Transferred from paxdora.blogspot.com [LINK]
Original Post Date: 8/2/11 (with new edits and additions below)

After years and years of anti-RMT posts, idealism, the lawsuits against RMT companies, and official statements regarding the negative impacts of RMT.. Blizzard is now joining them because the money is just too much to pass up.

We're all hypocrits, but it's even worse for those who situate themselves on high horses.

Blizzard even made an official "We would like to make a clear statement here.." anti-gold post at one point.. it was online for 3 years, but then promptly removed before making the D3 announcement; http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/antigold.html

So, I've attached it here for your enjoyment. Oh, and this too [LINK]

So, what exactly has Blizzard had to say about RMT in the past? What were their ideals, beliefs, and values?

* Blizzard says RMT has "detrimental effects they have on all players, including their own customers, as well as on the game environment as a whole."
* Blizzard says players who participate in RMT are supporting spamming, botting, and keylogging.
* Blizzard says that these activities diminish the gameplay experience for everyone.
* Blizzard says RMT encourages and increases botting, spamming, and account hacking.
* Blizzard says that people don't realize "the large impact it has on the game economy".
* Blizzard says RMT is unethical.
* Blizzard has even gone as far to say that RMT is "illegal".
* Blizzard considers it exploitative activity as it abuses the economy.
* Blizzard says RMT exchange "negatively impacts" the game environment by "detracting from the value of the in-game economy."
* Blizzard says RMT devalues everything in-game and it ruins the economy.
* Blizzard says as a result it also ruins the gaming experience for everyone.
* Blizzard stated that they're not interested in RMT.
* Blizzard has always had a firm opposition to RMT, but justifies the use of "cosmetic RMT" (that is, pet sales, texture changes, mounts, etc.) because it doesn't impact fairness of the game.

By the way, if you're a gamer, please don't use the word legal or illegal when referring to RMT. It's very embarrassing when I see forum or blog comments that say "Blizzard is now making it LEGAL to sell virtual items!"

There's a huge difference between internal company policies and actual law.

Here are some other related links for your enjoyment.

* "The Lawbringer: Legal gold sales? Not a Blizzard's chance in Hell" [LINK]
* "Blizzard Won't Support Legit RMT Service" [LINK]
* "You won't buy gold in World of Warcraft from Blizzard. You just won't." [LINK]
* Blizzard lawsuit v. RMT [LINK]
* "Blizzard has rules for their RMT.. they won't charge for any item that means anything in game -- cosmetic items and looks are fair game, but actual gear or "integral services" (whatever that means exactly) is a no for them." [LINK]
* Rob Pardo: No Microtransactions in D3, only WOW. [LINK]
* For other interesting stuff, just do a Google search for "Blizzard will never" and "Blizzard would never", etc. :)

Transferred from paxdora.blogspot.com [LINK]
Original Post Date: 7/31/11

Well.. looks like it's been confirmed that Blizzard will indeed be launching a Real Money Trading system for Diablo 3!

They said they would never do this for any of their games.. but then again, they've done this a lot: said one thing, did the opposite.

They're incorporating this new system into Battle.net, so it's pretty clear that they have this new "revenue generator" planned for their future games. The Titan MMO has been rumored to include a quite substantial buy/sell system in real life (for example, a lot of virtual and real products and services), so this is all starting to make more sense now.

I can't believe they're doing this.. maybe with enough fan uproar, this new paid service can be shelved just like Real ID? Doubtful.. this is going to make them a lot of money and it can't be ignored.

Transferred from paxdora.blogspot.com [LINK]
Original Post Date: 7/26/11

Ever since the Cataclysm mistake, the growing boredom of WoW, and the big chunk of subscribers Blizzard has lost to RIFT they're really going to have to pump out something unexpected and awesome.

They had originally planned on releasing X4 and X5 in 2012, as per the Product Release Slate, but because of Cataclysm they're going to have to change their plans quite dramatically to fix things.

They also have a lot of competitors coming up soon too. RIFT took away approximately 600k players, SWTOR will take away probably around the same amount, TERA Online will probably take away of 300k chunk, and the skies the limit for Guild Wars 2 but it could be anywhere between 2 and 4 million players.

They'll be able to distract gamers and investors for a little while by focusing on Diablo 3 sales and "subscribers", but WoW is still one of the biggest money makers for Activision and they need to do something drastic to attract players back. That is, unless, they're planning on retiring growth on the game within the next 2-3 years.

After learning from the Cataclysm mistake, X4 better not include a remake of Outlands. Remaking old content has simply not worked and I trust they've learned from their mistakes. They need to create awesome new zones, wrap up all lose ends, and push the main "story" into brand new territory. There needs to be a new focus for players, and some changes to gameplay to improve things. If they're really serious about keeping the game alive, X4 will have more than 1 new hero class, more than 1 new race, new quest types, a 3rd faction, mounted combat, at least 2 awesome professions, and a true expansion of everything.