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Square and Blizzard Drop The Banhammer

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the splat dept.

Gamespot has the news that Square has banned some 2000 accounts from FFXI, and Eurogamer reports that Blizzard has banned 59,000 accounts from World of Warcraft. The bans come as game publishers continue to attempt to crack down on Real Money Traders in their titles. From the FFXI article: "The news follows Square Enix's crackdown of 250 accounts in June over money-farming and real-money trading, which is the practice of selling in-game currency for cash in the real world. Concerns over real-money trading prompted the Japanese government--particularly worried about large-scale money-mining operations in video games--to launch its own investigation last week."

8 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong Headline by Drogo007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Should be something like: Game companies expect revenue increase as banned gold farmers buy new accounts...

    Same Crap, Different Day

  2. Oh Noes!!! by Scott+Lockwood · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now what will I do?? - Oh wait - I know, I'll keep ignoring WoW like I have been since it first came out! How ANYONE can support Blizzard after the whole Bnetd thing is TOTALLY beyond me. Screw them. Screw them right in the ear.

    --
    But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
    1. Re:Oh Noes!!! by dada21 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How is this a troll? This is a very important opinion and one that I support 100%. Blizzard used the DMCA to blow an open source company out of existance (and take over their domain name and property). The attitude here should not be "Blizzard is doing this and that" it should be "Blizzard, the company that used the unconstitutional DMCA against individuals committing no property crime, is still in business. Let's remind each other not to ever buy anything by Blizzard or Vivendi again."

      I'm always shocked how pro-freedom geeks forget their morals when it comes to a game or a product they like. Blizzard is Vivendi, folks, and Vivendi is evil based on their corruption of Congress. Why are we still caring what they do to players who forgot they're evil?

    2. Re:Oh Noes!!! by Have+Blue · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Standard answer: Slashdot is more than one person. There are people out there who watched the whole Bnetd mess and really are not buying Blizzard or Vivendi products right now. There are people out there who ignored or missed out on the whole Bnetd mess and are buying Blizzard or Vivendi products solely on their own merits. There are even people who watched the whole Bnetd mess and decided the outcome and the issues it raised were not important enough to make them give up the experience of playing future Blizzard products.

      Also, it wasn't just some random company blown away because Blizzard felt like being mean. Bnetd was intimately tied to Blizzard's products and business model and they created this relationship without any cooperation or even permission from Blizzard.

  3. Another day another GP by entmike · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (Bannings) -59,000 * $15 = -$885,000/mo
    (New acct) 59,000 * $40 = +$2,360,000
    (Monthly fee) 59,000 * $15 = $885,000/mo

    Looks like the business model is working for the farmers and Blizzard. Kind of like a farming tax. :)

  4. Gold farmers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I always thought the best way to remove farmers was to create a game that's fun to play in ALL regards; farmers only exist because part of the game is so tedious that many players don't want to bother with it. Personally, I'd be insulted if people were paying money NOT to play my game...

  5. preferred solution by aapold · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Blizzard has probably banned more players than the peak populations of most other games... What would make more sense is just to transfer the characters over to a "banned" server. Let that economy fight itself out... Just need a good name for it....

    --
    "Waste not one watt!" - CZ
  6. Gold farming exploits by wadevondoom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used t play WoW. I am quite bored with it now but I played for about a year. I played through to lv 60 twice and enjoyed everything but the buying and selling. Epic items cost way too much for me (a hardcore gamer to my wife but actually a casual gamer to the Slashdot crowd no doubt) to get many.

    In the last two months of playing I made a discovery that just about blew my mind. For those not in the 'know', Blizzard allows a certain amount of mods to be used in game. These do various things such as map enhancements, custom button grouping etc. Now one of these is called auctioneer. What it does is make you money. Not just a little bit but a whole CRAP PILE of money. This mod will NOT get you banned from WoW that I know of either.

    How does it work, you ask? Glad you asked. Its very simple. If you have ever heard the phrase "Buy low. Sell High" well no truer words have ever been spoken about this addon. It scans the auction house for items that are being sold under the mean asking price. So if the average price of a stack of gold bars is 2g (for instance) and there are 5 auctions with bids below it will flag them and allow you to bid on them. You can say show me items with a bid

    I struggled with the morale of using such a tool, but as my subscription was running out I wanted to see how much gold I could make in my last 30 days. I tried to do this on paper for a few weeks early in my WoW career but it is a tiresome process. I had about 6G in the bank. I would run this once a day and by the second to last day I had over 1000g in the bank! Broken or what? It was then I realised I would never play again. What is the point? If its that easy and I can buy whatever I want then there certainly is little use in playing.

    Oh well. y other $0.02 is that I don't think I can support Blizzard too much any more. I loved Diablo2 and WoW for a time but I can't stand it when companies treat their customers like criminals. Close the loops you idiots! Don't blame the guys that spent possibly $100(s) on your @$%^ games. Its THEIR (read: Blizzard's) fault.

    End rant.