It appears that this week Blizzard has received an extremely powerful ally against their never-ending war against in game good sellers. In case you didn’t figure it out from the title, their powerful ally is Paypal.
In response to Blizzard’s complaints against sellers using Paypal as their method for receiving payments for in-game World of Warcraft gold, Paypal issued a letter to various popular gold sellers threatening to suspend their accounts. The full letter from Paypal is copied below (via WoW Insider):
“You were reported to PayPal as an Intellectual Properties violation by Blizzard Entertainment Inc. for the sale of World of Warcraft Merchandise.
“If you feel your sales do not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of the Reporting Party, please complette the attached Objection to Infringement Report by January 21, 2011.
“The completed form should be faxed to the attention of the Acceptable Use Policy Department at [number removed] or emailed to [email removed].
“Should you choose not to object to the report, you will be required to remove all World of Warcraft Merchandise from the website [url removed] in order to comply with the Acceptable Use Policy.”
Though this move isn’t enough to put gold sellers out of commission entirely, it presents a major blow to their business. The harder it is to pay for virtual money through a trustworthy source, the less likely gamers will be willing to take the risk of buying gold at all. Although, I am sure the sellers will just move to credit card or Google checkout and be on their way.
