An official Blizzard forum post has warned players of the perils of buying World of Warcraft gold from a third party. However, Blizzard’s reminder that you can instead buy gold officially hasn’t gone over well with some in the WoW community.
WoW community manager Kaivax recently reminded players that buying gold from a third-party seller puts a user’s account at risk of being hacked, and that players should protect their account and help to maintain a fair gaming environment by shunning the practice.
“Purchasing gold from other players puts your account at risk of being hacked and supports companies that steal accounts, operate bots, and disrupt the game economy,” Kaivax states.
Buying gold from a third-party seller is also against WoW’s end user license agreement. Those who do could have that illegally acquired gold removed by Blizzard or have their account permanently banned.
“Players should never buy gold from other players with real money,” Kaivax states. “Remember–you should only accept gold from players that you know, or through crafting or profession agreements made using in-game chat. Always avoid gold trades intended to cross game variants, realms, or factions that are not explicitly supported by the game.”
It’s a fairly standard account-safety PSA that isn’t out of the ordinary. But it’s the last sentence of the post that has riled up some in the WoW community on places like the forums and on Wowhead, as Blizzard goes from offering information players can use to protect their account to what comes across as Blizzard trying to sell a product.
“The only safe way to purchase gold is via the WoW Token, which provides a convenient and sanctioned exchange of gold for game time or Battle.net balance directly through the in-game auction house,” the forum post concludes.
Blizzard introduced the WoW Token back in 2015 as part of the game’s Warlords of Draenor expansion. A player can buy a WoW Token directly from Blizzard for $20. That token can then be sold on the game’s auction house in exchange for gold. The player buying the token can then use that token to pay for 30 days of game time or add it to their Battle.net balance.
The post has ruffled feathers for a few reasons. For starters, it comes off as an advertisement for the WoW Token, which has long been a controversial addition to the MMO. In recent years the WoW community has argued whether the fact that players can officially buy as much gold as they want from Blizzard makes the game “pay-to-win.” Money, as they say, is power, and with unlimited gold a player can buy many of the best items, rare mounts, or pay other players to run them through content in order to reap lucrative rewards. Blizzard isn’t selling players power directly, but they are in a roundabout way by letting players buy gold instead.
Many players would like to see the WoW Token removed entirely. Others would like to see Blizzard do more to combat bots and account-scammers outside of offering its own, legally sanctioned way to buy gold.
Another issue is that, as many in the replies to the forum post point out, some players are unable to buy the WoW Token in their region or in their preferred version of WoW. Some players on the forums state they play in Brazil and have no way to buy the WoW Token, as it’s not supported in the country, while others state they play one of the many versions of WoW Classic, which don’t support the WoW Token. Blizzard’s post encouraging players to buy gold officially, despite many being unable to do so due to where they live or the version of WoW they play, comes across as tone deaf to some.
Blizzard does regularly ban bots, and even occasionally makes in-game changes to make botting more difficult. In 2023, it banned 120,000 “malicious accounts” that were using the ability to make high-level Death Knight characters in Wrath of the Lich King Classic for botting, and added restrictions to new accounts to prevent them from doing so. At the time, Blizzard said it regularly bans tens of thousands of accounts per week.
WoW’s next expansion, Midnight, will be fully revealed at Gamescom. The expansion will introduce the long-awaited player housing feature to the MMO.
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