Posts with tag ige

You may remember that earlier this summer, when Affinity Media purchased Wowhead (to add to their acquisitions of Thottbot and Allakhazam), we were able to interview Affinity Media CEO John Maffei, and he told us, in a very roundabout way, that Affinity and IGE had supposedly parted ways-- Affinity and its content sites were, he said, no longer associated with the company that sold gold in World of Warcraft. However, if you read the comments on that interview, you may have doubted what Maffei told us, and now, thanks to legal documents surfacing because of a legal action against IGE, it appears you were exactly right: Affinity and IGE are (or were, according to Affinity Media) still two peas in the same pod (see Update).

I know for certain right now that some of you commenters are preparing the "aww geez, not this again" (NSFW) macro to post, and I don't blame you. You're exactly right; this is boring business stuff, not new news about the Sunwell, and anyone paying attention back during the Wowhead acquisition knew that the two companies were still connected anyway. If this isn't news you to, fine-- I don't mean to reopen Pandora's Box, we just want to make sure we do due diligence in covering this issue.

Now that we've had a few days to think about it, I think it's worth taking a bigger look at the Wowhead acqusition news that broke over the weekend. On Friday evening, a blogger named Ahmed Farooq posted that as a person who'd previously worked to acquire websites for goldseller IGE, he'd heard from "three different sources," all unnamed, that Wowhead had sold to Affinity Media for $1 million. That's when we reported on it, and more than a few other sites also picked up the story. We also were one of the first sites to report in conjunction that Affinity Media had supposedly sold IGE, and claimed they were no longer in the business of goldselling.

On Saturday, Wowhead posted a confirmation on their site, and then this Q&A with their CEO and the head of Affinity Media, John Maffei. They claim to be "100% sure" that since Affinity reportedly sold IGE, Wowhead will never carry gold ads. Farooq, the original tipster, posted an update on his site that says Affinity was "still very much involved with IGE," but Wowhead's Q&A says "the individual who leaked the story about the Wowhead sale" (apparently Farooq) also "owns competitive content properties," including a real-money trading (goldselling) site, and calls the act of that person spreading rumors about Wowhead "the height of hypocrisy." By all appearances, Affinity Media is no longer associated with IGE at all, and at the moment, the proof is in the pudding: there are currently no gold ads on Wowhead or Thottbot.

As for IGE, this report about the CEO at the Virtual Goods Summit makes it seem as though there are stormy waters ahead for their company and the entire gold selling market.

Speaking of lawsuits, Terra Nova is reporting that there's been class-action lawsuit filed in Florida against IGE for... well, I'll let you read for yourself:

The case involves IGE's calculated decision to reap substantial profits by knowingly interfering with and substantially impairing the intended use and enjoyment associated with consumer agreements between Blizzard Entertainment and subscribers to its virtual world called World of Warcraft.

The lawsuit seeks both monetary damages and a stop IGE's gold farming activities. (If you just can't get enough legalspeak, you can take a look at the entire text of the lawsuit here, via Terra Nova.) Now, I have to admit that I am not a lawyer and cannot tell you whether this lawsuit has any substance to it. However, I can assure you that over here at WoW Insider we'll be looking for any updates on this -- so we can pass them right on to you.

Complaints on the forums suggest that they aren't really gone, but I've noticed an astonishing lack of them on my own server in recent weeks.  All of the obvious bots - the ones who followed a specific pattern through the same area day after day - seem to be missing lately, making farming Timbermaw reputation a nearly pleasant affair, having only to compete with the human reflexes of other players.

While I'm thrilled to see this lack of farmers on my own server, I have to wonder if any of it will last. At the end of last week, I pointed my web browser in the direction of a major gold-selling site to see to see what I could find out.  I checked the stock on gold for US servers, and for nearly all servers saw the text "NOT IN STOCK! PRE-ORDER THIS ITEM NOW AND RECEIVE CURRENCY AS SOON AS WE RESTOCK."  Another check today yielded much the same results. The servers that do have gold available for order only had it in smaller quantities (if you can consider 200 gold a small quantity).  Does this imply that Blizzard's continued efforts to weed out gold-sellers starting to have a notable impact, or is this just a temporary setback on the part of the gold-farming professionals?

One of my favorite new WoW sites, Metroblogging Azeroth, has a great article today that goes deep into the controversial world of gold-farming. Author Jonas Luster details the many ways that buying gold outside of the game impacts players, developers, and the gameworld itself, with a knowledge of the game that makes his observations all the more relevant.

There are plenty of things that the average gold buyer (who is almost certainly not some intrinsically evil person) probably never takes into account when they purchase gold from a farmer, aside from what shiny new armor it will buy them; they could care less what it does to the economy of the game. Then, there are those who actually believe the practice of gold farming is healthy for a virtual economy, and for people coming from that school of thought, Luster makes a convincing case why, in the end, everyone suffers from the actions of those few. Not to mention the connection he makes between the largest network of online gold-selling sites, and a trio of convicted child molesters.

It's good readin'. Check it out here. Thanks to Sean for the link.