Gamer sues gold farmers

  • By Emma_UK, GameSpot
  • Posted Jun 7, 2007 4:26 am AEST

More bad tidings for gold farmers in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft--not only is one organisation getting its knuckles rapped by operator Blizzard for spamming, now another is being sued by a player--reports The Escapist. Gold-farming company IGE, based in...

More bad tidings for gold farmers in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft--not only is one organisation getting its knuckles rapped by operator Blizzard for spamming, now another is being sued by a player--reports The Escapist.

Gold-farming company IGE, based in Hong Kong, has been targeted by long time WOW player Antonio Hernandez, who has hired a lawyer to go after the company that, he says, "made a calculated decision to reap substantial profits by knowingly interfering with and substantially impairing the intended use and enjoyment [of the game]."

The class-action complaint lists a number of reasons that gold-farming is detrimental to the game, including stripping the world of limited resources and materials so other players find them impossible to get hold of, a devaluation of the game's currency, chat spamming, and junk mail.

IGE sells virtual gold for real world money for a number of online games, including World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, EverQuest II, and Lord of the Rings Online. It was founded in 2001 by "consummate gamers" to buy and sell in-game items and gold. On its Web site, it states, "Gamers see the secondary market as yet another exciting dimension of the MMOG experience. It not only gives players the advantage of greater flexibility so they can focus on aspects of the game they most enjoy, but it also allows players to receive real world value for the effort and time they have invested in their games."

The attorney representing Hernandez in the case, Richard Newsome, told The Escapist, "Guys like Tony [Hernandez, the plaintiff] have paid their $15 for some entertainment, and IGE is polluting that entertainment. It's kind of like, if someone pays for a ticket to go see a movie, and if someone else comes in behind them and kicks their seat, you can get them to stop doing that."

Newsome stated that he believes that he can win the case--even though gold farming companies have not so far ended up in court--as the suit was not unlike other consumer protection law cases, which had already been brought to court in a variety of areas successfully.

180 Comments

  • Digger65

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 4:02 am PT

    I don't see to much of a problem with buying virtual gold.. Let's face it, so much time grinding/farming for such trivial achievments.

    Buying gold enables players who have a life, to enjoy a game that they would otherwise get bored with very quickly.. The only problem I have is in game spam from gold farmers but with recent patches that has been addressed. WOW definatly isnt a casual gaming experience without virtual gold and I suggest anyone who doesnt see a problem with wasting time grinding/farming should visit www.wowdetox.com as wasting your life is a hell of a lot worse than buying virtual gold.

    Also full marks to Piishot, great comment.

  • marco0798

    Posted Jul 23, 2007 1:00 am PT

    i completely agree with the previous statement. gold farming sites exist because of that 10% of mmorpg'ers whoose demand has brought about the rise of this "industry" and it really is turning into an industry. good luck to the tony dude sueing i personaly completely agree with him but it will be a difficult case to win no matter what his lawyer says.

  • TheHotelLion

    Posted Jul 20, 2007 6:54 pm PT

    These lawyers need an excuse to make money. Antonio is a wimp for not being able to play the game like everyone else. If he can't find the gold, he should buy it with real money. I find it extremely ridiculous that he's complaining the way a game works because his gamer friends support it. Of course, he's doing this, like just about every American tries to, to make easy money by suing somebody. Why not just sue Bungie for the glitches in Halo? I think I'll do that so I get paid to play my video games.

  • piinshot

    Posted Jul 16, 2007 7:00 am PT

    Thats rubbish. It is Blizzards fault. They actually engineer the game to make it IMPOSSIBLE to succeed unless you play it for stupid amounts of time. I was a 16hour a day addict!!!
    Blizzard hav made it so that no matter how much you "know" or no matter how good you are at the game it will not benifitt you in anyway at all....it is all down to how long you play it for "chance""drop rate" "percentage"...people that purchase gold and items are only doing what anyone that wants a "normal" life outside WoW has to do. If Blizzard made it so that even some level of skill gave you an edge then people would be happier....but instead i could give my 3 year old brother my character (level 70 warrior, prot, fully T4/5 epic) and tell him to grind for me for 5 hours an he could...there is the problem!!!

