it will continue to happen whatever.

    Thats supply and demand for you.


  • When you make a game with ridiculous exp requirements and difficult to get objects.

    I predict there is no way they are going to stop this - short of changing their game. Remember, EULAs are something that laywers love and users disrespect.

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