eBay Bans Auctions Of Virtual Goods

[HardOCP News]

I can hear the virtual cries all across the internet already, eBay has finally banned auctions for virtual stuff. I can’t really see how this could be a bad thing, do you?

By proactively delisting auctions for property from virtual worlds and online games, eBay may be effectively forcing players who participate in such trades into the hands of giant third-party operations that buy and sell virtual goods.

 

[mcravenufo]

Oh man. That sucks.
I sometimes play Magic the Gathering Online and buy virtual cards from ebay.
Sucks for me.

 

[ir0nw0lf]

Eh? I thought eBay did that years ago after the Everquest and WoW fiascos over the selling of character accounts and other virtual items.

 

[provoko]

Nice, now there's less incentive to cheat to make money. It would have been better back in the diablo 2 days.

 

[BaronBamboo]

HAHAHAHAH this is hilarious. My friend would go to ebay and buy gold for Silkroad online. He has done this twice now and spent $30. Ahahaha oh well for him.

 

[n1ce_hat]

Damnit. I used to make hundreds on these kinds of trades.. Oh well. Ebay loses $$ in listings and FVF's.

 

[JBavousett]

^^^ Ditto, I made tons of cash a few years back by selling drops on Diablo 2.

 

[rthefley]

From Dark Age of Camelot to World of Warcraft, I've personally made at least $5,000 dollars but that $5,000 in now way covered the vast amount of time I spent in those games building those toons up.

There is an EXTREMELY large amount of cash to be made, and I can promise someone somewhere will come to the table with the money and the talent to build a site that will help those millions of users out there now left without a safe place to sell their items with hopefully a new, better and safer way to sell items, gold and accounts.

Besides, there are already ways around this ban.

And that is to simply list your account under a figurine or piece of self created fan art, something non-virtual. It is then a matter of creating a short history of your account under the guise of a description for the said figurine or art work or other tangible object.

 

[FLECOM]

those rules are kinda bs...

they could make it like... pencil, with free 10000 wow gold pieces!

and that would be ok

 

[Ockie]

those rules are kinda bs...

they could make it like... pencil, with free 10000 wow gold pieces!

and that would be ok

Yep, exactly how they used to do it.


I gurantee you they will do exactly what you said.

 

[amdfan25]

^^^ Ditto, I made tons of cash a few years back by selling drops on Diablo 2.

Props to you. I knew that my old roommate would go Ebay and buy those Diablo 2 items!

 

[starsfan7]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and I am gonna blast not only ebay, but Blizzard as well. From my point of view, these people were selling the time invested in the virtual items, not the items themselves. You can't really sell a tangible item from a game like that, everyone realizes it's the property of the game maker, no one was disputing that. Seems like a real waste of opportunity to me. Also, on Blizzard, a little off topic, but I figure the biggest culprit that led to this was probably WoW. Blizzard is squandering, and I mean literally squandering an opportunity here. They keep complaining about trying to make WoW the best MMO out there, and they have done a pretty decent job, but herein lie their faults:

1. Their policy on powerleveling. Let me explain this the best way I can. I am no more for gold farmers and people "buying" their way to level caps than the next guy, but let me give you a situation that happened to me: A bunch of my friends Alliance side decided to transfer their horde chars on to the same server after our guild broke up. I had no horde char. Now given Blizzards stupity when it comes to these rules, they have missed out on a fine opportunity there, and in many other cases. What do I propose? Here: I had a 60 fully geared rogue alliance side, I had played it there myself, the whole way over the course of the summer, but now school was in, I didn't have time to grind another character out. Why can't Blizzard simply offer a sort of "powerleveling" service for a nominal fee for the same class, just different faction, given you have leveled a class to a comparable level? For instance, let's say you had a character leveled to 48 alliance, and you wanted to play horde with some other friends on a different faction, why not let you copy a grey or white geared 48 character cross-faction for a set fee per level? It just doesn't make any sense to me. Just like character transfers, there is a market for income there, and it might help alleviate some of the "offshore" powerleveling services.

