After years of providing video game cheaters a leg up in their MMORPG of choice, eBay has announced an end of virtual item auctions on its site. No longer will video gamers be able to buy accounts, swords, gold and other items via the online auction site. Questions over the legality of allowing such sales prompted the move. According to an article on Monsters and Critics, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy has said, “We can’t say definitely if it’s legal or illegal. It’s complex. And when something is complex like this, we have a history of disallowing the items.”
The online sale of virtual items is estimated to be a $100 million business. This is considered a cottage industry in places such as China where gamers work in teams, around the clock, to amass virtual wealth only to turn around and sell the items to players that prefer to buy their way to gaming success rather than earn it. There’s even a documentary in process that will show the pros and cons of such a business.
The game companies themselves frown on such actions as they tend to make the playing field uneven for gamers and farmers themselves make it difficult for other players to gain wealth the old fashion way – by earning it.
Blizzard Entertainment’s Shon Damron has been quoted with that company’s position. “We have clearly maintained that all of the content in `World of Warcraft` is the property of Blizzard,' he said. 'We do not allow in-game items to be sold for real money.”
With the cheating industry such a big business, the eBay move very likely won’t make it go away. It will, however, close one very big outlet in the gaming black market, which in my opinion is a very good thing.
While I certainly applaud the efforts of Chinese gold miners (who want to do the work) in finding gainful employment and a way off the streets that’s not really hurting anyone, the resulting sales just make for bad gaming and tend to take the fun out of it all for gamers who like to play the way games are meant to be played.
Sure, I’d love to be rich in EverQuest or Vanguard, but I’d rather do it at my own pace, in my own time than suffer the ridicule of being called an “eBayer.”
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