Is selling arena wins for gold legal?

[Raiju]

False - Selling Arena Boosts is perfectly fine, as long as it is for in-game currency. It's also not by any means immoral, boosts have happened in Raids & Dungeons for years, how is it different for Arenas?

Didn't know "other people have been doing it for years" was an argument for morality.

[Ogait]

If you remember this, you'll always know if you're doing it right or wrong.

Buying / Selling in game stuff for in game currency - LEGAL
Buying / Selling in game stuff for real life currency - Against ToS

Same goes to:

Buying / Selling out side game stuff for in game currency - Against ToS
Buying / Selling out side game stuff for real life currency - LEGAL

EDIT: Replaced Illegal with Against ToS.

[Deleted]

Why would playing a game in some matter be illegal, or are we talking about terms of agreement to play the game?

- - - Updated - - -

If you remember this, you'll always know if you're doing it right or wrong.

Buying / Selling in game stuff for in game currency - LEGAL
Buying / Selling in game stuff for real life currency - ILLEGAL

Same goes to:

Buying / Selling out side game stuff for in game currency - ILLEGAL
Buying / Selling out side game stuff for real life currency - LEGAL

Why the fuck is it illegal, how on earth will you get in trouble with the law for doing this shit.

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Didn't know "other people have been doing it for years" was an argument for morality.

How is it immoral though, you ain't hurting or taking away from anyone.

[Deleted]

Buying / Selling in game stuff for in game currency - LEGAL
Buying / Selling in game stuff for real life currency - ILLEGAL
Buying / Selling out side game stuff for in game currency - ILLEGAL
Buying / Selling out side game stuff for real life currency - LEGAL

Replace "illegal" with "against the ToS" and you are right.

@OP: Selling arena wins for gold is perfectly fine, just like selling CM runs etc.
If people consider it "immoral" etc. is another thing...but theoretically, that's not really relevant to you.

[Ogait]

Replaced Illegal with Against the ToS.

[Deleted]

People need to get off their backseat jury asses and realize that other people use "illegal" and "against the ToS" interchangably.
It is not against the rules unless it is exploiting, wintrading or involves real life money.

[NuLogic]

For gold it's legal I believe just it's not supported so if they don't pay you're screwed.

[Stormspark]

Actually, win trading or anything else Blizzard considers "using an unfair method to gain advantage over another player" or using rl money for in-game items/achievments etc are against the rules. Blizzard can set/modify or change the rules at any time, YOU as the subscriber agree to follow whatever Blizzard says the rules are or you have the option at any time to stop playing.

Illegal: No...nothing you do regarding win trading or rl currency for in game achievements is considered illegal (i.e you wont be prosecuted by the law for doing so) UNLESS you are operating a scam ring or using hacking to gain access to credit cards etc

This isn't win trading though. Win trading is when 2 teams collude to boost their ratings. It typically goes "you get on your mains, we'll get on our alts and let you kill/farm us repeatedly until your rating goes up, then you get on your alts, we'll switch to our mains and do the opposite". It involves one team *losing on purpose*. The OP is just talking about paying someone for a carry, which is not win trading nor against WOW's ToS.

[Grim Reaper]

It is legal, weak, but legal.

As long as it isn't real currency used for ingame actions. Though, remember, lost gold or such payment isn't supported by Blizzard. If you get scammed or scam the payment of gold, then nothing any can do but to black list you (or go all tantrum with naming and shaming)

I don't think this is true. You pay for a service, the boosting, and if you don't get the service you should either get a refund, or report to blizzard the scam. And if you don't see it like this, let me reword it. If you give someone mats and gold to craft something and he gives you nothing, that's a reportable scam. It should work the same. It is an ingame service paid with an ingame currency. You should get the service or your money back, otherwise, you should report as scam.

[Deleted]

Replaced Illegal with Against the ToS.

Mods should probably fix the OP all together. :P

[Deleted]

Yeah its legal, its not what Blizz Wants ofcourse but its legal

[Halicia]

I don't think this is true. You pay for a service, the boosting, and if you don't get the service you should either get a refund, or report to blizzard the scam. And if you don't see it like this, let me reword it. If you give someone mats and gold to craft something and he gives you nothing, that's a reportable scam. It should work the same. It is an ingame service paid with an ingame currency. You should get the service or your money back, otherwise, you should report as scam.