2. Account Sharing. I guess this kinda goes with the above, but my lord, everyone knows the "game" as in the IP of Warcraft belongs to Blizzard, no one is disputing that. But for crying out loud, if I want to let a relative/friend play on my account, what is the big deal? I paid the fee for the account, the expansion, monthly fee's, transfer fee's etc. If I am paying money for the account, it should be mine to do with what I damn well please.

These events are kinda fresh in my mind, and needless to say, my opinions got one of my accounts perma-banned on WoW, but oh well...

</rant>

 

[gama]

Why does it seem that no one has heard of playerauctions.com? nice eBay like system for auctions. made a little money there awhile ago when I quit EQ.

 

[Niko084]

I used to make money selling items and gold for Ultima Online, then I found out its actually illegal in the United States to sell virtual items period... Which is the same case in a few countries which have the same laws.

 

[starsfan7]

I used to make money selling items and gold for Ultima Online, then I found out its actually illegal in the United States to sell virtual items period... Which is the same case in a few countries which have the same laws.

But then there is the argument of wether or not what is actually being sold, is in fact an "item" per se, or rather the time that was invested to obtain the item (in this case, in game currency, or a character). Seeing as how per (Blizzard's specifically) the ToS, the account still belongs to the game company.

 

[Ockie]

I used to make money selling items and gold for Ultima Online, then I found out its actually illegal in the United States to sell virtual items period... Which is the same case in a few countries which have the same laws.

I want to see that law, it reeks of loopholes from what I can tell.

How do you define virtual? Calling services are virtual, email scanning services are virtual, all internet based services are virtual, lottery systems now are virtual...

so they are gonna have to define that way down... I'm pretty sure you probably misinterpreted the law.

 

[Vashypooh]

FFXI bought my 20.1" Viewsonic LCD ^^

 

[xX_Jack_Carver_Xx]

Exactly, all Egay did was shift the auctions of these items to other auction sites.

Setup a site in CostaRica (I hear they need work now that the Congress made online Poker illegal.) and start raking in the bucks, and the game companies, etc can go suck an egg.

 

[charpman]

I can't see how this is a good thing. Banning the consensual sale and purchasing of goods between people is NEVER a good thing. Period. And thinking you've actually accomplished it is delusional in the extreme.

I'd say it's a 100% certainty that eBay has just driven people into the arms of other venues to accomplish these transactions.

Reality is this: People will by and sell whatever they want and no amount of social pressure, laws, bans or policies wills top them. Period. Ever. So why try?

Embrace it, guide it, mold it, profit from it and move along.

The sooner the makers of MMORPG's accept and embrace this FACT about the human condition the better off we'd all be. And not just MMORPGs btw, drugs is a huge one that humanity needs to learn this lesson about.

 

[GJSNeptune]

Especially now that WoW has become another religion.

eBay shouldn't be the one to do the banning. The game developers should, even though they wouldn't be able to directly enforce it. They'd have to have terms with eBay to help detect these sales, remove them, and act accordingly upon the seller. While eBay has plenty of money, they just lost a pretty low but still significant amount of sales commissions.

 

[Aielman]

It's a token gesture. Ebay owns and operates playerauctions.com, and it's still running strong.

peace,
Aielman

 

[GJSNeptune]

Ebay owns and operates playerauctions.com, and it's still running strong.

peace,
Aielman

Ah, was not aware. Not surprised though.


FYI, don't sign your name. It's against the rules (there's a reason we have a sig. section).

 

[Aielman]

Heh...sorry...habit. I've used it so much on so many forums and emails for so long that I find myself having to stop and rewrite my actual name on email at work, haha.

 

[Aielman]

Btw...it doesn't say you can't sign your name...it says nobody wants to see it multiple times. I purposely don't put it in my sigs because I know I'm going to type it out every time beause, like I said...it's a habit.

I wouldn't think it would be much of an issue as long as you're not being repetative would it?

