Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsHow gold sellers are transacting business these days
by Robin Torres 
Sep 20th 2007 at 11:01AM
I was reading the Se7en Samurai blog today and found an interesting post about gold sellers. Stormgaard went to a site advertised by one of those delightful spammers in Ironforge and discovered an open letter to their customers describing how they were currently conducting business and why they changed their methods.
It seems that the changes that Blizzard has made to the mail system has forced the gold sellers to change their tactics. They can no longer simply send gold through the in-game mail system because of the hour delay and the new "anti-transaction system". Face to face trades are out of the question for this particular company due to the time difference between their customers and their country.
Everybody now: awwwwwww!
Their new workaround is to have you put up Tough Jerky in the AH if you are Horde and Tough Hunks of Bread if you are Alliance for certain amounts (they provide a chart) using the character name you provided them. This bypasses the in-game mail security Blizzard put in by using the Auction House to conduct the transaction.
I went searching the Auction Houses where I keep my numerous alts to see if I could find any. As you can tell by the above picture, I did -- though it took me 5 servers to find one. Surprisingly, (to me) it is an RP server. Though it took a few tries to find this gold buyer, I assume that different companies are using different items to do the same thing. I would go looking at other gold selling sites but I don't want to give them the traffic or risk accidentally downloading nastiness.
No matter how many obstacles Blizzard puts in the way of Real Money Transactions, as long as there are customers, the gold sellers will find a way to satisfy them.
Have you seen any other easily obtained, cheap items up for sale on the AH for outrageous prices? How do you feel about spending real money on virtual property that you actually don't end up owning? Do cheaters really never prosper?
(Update: Help us get rid of the gold seller ads on our site by using the Contact Us Link under Resources on the sidebar.)
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Economy
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Richard Sep 20th 2007 2:15PM
Delcoro: you're the real idiot here.
How are sites like wowinsider paid for?
One guess, brainiac.
If every reader of the site blocked their ads, guess where you'd be leaving your moronic comments?
NOT HERE.
Ads are there for a reason. By NOT viewing them, you're effectively getting the site for "free", which makes you a "cheater", too.
I personally don't mind the ads on the internet. I even click the occasional one that's targeted towards me.
But if wowinsider wants legitimacy, they have to stand up and say, "we don't agree with gold selling, so we're not going to accept advertising from them."
Lupo Sep 20th 2007 4:28PM
If I want gold I should be able to buy it. Do I buy gold? Nope! I have made it with the AH and I will keep making it with the AH. Yet when it comes time for my Flying Mount I may just buy some then.
Liel Sep 20th 2007 3:16PM
@35 sheesh who cares, in other countries buying gold/items in mmo is the norm. The whole "work" to earn imaginary items in a video game has no impact on the real world anyways.
BOP solves many of the problems of people just getting gold to get superior or rarer items anyhow.
Sides this site likes to earn its keep to keep it free like you like to earn your keep by doing your chores for your parents lol.
EvilCheese Sep 20th 2007 3:48PM
@37 LOL @ You. As a poster already said, if everybody was like you... this site wouldn't even be here. So grats to you for supporting a site you love so much! For the record, I'm in Firefox right now... but I choose to support websites, even if I don't agree with them 100% of the time. You have failed.
@41 I don't really remember say anything about gold buying, so much as the inherent hypocrisy of this website always condemning such a practice but still occasionally featuring advertisements for the very things they condemn.
Also, I wasn't aware that it's really my parents signing my pay checks!?!?! But I guess I learn something new every day :)
Wintermute Sep 20th 2007 3:58PM
So since there's been a couple people in here implying that only kids with no lives have a problem with gold buying/selling, I felt I had to chime in. I'm 29, have my own house, a full-time job, active social life, etc, and I still wouldn't buy gold. So I don't have an epic flying mount, so what? When I finally do get one, I bet I'll appreciate it much more than those who bought gold to buy it. So in conclusion, get a new argument. Thanks.
Wulfhere Sep 20th 2007 4:20PM
But if wowinsider wants legitimacy, they have to stand up and say, "we don't agree with gold selling, so we're not going to accept advertising from them."
- Quoted from poster "Richard"
Poster Richard is what we like to call incredibly, mouthbreathingly stupid.
Essentially, Richard, and I know you're incredibly, mouthbreathingly stupid so I'll TRY and keep this to your level, but it's hard... essentially, yes, they do just that. They have no way of knowing what ads Google will serve up and they depend on you, the reader, to report the gold sellers to them so that they can ensure they can block those ads.
It is the only workable business model for advertising that actually generates a profit at this time. Google IS basically the ballgame. If you'd like to provide an advert system that can ensure gold sellers will never appear, get to work: no such system currently exists.
Please, try and close your mouth when you breathe, actually look at the subject to hand, and express something relevant and meaningful to the discourse. Or shut the hell up. I honestly don't care which.
Mad Cow Sep 20th 2007 4:24PM
I caught on to this a while ago. Someone in trade channel actually went off about the guy listing 5 tough jerky for 200g each.
I took a peak and there was almost 2 dozen of them at 200g. So ... I threw in a few of my own, every day for a little over two months. For a long while I just got my jerky back, but every day there was more and more jerky ... I figured something wasn't right. Then one day I logged in to find 2360 some odd gold in my mailbox from some random toon name (oadurweo or something). Two days later, another 1000g.
I "used" the system successfully for about 6 weeks. My last haul I managed to grab about 700g.
Overall ... I walked away with almost 19k in gold. Thanks to anyone who bought gold. My 3 rescued flying mounts thank you as well.
