Pssst! Buddy. Wanna buy a toon?
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Let me just say right at the beginning of this post that I have no hard opinions on the topics of gold buying and account selling. I’m sure everyone took the time to carefully read their End User License Agreement (commonly referred to as a EULA) and consulted with their personal lawyer as to the ends and outs of Blizzard’s wording and how it could impact them down the road.
(I just did a google search on “eula” with the first result being the wikipedia link and the second being the official WoW agreement page. Second!)
No, if you were like me, by the time you got the game loaded and all the patches downloaded and installed, you spent approximately 1.2 microseconds clicking past the agreement screens. I want to play dangit. Obviously, agreements are in place for a reason and if every agreement, law and statute was ignored as we all saw fit, the world would be in sad shape.
Well, we’re not talking about arms dealing here – it’s just a computer game after all. Near as I can tell, it breaks down this way:
- By accepting the agreement, Blizzard allows you to install and play the game (Section 1 – Grant of Limited Use License)
- All aspects of the game, including objects, characters and character names, are owned or licensed by Blizzard (Section 3A – Ownership).
- You may permanently transfer your rights to someone else by uninstalling the game client and giving them your media (Section 3B – Ownership). I’m not a lawyer, but I take this to mean that it is not explicitly illegal to sell your character as long as you transfer ownership, which includes your game client.
Why are we talking about this? I was recently contacted by the operator of an online account-selling website to get some exposure on this blog. It’s kind of like eBay for MMO’s. What’s it called? Well, mmobay of course.
Full Disclosure:mmobay has paid Adventures in Azeroth for this post.
I checked out mmobay and it’s setup just like eBay. Once you create an account, you can bid on auctions, or post a WoW account for sale. At the time I checked there were 110 US server accounts for sale.
The auctions function just like eBay in the sense they list user comments on what is being sold, the starting bid, current bid, number of bids, etc. There is also a buyout feature for those of you that just can’t wait. From my observation it looked like about 2/3 of the auctions had buyouts.
Seller’s “reputation” is listed in the auctions, and again it functions pretty much exactly like eBay. However, given the newness of the site and I’m guessing the small amount of auctions each seller probably has, I’m not sure it tells you much. However, most of the auctions I looked at had the seller’s E-Mail address in the details so you can at least contact them before you bid. There is also a feature within the auction where you can ask the seller a question and they can respond.
Most of the seller’s have a little ribbon next to their name indicating they are a “verified seller”. I could only find a quick overview of what this meant in the site news, and it appears to be a required process to verify the seller’s E-mail address matches their Pay Pal address.
On the negative side, most of the auctions I looked at were pretty sparse on details. I saw a lot of auctions that simply said something like “Great account for sale. Lvl 70 with a couple epics. Also 2 twinks.” Obviously, I need a few more details before I fork over a few hundred for the account. This isn’t mmobay’s issue; the poster needs to put more details up. However, with the “ask a question” feature, and many of the auctions having the seller’s E-Mail address, you do have ways to get more information.
The site is not just for World of Warcraft accounts, but many other MMO games. While fairly sparse on auctions once you leave WoW, they do have categories for City of Heroes, D&D, Guild Wars, LotR, and even Runescape accounts, among others.
Yes, they sell gold. Yes, I’m sure I’ll get flamed for posting this. No, I am not making a personal statement on whether this activity is “acceptable” or not. It’s obvious to me the game-playing community is pretty split over the issue. All I’m really trying to do is get the word out to those of you that might be interested in this kind of service. So if you want to buy wow accounts, give mmobay a shot for your money.
Feel free to comment on this topic. The discussion on the two WoW Insider posts I linked at the start of this article were pretty lively. I’m sure mmobay will also be watching the comments, so if you have questions about the site or service, post them here and I would imagine they’ll respond. Please just watch your language – there are players of all ages reading this blog. I will be actively deleting any comment containing harsh language.
Adventures in Azeroth 
Well, I’m taking this blog off my feed. I’m not going to take seriously the opinion of anyone who gets paid by a gold selling/account selling site.
Geeze Athryn, its just a blog about WoW. Its not like Amanna is trying to sell you shares or anything.
I don’t mind being made aware about these sort of things. I have no interest in spending money on buying someone elses account or gold… I just don’t see the point. If you can’t find the enjoyment in the experience of levelling up a new character (and lets face it, its insanely easy these days) then you really should be looking for another game to play.
Interesting concept. I can see it if say…you have a 70 holy priest you can’t respec to shadow…buy one…lol! What worries me is the ones that jump in and buy a 70 anything with no knowledge of the game. So expensive tho, but still…interesting post,I’m too paranoid to even try it, or gold…lol
Disgraceful, that’s my last comment here.
LOL…
You’d think WoW was a religion to some people…
OMG Disgraceful, that’s disgusting etc…
Who cares really?
I think saying that you’re opening a can of worms is an understatement.
There’s a couple of different things going on here.
The first is, there are lots of people that read blogs, who do not see a difference between blogs, and any other web content. (Web content being news, stories, pictures, and other material available for reading/viewing for the purposes of informing and entertaining).
The folks that do not see any difference, at least as far as I can see, often seem to feel that the people who write all content are rich, somehow, from the very fact that people click on a link.
I don’t know how things work for sites with advertising, but I can tell you straight out, i don’t make a single dime. I write my blog for fun, right now. And will continue to do so, whether I ever make money from writing or not.
Someone came to Adventures with cash in hand, offering said cash for a shout out. Amanna said sure, but instead of just posting a shout out, she took the time to post a reiteration of the EULA, link to info sites, and ina subtle way mock those that would feel the need in this day and age to buy a account or gold.
If a website that used ads and sponsors for revenue adds a gold seller or account seller to their advertisers, i never go back. But we’re not talking someone like that.
I personally wouldn’t accept money from such a person for a shout out. But then I’m a prejudiced jerk against account buyers and sellers and gold spammers.
On the other hand, Amanna… if you are need to make money, you might look into taking your intellectual property and ideas, creating images, and adding a cafepress store to your site.
that’s what i’m trying to do.
I often wondered what I would be able to sell my toon for when I was fully epic’d out in full T1 and T2 on my hunter before the xpack. I looked at some of these sites and found similarly geared hunters going for around $1200. Now, with my Druid tank, my Hunter and my Shadow Priest all level 70, all with amazing gear… I wonder.
I am totally against selling and buying characters. I have seen too many level 70s asking questions in general chat like “Where is the Auction House?” and “What is a Battleground?” that it makes me cringe. But… When it comes time to quit the game and no longer play, what do I care if someone wants to buy my accounts and take over? I’m pretty sure Blizzard has better things to do than sue me, and I sure as hell don’t care whether or not the person buying my account gets banned from the game. I read somewhere a couple months ago about a guy who bought a rogue (I think) for $10,000, had the money sent to the seller, then got banned the next day. I thought it was hillarious.
In the blogosphere the most important thing you have is your image. Accepting cash to write a post shilling a service is a good way to damage that reputation.
Gotta always be careful.
Yeah, not too cool. I won’t link this on WoW Insider because I don’t want to give the gold selling site the exposure, and because I think you can do better than this. You do some good writing here, Amanna, and you should be compensated for it. But as BBB says, there are better ways to make money than shilling for a gold/account seller.
I’m still reading because I think this is a one-off, and at least you were honest about it. But the other commenters are right– you’re putting your reputation on the line here, and anytime you support gold selling (do your readers really care about mmobay? And if not, are you more loyal to the gold sellers or your readers?), you’re going to turn a lot of folks against you.