Why Gold Selling Just Doesn’t Work

In World of Warcraft, the name of the game is gold. Without it, players can’t do a whole heck of a lot. They’re left trying to scrounge up the needed scratch to buy their newest epic ground mount or that consumable stash they need to do another run of Ulduar. For this reason, there are a number of services on the market that send out constant spam and push their services to buy gold in the game with real money outside the game.

Not only does Blizzard avidly frown on this kind of activity – they come down hard on anyone who is caught doing it. This involves banning accounts, removing characters, or imposing tough new sanctions. It’s not a good deal for anyone involved, but it’s necessary to maintain the integrity of the game. For those players that do consider buying gold for World of Warcraft, here are a few additional reasons why it’s a bad idea:

You Work Hard for That Money

In game, you may put a lot of time into farming for gold or selling at the auction house, but it’s all still a game and it’s all still fake money. The second you take the step to start pouring your actual hard earned money into the game, you set a dangerous precedent for yourself. How much more money will you spend in the long run to maintain those gold numbers over time? You have real world needs for that money – things like your bills, your food, your clothing. Gold in World of Warcraft can disappear very quickly – why spend real money that disappears just as quickly on its own to get it?

You Will Lose Respect

The thing about World of Warcraft players is that they are perfectly willing to respect you for the work you do, but if you take shortcuts and cheat, you may as well not bother. The point of getting all that gold is to compete and gain the accolades of your fellow players, is it not? If you decide to pay cash for the gold, you fast track around all their hard work and make it evident that you’re not willing (or able) to do the hard work necessary to get where they are. That can be a shameful burden to bear in such a social game.

The Banhammer

Getting banned is the final and most obvious risk of buying gold with real world money. Blizzard does not like it. It’s their game and their gold (even if you do get to use it), and they don’t take kindly to people buying and selling it outside the game. It’s explicitly banned in their Terms of Service and if you decide to ignore those ToS you may as well turn your account off now – they’ll eventually catch you.

The bottom line is this – if you want to enjoy World of Warcraft with your friends, unlock fun new content and get to new areas and new content day in and day out, then you’d better find a way to do it that doesn’t involve spending piles of real world money on in-game gold currency.