Liel Sep 20th 2007 5:24PM
If you buy gold you support Osama Bin Laden
Quitze Sep 20th 2007 6:24PM
I can spend X hours grinding for Y gold, or I can spend X-1 hours "grinding" at work for Y gold...
Nyx Sep 20th 2007 8:54PM
@9: I'm a twenty-something with a full-time job that leaves me very little WoW time - and I still think goldbuying is incredibly lame.
This is not a one-player game. Buying gold affects a lot of people in a negative way - just so you don't have to go through the hoops that the game designers intended. You'll have to forgive them - they probably don't know how "special" you are.
Dave Sep 21st 2007 11:59AM
The "hoops" the designers intend, are intended for a single purpose: To keep your subscription active for another month. Period! It's not to give you a sense of achievement, or a superior set of junk in your pants having spent so much time at a video game doing something repetitive. It's to separate you from your $15/mo, and make sure you've got a cookie at the end of the month that makes you think it was all worth it.
Gold buying doesn't really affect this from the standpoint of Blizzard, and in fact they don't discourage it very well. They make token efforts to convince the whiners who hate people who buy gold that they're doing something about it, but they're really not. They could ban every single gold seller tomorrow if they needed to do it.
Has anyone pondered how much money the gold selling empire is contributing to Blizzard's bottom line and marketing? If you can claim that you have 9 million subscribers, do you really think they're all legitimate players? Would you be surprised if that figure was... 2 million gold farming accounts? 2 million accounts, 15 bucks a month... we're talking serious financial penalties for Blizzard if they actually get rid of gold sellers and farmers.
How much is your time worth anyway? I know most people don't even begin to think about how much their actual time is worth in dollars and cents, but if I make $30/hr, and it's going to take me 20 hours to farm something up, then technically if I can just buy whatever that thing happens to be for less money than I'd make in the same amount of time at my hourly rate... It's very illogical to think I wouldn't be interested in doing it.
It's not cheating, since buying gold doesn't make you a better or a worse player. That thought is a pretty weak one that doesn't even analyze the game, unless of course your only objective in this game is to make money... in which case yeah sure why not, lets's just call it cheating.
It's a video game with roadblocks designed to keep your money flowing towards Blizzard. Stop trying to make it into something honorable and different. Epic Flying mounts cost 5,000g for a single reason, and that's to hook you into the game even longer and give you a reason to stick around after you have it. Arena weapons cost so much, because if it takes you an entire month of points to get a single item from the Arena, you're gonna spend a lot of time paying Blizzard for the opportunity to get your cookie.
Stop trying to make this game into something other than a revenue source for Blizzard. That's all it is. You're not more honorable or awesome than someone else because you don't buy gold. Gold buyers (or sellers) aren't more or less than anyone else either. You can't buy skill with your character and the ability to play your class well. You can be the worst rogue ever, and not buying gold doesn't change that, neither does buying it.
Amok2006 Sep 21st 2007 12:09PM
Dave, you are 100% right.
h8rain Sep 21st 2007 4:10PM
@ #48 - So true....so true
What sucks is if they stop this, then that kills the way to transfer money between Alliance/Horde toons :(
ThorinII Sep 21st 2007 4:54PM
I'll never buy gold for one reason....
Real money rocks!!
Why would I spend my REAL hard-earned cash on fake, not worth the paper it isn't printed on, never going to do me good IRL, it's only a game, gold?????????? I'm still having a hard time with the fact I am paying a monthly fee to play a game as it is. :0(
Andy O. Sep 21st 2007 4:58PM
I was wondering why I was getting 2-3 tells every 10 minutes in LotRO lately. Didn't realize WoW had some design changes recently to combat this problem.
I had to turn off direct tells in game it was so bad.
spyro Sep 27th 2007 5:36PM
I can see why people are tempted to buy gold..
The tedious grind for hours, days and even weeks to get enough money for a certain item makes the game boring, as in, no longer fun, and what are games supposed to be? Fun :)
At level 70, items can cost so much money its unreal, and even at the best grinding spots u are only gonna get 200-300 gold for a hard days 'mundane work'
Personally, i think that Blizz are responsible for the gold seller market, because they have made stuff far to expensive to compensate the rewards for killing, for example, trash mobs at Death's Door (popular spot with the farmers), example: Kill trash mobs there, 20-30 silver drops from each one, maybe a 'Mark of Sargeras' and if u very lucky a 'Fel Armament'
How many weeks would u need to go through that BORING rigmarole to earn 5200 gold for epic flying?
Make the game like a job, and people will look for ways to make things easier for themselves, and personally i dont blame them.
Mike Sep 30th 2007 11:30PM
"How do you feel about spending real money on virtual property that you actually don't end up owning?"
You mean, like 10 dollars a month for, um, some WOW characters? LOL. And don't try to argue that you're paying for the game, because that is bought in the store. Paying for gold is no different than paying to play. Either way, you're paying for a SERVICE. This is hardly a new concept.
hpavc Oct 15th 2007 4:38PM
Most of the posters seem to have it backwards on who is posting the food it seems.
Mort Oct 22nd 2007 12:53PM
Here's a crazy idea I just had..
What if Blizz started to sell gold, just like the gold sellers do? They would sell it for a tenth of the "normal" price, but only in small quantities, say 50-200g (I guess I should say small in quote marks, really) and with weekly quotas over how much you could buy.
But, and here's the kicker, all the moneyspent by people this way, and I mean 101% of it , is donated to Childs Play and other international charities. No one would not take any profit and people would (probably) feel better for themselves for supporting said charities...
Now.. I don't know the rules for these kinds of things. There might be some taxation to deal with, or some sort of fee to be payed before being allowed to run charity.