  • snozberry

    Posted Jun 26, 2007 4:49 pm PT

    Antonio Hernandez = HERO

  • mega324386

    Posted Jun 26, 2007 12:27 pm PT

    Actually i heard a few of these gold-farming companies are based in post-soviet union countries.But yeah mostly contries with high-unemployment rates.

  • shawnw27787

    Posted Jun 16, 2007 7:46 am PT

    The U.S. court system should focus on legal matters and not become a big brother with the final word about what is right and wrong about how we play our games.

    Let the free market rule! If gamers are willing to pay real money for electronic game currency, that should be their choice. Gamers with real money to spend already get a better gaming experience: they buy faster PCs, bigger monitors, better speakers, and faster Internet connections. Buying game currency also gives gamers a better gaming experience with their characters. For example, for a party teetering on the edge of failure, using purchased game currency to buy the Honor's Brand exalted sword from the Aldor quartermaster can mean the difference between a party wipe or success. Buying game currency doesn't ruin WoW; it allows some gamers to acquire game items quicker. Tens or hundreds of hours of in-game time can be saved by a gamer who buys game currency instead of grinding for it. Those hours can be used outside of WoW for getting real world stuff done like laundry, house chores, homework, and face-time their families. In WoW, a gamer can't buy the best gear anyway because Blizzard has made the best gear non-transferable via bind-on-pickup. Give the gamer who buys game currency a break; he/she is only gaining incremental character advancement and saving time to spend on more important stuff in the real world.

  • kilos1

    Posted Jun 14, 2007 4:03 pm PT

    Quote:joeyfine " it was gamers who created the demand in gold farming in the 1st place. if gamers didn't take the easy out and hired someone to do all the grinding in an MMO then this wouldn't have happen."

    yea, because EVERY person playing the game created the demand. just try to get it though your skull that not every gamer buys gold, so ther realy isn't any Irony at all unless this specific gamer has bought gold.

  • luigigreen

    Posted Jun 12, 2007 9:10 pm PT

    His analogy for the Movie thing made me laugh. Ok, you might get him to stop talking, but your not going to sue him because of it. He's going to lose, big time.

  • Ky02

    Posted Jun 10, 2007 8:39 pm PT

    Right on qiwihead, we are all just human in the end.

  • madfrogger

    Posted Jun 9, 2007 10:39 am PT

    lol..does anyone know where i can exchange my monoply money for real money? I dont blame the gold farmers one bit. Truth is they are captializing on you being addicted. If you sit there for 8 hours "earning your items" and someone decides OH i dont feel like doing this and buys gold i dont see a problem with that. Its the persons choice to buy virtual money. Some WoW players ARE lazy as well as other mmo players. If someone wants to "earn" gold in WoW let them. For others its time to get on paypal =)

  • shadowmaster007

    Posted Jun 8, 2007 11:06 pm PT

    I think the gamer has a possibility of winning the case. in blizzards Terms Of Service it strictly states that buying and selling of accounts and "virtual goods" (gold being the case) is strictly against their terms. so if the gamer decides to use this as his evidence he has a good chance of winning but the judge could also drop the case becuz the gamer doesnt own a share and is neither an employee

  • iowastate

    Posted Jun 8, 2007 5:57 am PT

    Winning the lawsuit in one thing, but since they are in HongKong which is Chinese territory collecting is nigh on to impossible

  • Jazzism

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 11:22 pm PT

    I posted earlier and after reading the other posts to now, I tried to check IGE out online since I'm already in China. The funny thing is I get timeout errors loading the page. I guess they favour the us and eu marketplace to sell the virtual products and consider Chinese money as valuable as toilet paper.

  • Da_Q236

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 10:49 pm PT

    Why do people want to pay real money for virtual items or gold anyways? You can't use them in real life. The only people it would benefit are the ones that spend every hour of their "lives" playing games like WoW.

