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World of Warcraft: Blizzard Files Lawsuit on Gold Seller
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
Blizzard has announced on their forums that they will be taking legal action against Peons4hire, a gold selling organization well known to many World of Warcraft players for their obnoxious spamming and in-game advertising.
As many of you know, the latest content patch, along with many great new content additions, contains technical counter-measures designed to combat in-game gold spamming. Our efforts to reduce in-game abuse and create a fun, safe environment for everyone are never-ending.
With that said, we felt that it was important to share with the community just how serious we are in our efforts to combat this type of abuse. Blizzard has filed a federal lawsuit against the operators of Peons4hire, a popular gold-selling organization which many of you have no doubt seen advertised. As part of the lawsuit, the operators of Peons4hire have been asked to immediately cease all in-game spamming efforts by all entities and websites under their control.
If this organization refuses to act accordingly, further legal action will be taken. We'll be sure to keep you posted on the progress of this topic.
Read the thread on the WoW forums.
Comments
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My Option:
They are not going to crap to these people; they did this just to appease the masses (the people that complain). You watch these people will still sell gold and Blizzard will do nothing about it.
UO-EQ1-SWG-DAOC-WOW-EQ2-WAR-GW2-RIFT
I hope this doesn't imply that it's okay to sell gold as long as you don't advertise it through in-game spam.
I give blizzard
i know after the last patch spam is down,duno if it is because of lawsuit or no more whispering 4 trial accounts.But the game is much better with out the gold sellers.
So maby nothing will happen to "Peons4hire" but
to blizzard for the try!!
The following statement is false
The previous statement is true
Indeed, Peons4hire are the worst culprits for spamming whispers to players and also spamming ingame channels ie General. Ideally though if Blizzard wanted to get rid of gold buying alltogether they'd need to make getting gold more enjoyable, right now you have to grind for hours to get a decent amount of money even more so now all the places where you can make money are camped with bots etc...
I didn't realize there were so many WoW clones...seeing WoW was the first MMO ever made..oh wait, wasn't there something before WoW, another MMO or 2 or 3 or ....
-Semper ubi sub ubi!
always wear underwear
All canceled. Waiting on Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning.
All I can say is "Its about dam time!" ...... If they follow thru with the lawsuit and win. It will be a nice step in the right direction for MMO's in general, and pave the way for other companys to take a no BS policey with these sellers.
As far as some commments like it won't do much are you kidding? If they can win a "Damages lawsuit" , hmm not sure what the right legal term is . But prove the sellers damage their game " Financial Asset". They can put these guys outta bussiness forever and finacially hurt them for a long time. It would also make it easier for other companys to follow their footsteps and use this action as a reference in their own cases. If Blizzard even follow thru that is as well as win the case.
Yep they're saying there's nothing they can do legally about selling gold..
1st question the judge asks "Ok so you don't want these guys spamming. Explain to me what you're doing to prevent everyone from spamming in chat channels?" "Explain to me what you're doing to prevent people from circumventing chat filters?" "Explain to me why you are targeting this person over anyone else?"
The minute the judge determines that these guys are being targeted not for their spam but for the content of their spam versus the content of spam in chat channels the case is tossed.
I appreciate the effort but it's just not going to happen.
Yep they're saying there's nothing they can do legally about selling gold..
1st question the judge asks "Ok so you don't want these guys spamming. Explain to me what you're doing to prevent everyone from spamming in chat channels?" "Explain to me what you're doing to prevent people from circumventing chat filters?" "Explain to me why you are targeting this person over anyone else?"
The minute the judge determines that these guys are being targeted not for their spam but for the content of their spam versus the content of spam in chat channels the case is tossed.
I appreciate the effort but it's just not going to happen.
Nm, if thats the case then , hmm if they are just going after the spamming, this is kinda pointless and nothing but a PR stunt. I didn't read all the previous posts. Doh....
Tho i honestly don't see why they couldn't sue the snot out of gold sellers for selling gold. Its Blizzards property, their servers , their game. Theres a ton of idiotic and stupid lawsuits that go thru the court system and win all the time. If OJ can win his case, I don't see why the heck Blizzard couldn't build a dream team and win against gold sellers, and pave the way for other smaller companys to follow suit.