 

[GJSNeptune]

it says nobody wants to see it multiple times.

True, but guess who wrote the rules? Kyle (editor-in-chief). I know I wouldn't want to annoy him. And I remember someone saying he once said it was a bannable offense. Obviously we aren't that strict around here, but the signature section is aptly named. The mods are good about giving nonthreatening warnings here and there, and because it's a rule, you should obey it

 

[GJSNeptune]

I purposely don't put it in my sigs because I know I'm going to type it out every timeQUOTE]

And this would be fine, except posts are headed by the username of the person posting. We already know whose words we're reading. We see it just before we read a reply, so we don't need to see it again when we're finished.

It's also a bit pretentious, and entirely needless.

Send complaints to the department of redundancy department.

 

[Ockie]

True, but guess who wrote the rules? Kyle (editor-in-chief). I know I wouldn't want to annoy him. And I remember someone saying he once said it was a bannable offense. Obviously we aren't that strict around here, but the signature section is aptly named. The mods are good about giving nonthreatening warnings here and there, and because it's a rule, you should obey it

Since when are you a moderator?


You speak of "we" as in if you are part of the administration team.

 

[GJSNeptune]

Since when are you a moderator?


You speak of "we" as in if you are part of the administration team.

Wow, you really don't like me. I actually knew when I clicked the arrow next to your name that your post would have me quoted, however firivolous the reason. Lots of fun to be had in the future, I see. (No, I'm not Yoda, so cross that off your list ).

And no, it was 'we' as in the forum as a whole, but you knew that all along.


And now we're completely off-topic. Goob job to us.

 

[WarMace]

EBay probably had no grudge with taking your money with virtual sales, but their probably sick of having to honer their 100% garontee when it comes to virtual scam artists and ripoffs. Thats most likely why they opened playerauctions.com without as good of a garontee.

 

[Aielman]

It's also a bit pretentious, and entirely needless.

Ok...I can go with needless possibly, but pretentious? Signing the bottom of a post is pretentious?

So is it pretentious when sign a letter too, or is it just common literary form? Do you not sign a letter when you write one because your name is on the envelope?

Anyways...It's really not that big of a deal. It's Kyle's rule...it's his forum. When I set up a forum, I'll make the rules /shrug.

EBay probably had no grudge with taking your money with virtual sales, but their probably sick of having to honer their 100% garontee when it comes to virtual scam artists and ripoffs.

Ebay doesn't have to do anything. Their policy is the following:

eBay does not provide mediation, collect payment or otherwise force a member to complete a transaction. eBay will, however, review reports of attempts to purchase items using fraudulent funds and will take appropriate action in accordance with eBay’s rules and policies. If you feel that the buyer purchased or attempted to purchase an item with intent to defraud, please review the information on the Receiving Payments page and report the buyer.

You're pretty much out of luck if you get scammed, and always have been, except under a few limited circumstances.

 

[GJSNeptune]

Ok...I can go with needless possibly, but pretentious? Signing the bottom of a post is pretentious?

So is it pretentious when sign a letter too, or is it just common literary form? Do you not sign a letter when you write one because your name is on the envelope?

You can't compare a forum post to a snail-mail letter. You sign your name on a letter to show endearment and presence. For a forum post, these qualities aren't needed. It's pretentious because it makes your post stand out, like stating, "This post was written by the Aielman. Remember that."

Do you want people to tell you how to feel about them? I like to judge on their merit demonstrated through their actions and words. So remember, if someone comes up to you and blatantly tells you that you can trust them, you probably can't.

 

[Aielman]

You can't compare a forum post to a snail-mail letter. You sign your name on a letter to show endearment and presence. For a forum post, these qualities aren't needed. It's pretentious because it makes your post stand out, like stating, "This post was written by the Aielman. Remember that."

Or it might say that I remember my high school english class /shrug.

To each their own, I suppose.

 

[NeghVar]

selective banning of capitalism for the litle guys.
Soon entreprenuer will be a word of fantasy.
Just another step toward communism.