Blizzard Finally Sues Gold Farmers

With the new Black Temple update for World of Warcraft, Blizzard has also taken a bold step to combat gold farming and the in-game spamming associated with it. The developer recently made an announcement through a forum post that they have filed a lawsuit against one such gold-farming organization:

“As many of you know, the latest content patch, along with many great new content additions, contains technical counter-measures designed to combat in-game gold spamming. Our efforts to reduce in-game abuse and create a fun, safe environment for everyone are never-ending.

With that said, we felt that it was important to share with the community just how serious we are in our efforts to combat this type of abuse. Blizzard has filed a federal lawsuit against the operators of Peons4hire, a popular gold-selling organization which many of you have no doubt seen advertised. As part of the lawsuit, the operators of Peons4hire have been asked to immediately cease all in-game spamming efforts by all entities and websites under their control.

If this organization refuses to act accordingly, further legal action will be taken. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the progress of this topic.”

As much as I applaud Blizzard’s efforts, I think they’re going to have a tough time fighting this. Unfortunately, most gold-farming operations a headquartered overseas, outside of U.S. legal jurisdiction. Besides which, even if they can take down one of these companies, more are just going to pop up in its place. we’ll just have to see how this one turns out.