  • MrSickVisionz

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 2:57 pm PT

    In the real world, if you could actually buy a pack of seeds and grow gold, would that be illegal? Gold would lose value, but then it'd lose its place as a precious metal and people would just trade with other thing.

    If its not illegal in the real world, i'm not sure how it'll be illegal in the virtual world. Especially when nobody is breaking the rules of the virtual world, they're just taking advantage of a legal loophole.

  • majere613

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 2:50 pm PT

    I think there's a few people misunderstanding the issue here. It's not so much the fact that these companies sell gold and items that's the problem, even though that is a contradiction of the T&C. The problem is trying to get anything done when one of those goldfarmers is about. If you need Thorium for your profession, for example, it's a complete PITA when farmers are stripping the veins clean constantly and selling the ore for exorbitant prices. It's even worse trying to do a 'kill x of these' quest when bots are farming them the second they spawn. I for one support anyone who takes these parasites on.

  • Axe_336

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 1:51 pm PT

    The reason I stopped playing MMOs has nothing to do with gold farmers, but if I still played them then I would hate gold farmers. If I need to grow my own character then the last thing I need is some profiteer running around and killing enemies they don't even need. For example, if there were an NPC thief character in Oblivion who went around getting the treasure out of tombs before you had a chance to get to there. Not plot essential stuff necessarily, but just some treasure that you would have liked to get.

  • none17256375947

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 1:25 pm PT

    Poor guy, he's doing the "right thing" for most ppl (aside from thouse who actually use these RMT services...) but, i think he needs to take a basic class in Law.

    While i could believe this "may" work in the us, our laws do not extend to other countries. this type work is actually a good thing for people in china, you dont have to be to bright to do it, and the profits from it are proberbly a lot more then we think when you convert the US $. I agree with this guy, but i think he's in for a big suprise...

  • none17256375947

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 1:24 pm PT

    Poor guy, he's doing the "right thing" for most ppl (aside from thouse who actually use these RMT services...) but, i think he needs to take a basic class in Law.

    While i could believe this "may" work in the us, our laws do not extend to other countries. this type work is actually a good thing for people in china, you dont have to be to bright to do it, and the profits from it are proberbly a lot more then we think when you convert the US $. I agree with this guy, but i think he's in for a big suprise...

  • Jenkins_2005

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 12:32 pm PT

    I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars he is hoping to get out of this for his hard earned $15. People who sue like this make the world a worse place than it already is, he is no better than someone who sues a city council for trippin over a curb. Scumbags.

  • subrosian

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 12:11 pm PT

    People will always lie, cheat, and steal to build wealth, however that doesn't mean enforcement mechanisms shouldn't be in place to stop it. In the real world, we have laws that prevent people from printing money, embezzling from their work, and stealing from stores. You can't pay someone $5 for fifty $100 bills - you can't pay people in China to "print" (grind) money for you.

    ultimately it's not our legal system that should be having to deal with though - the MMORPG game makers need to crack down on this crap. It's not hard, a few "listen bots" that flag users who attempt to sell gold, mod approvals for wealth transfers over a certain amount, IP logging that bans accounts that have users across insane distances logging in (example, monday the IP is from China, tuesday the IP is from America).

    These things don't eliminate cheating entirely, but what they do is raise the price of cheating services by increasing risk, lowering the incentive to use these services. Finally, a company wide crackdown on farmers would be a final blow. When gold farmers are caught, all of their accounts should be seized, the logs checked, and anyone who received gold from them retroactively fined - aka if you received 100 gold, you will lose 100 gold, if you don't have 100 gold, every dime you earn will go to pay that fine until you have paid back the game 100 gold.

    These kind of harsh restrictions would *kill* the third party market, the only reason MMORPG companies wouldn't do it is because they're getting the same $15/month from gold farmers, and it would take a great deal of time and money to clean up the problem.

  • puppiemaster

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 11:10 am PT

    people will always cheat, so there will always be a market for it

  • SilentP

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 10:12 am PT

    I just bought $100 worth of gold at IGE thanks to this news story - I had no idea the gold-to-money ratio was back to "favorable for me".

