Posts with tag gold-ads

Bornakk has fessed up to Blizzard's little slip yesterday of letting gold buying ads sneak onto the official forums. As expected, he says it was a complete mistake, and that Blizzard is taking steps to keep it from happening. I'm surprised this isn't the action Blizzard took from the beginning -- when the ads first showed up yesterday, Blizzard's forum moderators were deleting (and presumably banning) anyone who mentioned the ads. But almost all of Blizzard's fansites (and even WoW Insider) have had problems with gold ads appearing in advertising content outside our control, so it doesn't seem like Blizzard need worry about it. Sure, it was a mistake, and sure, it was hilarious, but there was no reason to hide the fact that it had happened -- especially since there were screenshots aplenty right away.

However, Blizzard apparently still hasn't learned their lesson: they've now also got external advertisements being served right on the game's front page. These ads are served up by the same company responsible for the ads on the forums, and thus clearly they have the same possible problems -- if one gold ad can appear, more can as well. And while the ad that appeared on the forums was not harmful (other than the fact that it linked to a website that offered a service that would get you banned from the game), anytime you're bringing outside content to your own site, you run that risk. Blizzard has decided to monetize their presence on the web, but it's costing their customers a little bit of security as well.

Gold ads on fan sites are one thing (we've been plagued by them in the past, ourselves), but today gold ads are starting to turn up on the official Blizzard forums! The above screenshot was taken by me at about 3:15 EST this afternoon. This is a major (and hilarious) slip-up on the part of whoever handles the advertising on the forums (which was just put in fairly recently). I expect to see a lot of people buying gold and trying to claim that Blizzard endorsed it with these ads, and then getting confused when their accounts get banned.

At the moment Blizzard forum moderators are apparently deleting all threads pertaining to the ads, which seems appropriate enough; they clearly know about the problem. Oh, and folks: don't buy gold.

Update: Blizzard has responded officially to the matter, stating: "Recently, there was a temporary error with our forum advertisements that caused a gold-selling ad to be displayed. At this time, we have resolved this error. Our stance... remains firmly against the buying or selling of gold, and we may take action against accounts that are involved in these activities."