I guess Blizzard just gave peons4hire a huge free advert. There are three possible flaws to their lawsuit:
- probably they can never prove that the accounts spamming are people working for the said goldseller
- it is a virtual asset issue without precedent. Why condemn advertising in a virtual world when advertising is part of life. Also there are a lot of MMOs and MUDs around that actually sell real life stuff.
- The only two negative aspects of the issue is that it is a form of cheating and spamming ruins the environment. But isn't it up to the moderators aka Blizzard themselves to act accordingly? All they can do is enforce the virtual world laws aka their laws. However the laws of a virtual world do not taly with real life laws. The maximum they can do is apply filters and ban accounts.
This is going to be either the joke of the year or an MMO revolution. It will be interesting to follow.
To wannabe or not to wannabe? Hey I know the answer and it is not 42!
Or...would they? Perhaps not me thinks.
Remember, gold sellers (well, the people who farm the gold) pay lots of subscription fees, and each time they get banned they have to buy new licenses to start over. (bumps up those sales figures you know). Also, keep in mind...who do gold sellers actually sell to? Well, cheating dirtbags of course, but keep in mind...those cheaters all pay subscription fees. In fact, since they are willing to invest substantial real money into their WOW hobby, there's a very good chance that they aren't going to cancel said subscription any time soon. Heck, there's a very good chance those same cheaters actually pay for more than one subscription per month....
So where's Blizzard's real incentive to stop the gold trade? Sure, they have to pay lip-service towards appearing to care, so that people who detest the practice don't assume that they actually might condone it. But in the end, they are very de-motivated to actually prevent gold trading.
You may notice, they've made it so the best gear has to be earned via intensive in game raiding by the player or lots of in game PvP sessions, again by the players themselves. Sure, you can hire people to level you in these areas, but few have the means or desire to try to do so. So that effectively leaves gold for buying frills, like potions/materials for raiding, low level BOE gear for alts that are leveling up (and still paying sub fees) mounts which have little real effect in the gameplay, and other non consequential items.
No, I don't think Blizzard or most other game companies are really worried about shutting down the gold trade completely....
Now, in game spam is a different story, its annoying a major portion of the player base, and they are forced to deal with it. No one will ever say..boy I'm sure glad I got spammed today...but many people will continue to buy WOW gold from the sellers.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If they can sue and win it would be a great boon for the rest of the gaming industry. But if they lose...
Unfortunately a lot of the gold advertisers are based in other countries and they will need to depend on international laws and the willingness of the "other countries" to take action on the people/companies that are in the gold selling business. As was described to me, can you imagine China putting the clamps down on a company that is giving jobs to its people and bringing in a lot of American dollars?
<Mod edit>.
As I see it, the real problem is not just the advertisers but the people who buy their services. If they didn't buy the advertisers and the secondary market for in game items, coin and characters would go away. But then there are a lot of people out there for quick self gratification and while that is a problem there will be others trying to profit from it.
-They call me Velsha
*Scratches head*
*Counting the days since WoW launch*
Ok in 2.5 years how many Gold selling companies did Blizzard sue, hmmmm... lets see : 1 ?
Let me put it even simpler for those that didnt get the hint : they relied on them (the farmers, the gold/account sellers) for the past 2.5 years and now that they can stand on their own 2feet, with a big player base, and dont need free advertising anymore they just file 2-3 lawsuits so that the players will think they are doing them justice, upholding righteousness and stuff, and they arent slacking. In truth they don't care much bout this issue.
$$$$, or as ABBA put it :
Money money money
Must be funny
In the rich mans world.
They need to go after <Mod edit> too, I hate those bastards, on our server you can't go 10 minutes without one of them spamming you
. One of them actually managed to spam trade channel on the horde side on our server...go figure. I think part of the problem is when they are not located on US shores, there isn't a lot legally they can do to them, other than try to kick them out of game, but then again most of them are level 1 new trial characters....so its kinda pointless to kick them out. They need something in the systems to allow regular paying users to block trial players from private tells, because most trial players (not all mind you) have a friend who already plays, so you could put the friend on some sort of exception list, much like the ignore list. I mean new players would be able to use regular /say to ask questions, and if someone started to spam gold there just walk away from them LOL.
The real problem is the Gold-Buyer.
Shame on you, Gold Buyers. Shame on you!
This is funny blizzard made a game where you have to use gold to become better than normal.
now they dont like goldsellers ?
Raven