Whatever happened to ethics in video game journalism?
 

Interesting! I never considered that a possible method of gaining free time for WoW.
 

First thought - Doesn't that breach the EULA?
Second thought - Ok course not. Gifting of in-game items is permitted. They aren't being traded for an out-of-game service.
Third thought - How could Blizzard tell the difference?

I think I'll have to establish Dobablos on every EU server so that people can donate me their spare gold.
 

Gifting large sums of gold could trigger a goldseller investigation though. I have no idea at which sum and if at first instance. Safest way would probably be to transfer through a guild bank.

Dark Legacy had a comic about that trigger mechanism:
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/386
 

So basically, you just broke TOS by trading in game gold for out of game consideration.

This is how RMT works. Heh.

If I were you, I would not be accepting donations in WoW gold.
 

Why didnt anyone give a crap when he was accepting real money donations? What's the difference? Real money can be used to buy game time or ingame gold anyway.
 

Smoke, that bridge is done crossed, isn't it?

Blizz isn't going to crack down on any of the activities people do with tokens, because it makes them money.


 

Rugus says:

"Why didnt anyone give a crap when he was accepting real money donations?"

Well, because normal currency is protected by something called the "Government" and they will get mighty pissed if you mess with it. But accepting donations isn't outside of TOS for them. In fact, they have this thing called the "501c3" corporation that encourages it. Of course, being in Europe, Tobold is probably clear.

Some series of numbers says:

"Blizz isn't going to crack down on any of the activities people do with tokens, because it makes them money."

Probably not. But why poke that bear with a stick?

But the fact of the matter is the same. RMT transactions look exactly like what Tobold is doing. You get sent gold by strangers for no apparent reason and with no value returned.

And... what evidence do you have that it's making them money? Bear in mind, I'm suspicious of this too... But I think it will go the other way first.
 

Smokeman, do you actually know what "RMT" stands for? What Blizzard has rules against is the trade of gold against real money. Donations of gold for no real money in exchange have always been completely legal. You could always give gold to your brother or your girlfriend. There is absolutely no rule against people donating gold to me.
 

Oop! Stopped following the post too soon. Sorry.

"Smokeman, do you actually know what "RMT" stands for?"

Yes I do. What you're missing is that giving gold "to your brother or girlfriend" is a few and far between event between a very few actors.

Blizzard cannot tell the difference between 500 random people sending you gold for donations and RMT. And they cannot be expected to shoulder the "burden of proof" of proving that your transaction set isn't a violation.

Meaning: They do not have to prove you are engaging in RMT. All you have to do is look sufficiently suspicious.
 

Do you live in Ferguson or Baltimore? Where I live I am innocent until proven guilty. Only in the USA can you be shot if you are black and "look suspicious". In most other places the presumption of innocence applies.

Have you heard about the millions of gold buyers Blizzard banned? No? That is because it never happened. The number of gold sellers, spammers, hackers, etc. must necessarily be balanced by a large number of illegal gold buyers, but Blizzard never banned any of them. Because they didn't have any proof of anything illegal going on, as the illicit part of the transaction didn't happen on their network. Blizzard only ever banned the people caught spamming, botting, or hacking.

And as what I am doing is completely legal, the worst case scenario is me having to call customer service and getting my account immediately unbanned by providing a link to this post.