Think Oil's Expensive? Massive Covert Blizz Ban Sends Gold Prices Skyrocketing

[Everguide]

According to this blog post on GameRates.com:
GameRates: Covert Blizzard Ban Causes Gold Prices to Skyrocket

“A massive covert banning by blizzard targeted at gold farmers has crippled their operations causing the price of World of Warcraft gold to skyrocket within the past week”

The article goes into details as to how a massive covert banning operation by Blizzard has caused the price of gold to double (includes some cool live charts to show this as well) within a matter of the past few days. It also presents some damming evidence and internal memos that some of the shops/suppliers are a bit worried about these recent actions by Blizzard.

I know that it’s a constant game of cat and mouse between Blizzard’s bans and the gold farmers, but it seems like they are a bit worried that Blizzard may be way ahead of them. If Blizzard can keep up with these bannings and it cost a ridiculous amount of money to purchase gold, obviously it’s no longer going to be a major factor in the game.

Also saw a bit of commentary about it from:
Blizzard's gold farmer bans sends world economy into tailspin - Massively
Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Banning works! For small values of "works"

Is this the beginning of the end of the gold market?

[Kobalt]

This is about as futile as the war on drugs.

Though not complaining that people that buy gold have to pay a little more for a few weeks.

[spronk]

why on earth does anyone buy gold in wow anymore, when i quit a few months ago i had over 25k gold in my account from point selling and dumping all the shit i had stored up in my bank, and I had 2 epic flying mounts and had paid 5k gold for a amani bear mount. Just an hour a day of doing dailies will net you over 700g/week.

[Nako Mistako]

Oh noes. Gold costs spiking to double the established rate during a bansession is totally comparable to the ever-increasing price of oil!

One goes down because they know they can make money off of it.

The other keeps going up for the same reason.

[Xakk]

Originally Posted by Everguide

Is this the beginning of the end of the gold market?

no.

[PigBenis]

ibtr

[Fadaar]

Does anyone seriously care about gold sellers anymore? Everyone and their mother has so much legit gold nowadays it really doesn't matter.

[sachemsiouxx]

Originally Posted by Fadaar

Does anyone seriously care about gold sellers anymore? Everyone and their mother has so much legit gold nowadays it really doesn't matter.

The mass of money the goldfarmers make disagrees with your point of view.

[Itzena]

Nice job in linking to your gold-selling site, OP.
Poor form in the copypasta of the post, though - this is the third or fourth forum I've seen this exact same thread started in.

[Drajakur]

Anyone who thinks you can attribute a cause to a price shift in a totally unregulated market should be shot in the fucking face.

And OP, go hawk your gold-selling site somewhere else fag.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

So what he's saying is now is the time to sell gold to those companies?

[xmod2]

Blizzard should just let me pay for epics on my alts directly through their site (after the first epic is purchased on your main). Shit, let me purchase level 70 for my alts while I'm at it.

I work now, lead a guild, etc. I don't have time to level alts and farm gold.

Also. Beware of peak gold, Orcs did 9/11, etc.

[Everguide]

Originally Posted by Drajakur

Anyone who thinks you can attribute a cause to a price shift in a totally unregulated market should be shot in the fucking face.

Wait what? I assume you are perhaps referring to maybe a misunderstood conception of the "efficient market hypothesis" theory (which doesn't say that you can't attribute a cause to a price shift after it happens, simply that you can't predict one without insider knowledge as the market is efficient and all known information is already reflected almost instantly in the stock price).

I think it would be rather easy to attribute a cause in this case....

1) Current Quantity Demanded of WoW Gold @ $20/1,000 (100)
2) Current Quantity Supplied of WoW Gold @ $20/1,000 (100)

Markets are at Equilibrium!

Now, we have a supply shift (decrease)! Why, because blizzard bans thousands and thousands of accounts and instantly that gold disappears. Not only that, but so does the maximum possible production output (temporarily) of producing gold because all new level 70's have to be powerleveled up to replace the ones that were banned (which is costly and takes time). So the second after Blizzard does this....

1) Current Demand of WoW Gold @ 20/1,000 (100)
But.... the supply has now dropped to (50). As such there is more demand than supply. Since the market is efficient and by the very fact that it IS unregulated, the price will rise because the supply has a decrease shift (50 now) causing the Quantity Demanded to fall (but the demand curve itself does not move).

So we are left with this

1) Current Demand of WoW Gold @$40 will decrease, how much, not sure, depends on the elasticity of the gold market
2) Current Quantity Demanded of WoW Gold @ $40 (50)
3) Current Quantity Supplied of WoW Gold @ $40 (50)



So why did the price of gold double in one day? Blizzard banned thousands of accounts. This is then backed up by leaked company memo's from IGE in the article.

[Furism]

Originally Posted by Kobalt

This is about as futile as the war on drugs.

Yes and no. At least Blizzard could make gold much less useful. They know how, because they read this board (among others) and people have made endless lists of suggestions. But this doesn't fit in Blizzard business plan. If people don't have gold to farm and reputation to grind, they go and try other MMOs. Some of them might stay on other MMOs.

So Blizzard needs to find the good balance between "we make it look like it's important to us" and "let's keep our customers busy for a couple more years, God knows we already release new content as fast as we can".

[Jait]

Originally Posted by Everguide

Wait what? I assume you are perhaps referring to maybe a misunderstood conception of the "efficient market hypothesis" theory (which doesn't say that you can't attribute a cause to a price shift after it happens, simply that you can't predict one without insider knowledge as the market is efficient and all known information is already reflected almost instantly in the stock price).

I think it would be rather easy to attribute a cause in this case....

1) Current Quantity Demanded of WoW Gold @ $20/1,000 (100)
2) Current Quantity Supplied of WoW Gold @ $20/1,000 (100)

Markets are at Equilibrium!

Now, we have a supply shift (decrease)! Why, because blizzard bans thousands and thousands of accounts and instantly that gold disappears. Not only that, but so does the maximum possible production output (temporarily) of producing gold because all new level 70's have to be powerleveled up to replace the ones that were banned (which is costly and takes time). So the second after Blizzard does this....

1) Current Demand of WoW Gold @ 20/1,000 (100)
But.... the supply has now dropped to (50). As such there is more demand than supply. Since the market is efficient and by the very fact that it IS unregulated, the price will rise because the supply has a decrease shift (50 now) causing the Quantity Demanded to fall (but the demand curve itself does not move).

So we are left with this

1) Current Demand of WoW Gold @$40 will decrease, how much, not sure, depends on the elasticity of the gold market
2) Current Quantity Demanded of WoW Gold @ $40 (50)
3) Current Quantity Supplied of WoW Gold @ $40 (50)



So why did the price of gold double in one day? Blizzard banned thousands of accounts. This is then backed up by leaked company memo's from IGE in the article.

That's like the best post and thread I've ever read. I'm serious. When my eyes glaze over by sentence two, I know it's a winner. It even has a chart. But it doesn't really have any context unless you care about WoW Gold. A lot. So I was sure there was a secret message of some sort in there. Something like, "Help! Me no likey the canings when I don't meet my quota. Send rice. Seacrest out." I read it up, down, even side to side. No luck.

I do want to hear more of Blizzards "Covert Ops" division however, and perhaps even join its troupe of terrorist-slayers. I'll be like Jesse Ventura in Predator, only without all the unnecessary dying. Hey you slack-jawed pussies, there's gold farmers to be killed!