Is selling gold legal?

The legality of our mission to make real-world cash from selling gold and items in World of Warcraft is something that has been weighing on my mind for some time now. Are all of our efforts seen as damaging to the game and illegal according to Blizzard's EULA? Are we subject to termination of our character and with it all the hard-earned gold we've accumulated? Even worse, can our CD-key be banned rendering our game useless? Let's examine both sides of the issue so I can come to some sort of personal decision.

Section 8 of Blizzard's World of Warcraft EULA states the following:

Remember, at the outset of these Terms of Use, where we discussed how you were "licensed" the right to use World of Warcraft, and that your license was "limited"? Well, here is one of the more important areas where these license limitations come into effect. Note that Blizzard Entertainment either owns, or has exclusively licensed, all of the content which appears in World of Warcraft. Therefore, no one has the right to "sell" Blizzard Entertainment's content, except Blizzard Entertainment! So Blizzard Entertainment does not recognize any property claims outside of World of Warcraft or the purported sale, gift or trade in the "real world" of anything related to World of Warcraft. Accordingly, you may not sell items for "real" money or exchange items outside of World of Warcraft.

That seems pretty straightforward to me, right there in black and white "you may not sell items for 'real' money or exchange items outside of World of Warcraft." In Blizzard's eyes we are clearly violating their license agreement and subject to immediate account termination for doing what we eventually plan to do. Maybe that's all that counts as they are the omniscient and all powerful judge, jury, and executioner in our online world. Digging a bit further on their site reveals yet another strong anti-selling decree simply titled, "Selling World of Warcraft In-Game Content for Real Money." Can't get any plainer than that. I wouldn't be too surprised if this blog started to really take off I get a nasty cease and desist letter from Vivendi's (Blizzard's parent company) legal department. Finally, a more recent news item from Blizzard touts the suspension of 10,000+ accounts and banning of 5,000+ for violating license agreements and reiterating their aggressive stance toward the use of bots and selling items and gold:

World of Warcraft Accounts Closed - Ordinn on 4/12/06

In keeping with Blizzard's aggressive stance against cheating in World of Warcraft, we have since patch 1.10 banned over 5,400 accounts and suspended 10,700 more for participating in activities that violate the game's Terms of Use, including using third-party programs to farm gold and items. Such actions can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.

We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and its players from the harmful effects of cheating. Please note that selling World of Warcraft content, such as gold, items, and characters, can result in a permanent ban of the involved accounts from World of Warcraft.

Many account closures come as the direct result of tips reported to our GMs in game or emailed to hacks@blizzard.com by legitimate World of Warcraft players. If you suspect that a World of Warcraft player is using an illegal third-party program to farm gold or items, or is otherwise violating our Terms of Use, please report the suspected infraction via one of the means listed above. All reports will be investigated, and those that prove false will not result in corrective action.

Thank you for your continued support, and good luck with your adventures in Azeroth!

-Blizzard Entertainment

Dissecting this post yields some interesting nuances as it suggests accounts were definitely banned for using bots (automated programs to play WOW unattended) and bans "can" result from selling gold and items. Why not use the word "will" to make the statement stronger? My suspicion is that detecting in-game bot behavior is much easier for Blizzard to do than find out if an out of game deal to transfer 500 gold was with a friend or gold selling service. In any case, I'm sure if there was a way to detect gold selling transactions they would ban accounts on both sides of the transaction without hesitation.

Blizzard licensing agreements aside, there are a huge number of very professional looking internet sites eager to sell people gold on any server, any time. A quick Google search for "wow gold" yields hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unique sites willing to sell anyone with a valid credit-card any amount of gold they want. Some of the biggest players in the market like IGE run slick web sites with 24 hour instant delivery. In fact, they make it pretty simple to sell your gold to them. Why doesn't Blizzard go after these sites that are blatantly violating their EULA? Is the effort to find out which characters these companies use just too tedious? Besides, if these companies make enough money a few account bans are nothing - they'll just buy new copies of the game and be quickly up and running again. The only way Blizzard could shut them down would be to ban accounts faster than they could make up the cost for a new game.

Aside from the big operators, there are thousands of independents selling on EBay making it almost impossible to shut down the whole market. The demand to buy real-world items is not going away and where there is demand someone will always be ready to satisfy it. Maybe Blizzard will accept that the secondary online gaming market estimated at $880 million a year is inevitable and try to tap into it rather than suppress it. That's exactly what Sony did with their Station Exchange site - make the secondary market safe and legal to satisfy the demand for online currency and items.

Only time will tell whether the market for selling World of Warcraft gold and items will remain a tolerated underground, get killed off, or go legal. I think Blizzard should capitalize on an opportunity to make more money from legitimate trades while cracking down on farmers using automated bots. That will serve the purpose of not ruining the in-game economics and satisfying the demand for purchasing gold and items. Not to mention provide another revenue stream for great company making an excellent product. For now I have to think about where I stand.

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