real-money-transations
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Blizzard strikes gold sellers with Paypal notices
Last week, Blizzard sent out strongly worded complaints to Paypal, accusing many gold-selling companies and resellers of "intellectual properties violations" for selling World of Warcraft goods. After receiving these complaints, Paypal sent notices off to the gold sellers Blizzard had complaints against, stating that if these activities continued through their websites and the Paypal service, Paypal would revoke their ability to use the popular payment site as a payment option. Here is Paypal's letter to the gold sellers: You were reported to PayPal as an Intellectual Properties violation by Blizzard Entertainment Inc. for the sale of World of Warcraft Merchandise. If you feel your sales do not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of the Reporting Party, please complette the attached Objection to Infringement Report by January 21, 2011. The completed form should be faxed to the attention of the Acceptable Use Policy Department at [number removed] or emailed to [email removed]. Should you choose not to object to the report, you will be required to remove all World of Warcraft Merchandise from the website [url removed] in order to comply with the Acceptable Use Policy. What's very interesting is that Blizzard is claiming intellectual property violations in the face of the most recent decision in the Glider case. Where Blizzard lost on intellectual property concerns under the EULA, they could have a better shot over their game assets being sold, if somehow it ever went to court. Still, Paypal is the easiest route to go for Blizzard's plan of attack against gold sellers, since most of them are run outside of the country. Suffice to say, it's nice to see some action being taken against gold selling.
The Daily Grind: Item malls in EQ/EQ2?
Yesterday was a string of shocking announcements, one right after another. But in all the flood, the loudest cry seemed to come from the devoted followers of EverQuest and EverQuest II who saw real-money-transaction item malls suddenly appear in their game with no warning whatsoever. Most of what we've seen has been cosmetic armor and bonus experience potions, although we also saw the "armor" option in EverQuest which is a small box that generates three pieces of level-equivalent armor and one level-equivalent weapon for your character, but no further description is given. Now that you've had some time to look it over, kick the proverbial tires, and see just exactly what is in the item mall, what do you think about the idea of SOE's adding an item mall into EverQuest and EverQuest II? Is it less about the item mall and more about the fact that it was put in without any warning to the community at all? Or does it simply concern you that this is the first step before going down the slippery slope of having people buying uber gear and weapons versus earning them by playing the game?
