wonder if the addition of the wow tokens are going to cause blizz issues.

[tjmax]

I am sure not everyone using HB to farm gold, some actually buy it with the tokens.

Blizz in effect officially put a real world value on vitual currency and as such, wiping out the gold of someone that purchased it with cash is in effect stealing.

I am sure the token is meant to be a cushion between the dollar and the gold and the gold back to the dollar, but its just a catalyst that only has one purpose. To exchange virtual currency to real world value. Blizzard makes sure your transaction is paid in 24 hours right? That means they are the ones selling gold.


If they closed your account, well then I would think there is nothing you can do. But with the suspensions it changes things. They suspend you and steal your money and items you purchased. I will not be surprised if someone that purchased a bunch of gold does not kick out a lawsuit.

Or maybe not, who knows.

 

[ryftobuddy]

You do realize that the Blizz token is not new at this point and that blizz is far from the first company to do this, right?

This is not going to cause blizz issues in any way. There's been many lawsuits concerning virtual currencies. I guarantee you that Blizzard was well aware of them before they chose to go this route. Even if they do get sued, the amount of money that they've made off this far exceeds anything anyone could win from them in court. Even if something like this isn't immediately thrown out, Blizzard is likely to settle out of court and make the plaintiff sign an NDA concerning the payout.

 

[tjmax]

Yea I know but, other games do not touch paid for items when they suspend. They do not take gold you paid for or items you paid for unless they are terminating the service, and even then they can be held liable for the amount of virtual currency left on the account.
GW2 leaves your account intact when they return it from a suspension.

By placing a real dollar value on virtual currency it effectively has an exchange rate making it currency. There is legal precedence that makes this a true statement. Second life lost several lawsuits over virtual currency and banning. They have a direct exchange rate from money to virtual but the money changing hands in Second life back in the day was no joke. I used to make 30 - 40 k usd a year and I was lazy, had to file a tax return on it too.

Bitcoins are also virtual currency and worth a lot of money.

Just cause they masked it by saying , "ohh no, they are not buying currency for dollars, they are buying this token and they can use that token to get in game currency and they can buy tokens with gold to exchange for game time." is only a shell game attempt to hide the fact they are selling gold for dollars. It does not protect them from illegally seizing your money if someone brought a suit up.

But your likely right. If it came down to it, blizz would settle.

 

[ryftobuddy]

Yea I know but, other games do not touch paid for items when they suspend. They do not take gold you paid for or items you paid for unless they are terminating the service, and even then they can be held liable for the amount of virtual currency left on the account.
GW2 leaves your account intact when they return it from a suspension.

By placing a real dollar value on virtual currency it effectively has an exchange rate making it currency. There is legal precedence that makes this a true statement. Second life lost several lawsuits over virtual currency and banning. They have a direct exchange rate from money to virtual but the money changing hands in Second life back in the day was no joke. I used to make 30 - 40 k usd a year and I was lazy, had to file a tax return on it too.

Bitcoins are also virtual currency and worth a lot of money.

Just cause they masked it by saying , "ohh no, they are not buying currency for dollars, they are buying this token and they can use that token to get in game currency and they can buy tokens with gold to exchange for game time." is only a shell game attempt to hide the fact they are selling gold for dollars. It does not protect them from illegally seizing your money if someone brought a suit up.

But your likely right. If it came down to it, blizz would settle.

Many other games don't even bother with suspensions. They go straight to a ban and you never get your account back. Blizz never used to remove items either, they only added that with the 6 month banwave last time. The TOS explicitly states that they may remove items that are gained from the benefit of botting. It's said it for years.

 

[tjmax]

Well it does not really matter, It was only meant as a conversation thought anyway.

My mains stayed safe this time around cause I never botted on them after last wave and only used the 64 bit client when I logged them in for good measure. lost a trash account I specifically activated to get fast account wide gains and while I got snagged earlier then I had hoped, I still got a lot of my shipyard upgrades and new pets. Just go back to hand grinding the rest on my main.