Pariah’s Guild:This Is Where You Press Start!

Noobkiller; Thank you for accepting this interview. Pariah?s Guild is
happy to interview such experts of your magnitude.

Mike: Heh, not a problem. I don’t know what magnitude of experts we really are, but it’s always fun to talk about WoW.

Noobkiller; First off, how long has it been since you played World of
Warcraft for the first time?

Mike: I started playing World of Warcraft in May of 2005. I had played Dark Age of Camelot before that, and I read up on all the reviews of WoW to make sure that it was worth it investing in another MMO. I loved Diablo, and though Warcraft III wasn’t my favorite game (I’ve never been really good at RTS), I did play it a lot with my friends at LAN parties for years and years. So yes when my birthday came around in May, I very excitedly got WOW as a birthday present to myself, and I’ve been playing ever since.

Noobkiller; Is buying WOW gold online legal or illegal, and why?

Mike: Well it’s not actually illegal– you can’t get arrested for selling virtual goods (although it might be illegal to not report the income, or some other tax messiness with the IRS). But it is against Blizzard’s terms of service, and it’s against the spirit of the game. Many players, including myself and most of the WoW Insider staff, consider it cheating, because the rules of the game are determined by Blizzard, and if Blizzard says you shouldn’t do it, then you shouldn’t do it. Not to mention that the rest of us are all working and playing inside this game world according to their rules, and anyone who goes outside of that, and pays real money for fake gold, is seen as cheating.

Noobkiller; So what’s your stance on this buying WOW gold online issue?

Mike: I pretty much explained it– I think it’s cheating. There are games that make paying money in real life a part of the game (and for the record, the only game of this kind that I’ve played so far is Dungeon Runners, and I haven’t paid anything extra to play it yet– I’m not sure yet if I will or not), but World of Warcraft isn’t one of them. Buying gold with real-life money is cheating, is against Blizzard’s Terms of Service, and will get you banned.

Noobkiller; How does the process of buying WOW gold work?

Mike: Again, I’ve never bought or sold gold, so all I know about it is what I’ve heard from others. Gold buyers should know, though, that the gold they buy isn’t always obtained simply by farming or working the auction house. A lot of gold sellers will hack accounts to get the gold they need, and so when you buy gold, you’re encouraging that kind of activity as well. Ever heard of anyone logging into the game to find all their items and money gone? That’s a goldseller.

Noobkiller; This is kind of a stupid question, but why do you think so
many people buy WOW gold online?

Mike: I don’t know that "so many" people do it. The main reason I’ve heard is that people think that they need gold in order to play the game the way they want to play it– ie, a raider can’t raise enough gold per day to pay for his reagents or repairs. Other people want to get the epic flying mounts, but don’t want to put the time in to get them. Blizzard has made great strides in solving both of these problems– daily quests are a great way of raising all the gold you need, and as of 2.3, they’ve put them in on battlegrounds and instances, stuff that people were already running anyway. So while there are many excuses for why people buy gold, those excuses are drying up every time Blizzard updates the game. At this point, there’s really no excuse for buying gold– there are more than enough guides and tips around (including on WoW Insider) to raise all the money you need yourself.

Noobkiller; When you type in WOW gold in Google, you see that
20,600,000 results appear, all containing websites that allow you to
buy WOW gold. How come we’re seeing this emergence of buy WOW gold
sites?

Mike: Again, I don’t think it’s an emergence– again, most people selling gold are already willing to break the rules, so link spamming and other shifty online SEO methods are par for the course in an "industry" like this. There are not 20 million sites out there selling gold, I’ll tell you that. We’ve had goldspam links on WOW Insider, and lots of other WOW blogs have seen that kind of junk, too. So lots of results in Google doesn’t mean a lot of people are buying gold– it just means gold spammers are good at cheating the system.

Noobkiller; So how does buying WOW gold online differ from buying
virtual items like Microsoft points on X-Box live or virtual items in
Second Life?

Mike: Well, I don’t agree with some of the downloads on Xbox Live either– charging real money for horse armor in Oblivion? No thanks. But the biggest difference between both of those outlets and Blizzard’s game is that Blizzard does not condone the sale of their virtual items. They ban people who both buy and sell gold from the game. As I said, there are games out there that happily will sell you virtual items for your real money, and it’s your choice whether you want to play (or pay) those games or not. But Blizzard is vehemently against goldselling in their game, and that’s why it’s different. There are other reasons– many of the Microsoft Xbox purchases are for actual games, not in-game items, and many of the items in Second Life are created with care and talent, and therefore more worthy of being paid for. But the main difference is that the creators of Xbox and Second Life are in favor of those transactions, and the creators of World of Warcraft are not.

Noobkiller; Is Blizzard aware of this issue, and what are they doing about it?

Mike: Yeah, as we’ve talked about, Blizzard is very aware of this issue, and I think that they are doing things ingame to stop it. The daily quests were a good idea, but their real strength is that they provide players with the gold they need. Additionally, Blizzard has made changes to the ingame mail system, and a few other changes in the chat system that directly target goldsellers. There is more that Blizzard can do, but I’ll leave that until your next question.

Noobkiller; How long do you think people will continue to buy WOW gold?

Mike: Here’s the key: until they feel they don’t need it any more. The main reason people still need gold in the game isn’t really repairs or consumables any more– Blizzard has made enough changes so that pretty much everyone who needs those can get as much as they need without a lot of effort. The main need for gold in the game is simply the epic mount riding skill cost. That’s really the only thing left in the game that players need a large chunk of gold for, and as soon as Blizzard changes that, either by bringing it under a rep grind, or making it based on BoP turn-ins, or whatever change they decide to make, the RMT (real-money trading) industry will suffer. The reason they haven’t changed it yet is that Blizzard wants the epic flying mount to be a huge achievement, but I think they’re learning their lesson– simply charging players a huge chunk of gold leaves them open to gold buying, and makes the achievement even less important. Once Blizzard changes the game so that you don’t ever need a huge amount of gold at one time, the vast majority of gold sellers will be left out in the cold.

Noobkiller; Once again, thank you for accepting this interview. It’s
a true honor interviewing a WOW expert here on the blog.

Mike: No problem, glad to do it. Good luck with your blog.

To learn more about the WOW community, then visit WOW Insider.