    ...and now I'm off to the AH to buy all the cool stuff i want.

  • sieg6529

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 9:55 am PT

    anytime there is a demand for something, whether tangible or virtual, a market will to meet it.

  • Jones1982

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 9:35 am PT

    It should be up to Blizzard in my opinion. They own the server and should have a way of raising complaints quickly. If you report a farmer, it should be investigated and dealt with straight away- god knows they have enough money to employ a dedicated team of people to do that. Either that or they should have something in place which stops or flags excessive looting of the same item. However, nothing effective will ever be done because only the minority of users are complaining so we'll just have to deal with it.

  • Seymour47

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 9:25 am PT

    Here here. Where do I sign up for this suit?

  • qiwihead

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 9:12 am PT

    I have to admit, I purchased about 300g from IGE back when I was playing WoW. I had already leveled one character up to 60 and wanted to try another class so I started a new toon. But I had had considerable money problems with my main, and I wanted to have a more pleasant experience with my new character so I gave myself a bit of a money buffer. I felt conflicted about it because I understand the argument against buying gold, but the reality is that the gold-buying was one of the reasons why I had so much money trouble with my main--people with bought gold were buying and selling on the AH at such inflated prices that it was almost impossible for me to buy anything anymore. I never bought armor because I couldn't afford it. And before the flamers start telling me that I should have just grinded the money, that wasn't an option for me, nor is it for probably most WoW players. I'm not hardcore, I couldn't put in that kind of time. So the choice becomes a) spend what little playing time you have to grind for gold, or b) buy a small amount of gold to cover my everyday costs so money isn't that big of an issue. I feel somewhat justified because I maxed my first character without bought gold, and also because the gold I bought wasn't used to buy leet loot on the AH. It was only to cover my basic operating costs so I could afford crafting supplies and repair bills and such without constantly having to worry about running out of funds. I don't feel good that I did it, but I sure as hell enjoyed leveling my alt a lot more than I would have.

  • prioritymail

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 9:11 am PT

    "Its just the free market at work!" as Stephen Colbert would say.

  • AceFay1234

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 9:08 am PT

    Frankly, I think that having someone farm gold for you is absurd. Play the game, enjoy it, and make a few friends in the mean time. If you don't have enough patience (or friends for that matter) to run a few instances for gold/loot than you need to reevaluate yourself.

  • Liquid_Snake

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 8:59 am PT

    if he wants to sue he shuold do it in ffxi. getting random tells is annoying but hardly worth a lawsuit. everything in wow is instanced, unlike ffxi. now in that game its a problem, where goldselers will go out of their way to get big ticket items that everyone would want, beat you in pull(seeing as how they are there all the time, its alot of them, and they use hacks), and you have no chance but to buy it from them... and with no real way to make money(because again, gil sellers are everywhere) ffxi is really a problem.

  • reddog00

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 7:27 am PT

    This is the reason I prefer not to play MMO's. Many times I have ran into gold and/or item farmers and cannot tell if they are legit hardcore players or players working for a gold or item reseller company. Maybe MMO creators can force any and all of these companies to have to identify themselves by forcing them (through the user agreement that we all never read when starting a new MMO) to use their corporations acronym in their games' username (a.k.a IGE_Reddog00). How they would actually do this and identify reseller player employees I do not know but it is an idea and by putting this in the user agreement they would at least have some sort of legal recourse if they are found to be breaking the user agreement that they agreed to. Then Blizzard for example could provide all players with a list of acronyms which could be printed out and legit and hardcore players can at least know and identify the paid to play farmers so they can go elsewhere and enjoy their game experience. Just an idea which could certainly be expanded on through the user agreement which we all have to abide by. But in the end it is obviously much better to not have these companies ruining the normal and hardcore players experience plain and simple.

  • Metalhead8282

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 7:23 am PT

    About time someone did....Gold farming ruins it for all of us....

  • RockySquirrel

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 7:07 am PT

    Go get em Richard! Win that case!

