On Blizzard’s Ban of WoW Boosting Communities

If you’re even a casual World of Warcraft player, I would bet you’ve seen firsthand the topic of this article. If you’ve ventured to any in-game location that features a multi-realm “trade chat” channel, such as a city or your character’s Garrison, chances are you’ve seen players flooding said chat channel with advertisements for “boosting” services of various types. Depending on who you are in this context and where you stand on the existence of these services, I have either some beneficial or devastating news to relay to you. Afterward, I’ll mention a few of my thoughts on this.

You see, players like you and I aren’t the only ones who have seen those floods of advertisement messages in every realm’s Trade channel. Blizzard has made it clear that they’ve seen them, too, and they’ve consequently begun taking action to stem the tide of them as of a couple of days ago. Within a “blue post” published the morning of January 31st, Blizzard announced that they have updated World of Warcraft’s End-User License Agreement in an effort to counteract such advertisements.

Judging by the fact that most of these services I’ve seen advertised make it a point that they exclusively expect players to pay for such boosts via in-game gold, I suspect that offering these services in exchange for real-world currency is already against the game’s EULA. I admit that I haven’t checked to verify that though, since I don’t really feel like reading through the entirety of that or any other relevant documents. Either way, I’d be shocked if these activities weren’t considered violations of in-game rules in some form or another.

The following is a direct quote from Blizzard’s announcement on this matter: “Since we last updated our policies, we have found that an increasing disturbance of the gameplay experience has been caused by organizations excessively advertising non-traditional services in-game. As of today, we will now prohibit organizations who offer boosting, matchmaking, escrow, or other non-traditional services, including those offered for gold.”

Putting aside this prime material for Star Wars-related jokes about Blizzard having “sensed a disturbance in the gameplay experience,” I see where they’re coming from with this announcement. Moreover, I truly think they’ve got a point here. The way I see it, if the only trading going on in the Trade chat channel is the exchanging of what’s likely hundreds of thousands of in-game gold per transaction for “non-traditional” services like these, there’s a problem.

It occurs to me that I should probably at least attempt to define what Blizzard is referring to with this ban on such services for the sake of the uninitiated. The most common service of this caliber that I see advertised near-constantly involves in-game raids and Mythic dungeons. If that doesn’t make sense, let me provide a pair of presently current, hypothetical examples to help illustrate my point.

Suppose you log in on one of your characters who happen to be in, say, Stormwind City or Orgrimmar. While you’re in that city, you’ll more than likely see a constant barrage of messages in the cross-realm Trade chat channel along the lines of, “Selling Mythic Sanctum of Domination runs! Come get your high item-level loot and guaranteed mount! Going soon! Gold only! PST [“please send me a private message via in-game chat”] if interested!”

Alternatively, you may see similar advertisements that instead pertain to boosting, matchmaking, and player-versus-player (PvP) combat. There are several different PvP scenarios that assign their participants numerical ratings based on their performance in such environments. So, if you’re an aspiring legend of Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas, you may find yourself tempted to enlist the services of players who are well-equipped for PvP combat and have significantly higher ratings than you might.

While you’ll probably still be expected to do your best to pull your weight in PvP environments if you hire a “booster”, don’t expect to be able to just stand still in an arena match. It is my understanding that such players who offer their services will likely be more able to “carry” you to as many victories and as much of a higher rating as you pay them for. I can only speak hypothetically on this matter, however, as I’ve been known to avoid all forms of PvP combat like the plague aside from once in a blue moon.

Personally, I see three facets to the problem Blizzard wants to address by enacting this ban. Firstly, it’s my hope that this decree from Blizzard will ease (if not entirely remove) this incessant congestion in each realm’s cross-server Trade channels. I may have gotten used to seeing tsunamis of ads like the ones I just described, but just because I’ve become able to ignore them doesn’t mean I think they’re a good thing.

Secondly, what really upsets me the most about the whole “gold payments only” aspect of these advertisements is that players may not always have the in-game gold to pay for them. Why is this a problem, you ask? Well, because if players are desperate enough, they can spend real money in exchange for WoW Tokens, which can be sold on the in-game auction house, in order to acquire however much gold they need. Those tokens are $20 USD apiece. While they do typically sell for well above 100,000 gold (if not double that), that twenty bucks per token adds up extremely quickly.

I don’t want anyone to spend their real money on virtual currency in World of Warcraft because they’re desperate for something they can only acquire by hiring the services of these “boosting communities.” That’s especially true for people in similar situations to my own, where every dollar counts more than it would for someone who may not live paycheck-to-paycheck. I don’t want WoW Tokens to force people into financial hardship because of these “boosters.”

Thirdly, something else that worries me is the possibility that Blizzard’s new stance on the advertising of services like these may very well just force these kinds of activities out of the game, where Blizzard can’t necessarily keep quite as close an eye on them or act on any violations they see. PC Gamer published their own article on this same topic while I was working on finishing this piece. They printed a quote from one of the founders of an in-game boosting community, who said, “It’s foolish to believe that all of a sudden it will stop. People will just do it in a shady way.” That’s exactly what I fear may happen.

So, then, am I glad to see Blizzard has announced this ban? I’d say I am, yes. Do I think it will help? I certainly hope so. I can see certain ways in which it could make the game more enjoyable or cause less of a disturbance in the overall gameplay experience. However, I suppose World of Warcraft’s player base will just have to wait and see what happens now that the ban has been in place for a few days. I’m keeping a close eye on this situation, that’s for sure.