WOW TOKENS & CHARACTER BOOSTS, HYPOCRISY OR SECURITY?

10 JULY, 2015 BY JOHN BEAULIEU

Originally posted at SETUIX.COM

 It seems that Blizzard does not mind leveling shortcuts or gold sales as long as they are the ones getting paid for it. For $60 you can boost a new or existing character on World of Warcraft to 90 with decent gear, but if Blizzard suspects you of bottling or using AFK means to effectively do the same thing (level without actually playing to get there) they will give you an account suspension in a heart beat.

Blizzard introduced tokens that provide a method of buying and selling gold in game through them for World of Warcraft recently. The WoW Token gives players with extra gold the ability to use it to cover their subscription cost, and gives players who want to purchase gold a way to do it through Blizzard. Blizzard strongly opposes 3rd party gold sellers and takes actions against both sellers and buyers.

In may Blizzard banned 100,000 accounts for using bots and other 3rd party exploits for a 6 month time period.. Presumably a good portion of the people banned could have been involved in 3rd party gold farming and sales. Many of the banned players were using automation to gain levels and better gear.

After years of trying to prevent gold farming and sales it looks like they have decided they would rather profit from it and remove some competition. Blizzard now provides the means to effectively purchase a higher level character with better gear and a somewhat obtuse method of buying and selling gold through them.

Now I realize that there are some differences in how all of this affects the game economy and that there are reasons that using a third party can have a larger impact on inflation in the game economy. That is why the effective use of in game gold sinks is required. Gold sinks are in game items or services sold by a vendor or NPC. The gold spent effectively disappears from the game economy rather than going to another player.

I also understand that there are many other unscrupulous people that are involved in stealing account information as a means to liquidate characters and sell their gold and items. Not all 3rd party gold sellers are involved in this practice. Every industry has scam artists.

World of Warcraft is an aging game that has suffered some decline in subscriptions. I think the fact that they are trying to find ways to provide services that they have tried to prevent others from providing has more to do with making money than improving the player experience for those that want shortcuts or providing account security. They can’t effectively stop botting or 3rd party sales for virtual goods and services and they can’t sell gold at the low rates available elsewhere. It is very clear to me that this is all just a hypocritical attempt at making some money under the guise of being safe secure and official.