Is Blizzard serious about gold buying ?

#0 - Nov. 6, 2009, 8:05 p.m.

There has been a topic about this few days back.
I am not so sure whether blizzard is actually serious about gold buying.
Call me "conspiracy buff" but i list down the following arguments that state that Blizzard is in cahoots with Gold Sellers.

a) Just search WOW Gold in Google you will see literally dozens of websites that sell gold .How come so many websites are there if Blizz has taken any earnest step to prevent the practice in the first place ?

b) All the gold sellers pay subscription or atleast buy an account to trade gold (as seen from the lvl 1 shouting in SW).So more subscription more money for WOW.If Blizz is serious about the gold buyers banning then these lvl 1 chrs sprouting in SW spamming.

c) A gold seller A sells gold to buyer B.Then correct me if i am wrong there are only a couple of ways by this transaction can take place.

i) Trading with chr B
ii) AH
ii) Mailing

All the above mentioned are TRACKABLE.

To give more info plz read the below :
It is perfectly possible to keep track of all the gold transactions that take place that are above certain level and do an automated analysis .I know this can be done (even if there are 100s of thousands transaction of gold in a day) as I am a system and application admin for a Fortune 500 company.I know this for a fact.These logs can be analyzed within matter of hrs thoroughly (assuming there is 100000 transactions).System flags can be set and alarms can be raised against potential buyers.

Why does the blizzard does not do this ?

To summarise

Because Blizzard

a) does not lose any of its money from gold sellers.
b) the only issue it will face is when it has to restore a hacked account and it has become easy nowadays as chrs are not actually deleted ..For those who are not aware, It is perfectly possible to restore your chr if you send a ticket to GM
c) Blizz gets more money from the subscriptions of the gold sellers
d) If your credit card gets stolen or hacked, Blizz does not lose any money (I am being mean but this is the fact ).So Blizz is not affected at all.

I bet the gold sellers and the entire practice will be gone in a day if Blizzard starts to sell gold byitself. because now Blizzard has competition and they will easily eliminate the practice in day

PS : I am pretty sure Blizzard will delete this thread though :)

Malkorix

#19 - Nov. 6, 2009, 10:40 p.m.

Q u o t e:
a) Just search WOW Gold in Google you will see literally dozens of websites that sell gold .How come so many websites are there if Blizz has taken any earnest step to prevent the practice in the first place ?

Our legal ability to simply 'shut down' another site is limited, particularly if those sites are based in locations where their activities are not illegal.

Q u o t e:
b) All the gold sellers pay subscription or atleast buy an account to trade gold (as seen from the lvl 1 shouting in SW).So more subscription more money for WOW.If Blizz is serious about the gold buyers banning then these lvl 1 chrs sprouting in SW spamming.

Are they? I thought they operated almost exclusively through compromised accounts. It seems you are more aware of their practices that we are!

Q u o t e:
c) A gold seller A sells gold to buyer B.Then correct me if i am wrong there are only a couple of ways by this transaction can take place.

i) Trading with chr B
ii) AH
ii) Mailing

All the above mentioned are TRACKABLE.

Indeed they are, and we make a constant and concerted effort to deal with this kind of exploitation every single day. Unfortunately, most of those efforts are largely invisible to our players. It's far easier to see what does occur, rather than all which may have occurred but doesn't because it was prevented.

Q u o t e:
a) does not lose any of its money from gold sellers.

Actually, these activites cost us money in the man hours used to recover compromised accounts, and in the emotional toll their activities can take on our players.

Q u o t e:
b) the only issue it will face is when it has to restore a hacked account and it has become easy nowadays as chrs are not actually deleted ..For those who are not aware, It is perfectly possible to restore your chr if you send a ticket to GM

It's correct that restorations are possible - but characters are still stripped. Compromisers often use the victim's account for exploitative activities, which requires yet more investigation.

Q u o t e:
c) Blizz gets more money from the subscriptions of the gold sellers

This is incorrect.

Q u o t e:
d) If your credit card gets stolen or hacked, Blizz does not lose any money (I am being mean but this is the fact ).So Blizz is not affected at all.

If our players are compromised, of course it affects us, and of course we care! Fortunately, these compromisers tend to leave financial information alone, as it is much safer for them to pursue a World of Warcraft account than it is to pursue a bank account, from a legal perspective.

Q u o t e:
I bet the gold sellers and the entire practice will be gone in a day if Blizzard starts to sell gold byitself. because now Blizzard has competition and they will easily eliminate the practice in day

At the cost of offering a competitive advantage to a player with the expenditure of additional money. This is very unlikely to ever occur within World of Warcraft - but if you'd like to see this happen, please feel free to create a constructive post on the subject in our Suggestions forum.

Finally, you may find this article interesting reading:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/antigold.html

Malkorix

#20 - Nov. 6, 2009, 10:53 p.m.

Q u o t e:
They should however ban the IPs of those countries it cannot be enforced in. -_-

I'm unable to go into the details, but that simply would not be an effective method of curtailing these activities, unfortunately.

Orlyia

#43 - Dec. 17, 2009, 8:53 p.m.

Yeah, this was kind of a non-starter even new.