    Send the chinks back to the rice fields!

    Add BELRION to your sue list too!

  • Roberthovell

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 6:37 am PT

    People complain aboutthese things, and rarley do anything about it. GO FERNANDO WOWGOLD'DES !! Or w/e his name is, i forget. But still, i think wow has had its time.. like this guy, people will get fed up of it - and leave... roll on diablo 3 -) LOLZ !

  • Strongman98

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 6:03 am PT

    Look its pretty simple, gamers need to stop being dirty and buy from the gold farmers, if no one buys then no one profits, and eventually the materials will stop being mined and they will go away.

  • VTG

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 5:38 am PT

    Perhaps if MMO companies like Blizzard put a cap on the amount of in-game money a single player can have, then require you to register further personal details to prove that you're just a single player in order to breach that upper limit, like a passport detail and then signing a personal contract that they post to you with the legal proviso of being sued if you're lying, goldfarming wouldn't happen because there couldn't be companies going above that upper limit. Blizzard would of course be able to check IP details etc of people who hold large sums of money in the game, so a group of people all from the same area or on the same IP address who have large sums of money would be very suspicious and worth closer investigation.

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 5:34 am PT

    this guy isn't going to get anywhere.

  • joeyfine

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 4:50 am PT

    Champy87

    "That's a pretty stupid comment joeyfine. What is gamers? The millions of people playing games in this world? The PC gamers? The Xbox gamers? The MMO gamers? You can't just generalize like that. Just because one gamer buys gold, doesn't mean others do, or like the fact that some do.."

    Well, when i say gamers i would mean related to this story, and not just "Some people" buy gold. this is a big industry. Selling not only gold but power leveling and epic item buying its huge! don't forget single item selling that started with games like Diablo on eBay. i just hope they fix it but you have to start with the lazy ass gamer who spends real cash for in game items.

  • PelekotansDream

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 4:48 am PT

    Wow. Warcraft is very serious, there is a dating service, credit cards, a funeral and now guys suing each other?

    This game gets taken really seriously.

  • amogley

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 3:45 am PT

    Brave attempt to stop the gold-farming companies but I don't think it will stand much chance in court.

    Ultimately, if you want to stop the gold-farming companies then it is down to the players to stop using them and continue playing the game as it is meant to be played .... unfortunately I can't see that happening any time soon either.

  • CamisadoBlue

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 2:59 am PT

    You wouldn't stand for some one trying to sell you Ammo on Halo 2 so why should you do the same thing online?

  • Mylon_basic

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 2:51 am PT

    This is why I quit MMOs. Because game makers design the game to require so much time and effort that it becomes attractive to pay someone else to play for you. At that point, is it really a game if you'd pay someone else to do it for you?

  • xepherys

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 2:39 am PT

    I truly hope (but also doubt) that this case actually wins out in the end. Frankly, it's akin to the anti-spam email issues. We pay for the internet as a service, and then get spam in return. If laws can be passed to protect consumers in one area, they should be able to extend to other extremely-similar areas as well.

    As for saying it's the fault of the gamers? That's much like saying it's the fault of people who use email that spammers exist. Yes, some people buy farmed gold online. And, sadly, some people still click links to buy penis enlargement products from spam email ads. That's not to say that everyone (or even the majority of people) does that, and it's certainly not "my fault" on either count. Frankly, I hope IGE burns for this. Slowly but surely, those of us most closely linked to the internet and all it's entertainment need to be the ones who reclaim some lost ground.

  • kavadias1981

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 2:39 am PT

    I think this guy should start playing something a little different. This is so sad and pathetic as to be verging on the ultra-geek!

  • NeoNavarro

    Posted Jun 7, 2007 2:14 am PT

    All i did in WoW was block the names of the people and orginizations on my buddy list to limit the ammount of adds. Since blizzards latest patch there has been no gold farming advertisments... Nice job Blizzard. But, I wouldn't go so far as to sue them myself thats Blizzards job to take care of that not mine.

advertisement

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!