Quote: Original post by SAE Superman
I'm not sure how I think about this. My initial reaction is that this is crappy. It doesn't hurt companies at all. Here's the article since you have to be logged in to see it through the link:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=4688
Blizzard, a company notable for going after online cheaters and pirates in its blockbuster PC titles Diablo II and Warcraft 3, is tackling another sore point for Internet-focused games developers: offline trading of items for real-world money. An email sent out to users of PC MMO World of Warcraft now states: "The World of Warcraft Terms of Use clearly state that all of the content in World of Warcraft is the property of Blizzard, and Blizzard does not allow 'in game' items to be sold for real money. Accordingly, Blizzard Entertainment will take any and all actions necessary to stop this behavior."
Although not unprecedented (other MMOs, including EverQuest, have cracked down on item/money reselling in the past), "any and all actions" involves some fairly strict penalties: both the characters and accounts of offending sellers will be deleted, and Blizzard may go so far as to take legal action against the vendors. Buyers get off with a lighter sentence but still not unscathed: the items they purchased will be deleted, and there's the possibility that their accounts will be suspended as well.
Offline retailers of MMO items and accounts have gone to surprising lengths before to make their profits, including hiring a team of unskilled Mexican laborers in Tijuana to grind levels all day. In light of such unsavory practices offline, it's perhaps understandable why Blizzard is pursuing offline item retailers as vigorously as they are, although many users maintain that they should be able to resell items they gained through hard virtual work.
Making such behavior illegal is fully proper for a game company to maintain control of their game and the ability to deliver a planned game experience.
Ive seen at least one bug game (UO) ruined by this kind of behavior. Any designed game balance was eliminated and players behaviour was warped so much that 'rare' and house speculation denied a good game experience to many thousands of players (and cost the company millions due to people quitting prematurely).
It got so bad, that the company eventually wasted resources catering to this behavior instead of improving the game.
Players efforts were cheapened by 'credit card' players buying experience and objects that others had to work hard to achieve, and speculation/monopolation (most significantly for houses) forced prices out of the range of players who did not play the same distorted way.
