Asheron's Call Bans eBay Housing, Account Sales

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an official Asheron's Call forum post mentioning that "Turbine has notified eBay to remove auction listings for the sale of Asheron's Call accounts/characters and in-game housing." This move, similar to Sony's ban on EverQuest item selling on eBay which debuted back in 2001, comes after Turbine's purchasing of Asheron's Call back from Microsoft, and it's explained: "Many housing auctions are run by brokers who deprive players from being able to acquire housing through legitimate in-game means; many account sales end up being recalled by the original player, causing grief to the buyer and creating a difficult situation for customer service."

Comments

I can fly

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

Hi, I'm a poor game designer. To cover up the fact that I can't properly adjust game balance, figure out how to fairly set up housing, fix multiple problems since the games birth and a myriad of other problems I'm going to attack the end result of my incompetance instead of the root of the problem.

Watch me ban eBay sales, because everyone knows when I do that, none of it will ever go on again, just look at Everquest, they stomped out eBay sales and look where it's got them (IGE, Playerauctions, etc)! 500K players must be the end result of crushing a single output of a mini-game that some players prefer to play over the normal game (*cough* me).

Me thinks the marketting execs, need a checkup from the neckup, this age old practice is archaic and outdated in comparision with the quite commonplace sub-market that exists now. Work with it or get out.

P.S. I haven't played AC in years, just many other MMOGs.