Its clear from the trade logs when you give someone materials and nothing is returned.

When you engage in an unsupported 'service' for a oneway trade of gold, its more hassle on Blizzard's part to track down whether or not the service was completed or not.

Let's say I offer to pay someone 100k gold for running me through some trivial raid, payment in advance. They run me through the raid. I report them to Blizzard for not carrying me in Arenas to whatever wins. You want Blizzard intervening in this ?

There's a reason unsupported transactions are unsupported, because hiring enough babysitters for 10 million people would bankrupt Blizzard overnight.

[Aus Nate]

I wish decent people did it on my realm >.>

[Eats Compost]

It's not against the ToS. You can pay a player gold to do anything you want in the game, and it's only a problem if the thing you're paying them to do is a problem in itself. "Win trading" is when teams deliberately organize wins and losses to boost ranking. It's got nothing to do with paying someone gold to get carried in arena, and I don't know why people are bringing it up. Match fixing is a totally different issue.

Blizzard doesn't care what motivation person A has for playing arena with person B, and while buying arena carries could be said to undermine the system, if the person buying the carry is bad then that the team carrying them is obviously going to struggle against a team that isn't carrying dead weight. At the end of the day it's just one bad dude and however many good dudes in the same team, which carries the same risks and rewards as any other leadup to the same situation.

[Hazai4548]

It's bannable. I had a chat with a gm about buying game time with gold and he told me that anything that you cannot "link" in chat is not allowed to be used for gold. So after finding out buying game time for gold was bannable I asked about some other things and one of the questions I asked was people buying wins for gold and he said that it is in fact bannable. Will they go out of they way and ban you for it? No because to many people do it and they won't waste their time with it.

[DarkTZeratul]

Illegal doesn't necessarily mean against the law; its usage here is perfectly valid. For instance, making an illegal pass in a soccer match won't get you arrested, but it will get you in trouble with the ref. Same deal with things like win trading or gold selling in WoW. Being anal about "it's against the ToS, not illegal" does little but make you sound like you have a stick up your butt.

[Eats Compost]

Illegal doesn't necessarily mean against the law; its usage here is perfectly valid. For instance, making an illegal pass in a soccer match won't get you arrested, but it will get you in trouble with the ref. Same deal with things like win trading or gold selling in WoW. Being anal about "it's against the ToS, not illegal" does little but make you sound like you have a stick up your butt.

It's a relevant distinction here though, because some people might legitimately be concerned about legal ramifications for their actions. It's pretty obvious that you don't get arrested for an illegal move in chess or an illegal pass in soccer, but there really are some people that aren't sure what is and isn't a crime in regards to a game like this (obviously, the answer is "not much").

In this context, clarity between the two is important.

[Stormspark]

It's bannable. I had a chat with a gm about buying game time with gold and he told me that anything that you cannot "link" in chat is not allowed to be used for gold. So after finding out buying game time for gold was bannable I asked about some other things and one of the questions I asked was people buying wins for gold and he said that it is in fact bannable. Will they go out of they way and ban you for it? No because to many people do it and they won't waste their time with it.

Completely false. Paying for dungeon/raid runs or arena carries is NOT against the rules. It is unsupported though, so Blizz won't step in if you don't get what you paid for.

[Polarthief]

In-game money for in-game benefits. There's no illegal action taking place here.

If it's actually not allowed (for stupid reasons Blizzard can come up with that I cannot comprehend), you can say that your friend gave you 10k because he's a swell guy and in return, you got him some arena wins. If anything, selling TCG mounts and Guardian Cub is significantly more sketchy/illegal but Blizzard explicitly made it clear that they're okay with buying gold--- buying RL money mounts/pets with gold.

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It's bannable. I had a chat with a gm about buying game time with gold and he told me that anything that you cannot "link" in chat is not allowed to be used for gold. So after finding out buying game time for gold was bannable I asked about some other things and one of the questions I asked was people buying wins for gold and he said that it is in fact bannable. Will they go out of they way and ban you for it? No because to many people do it and they won't waste their time with it.

That GM is a fucking retard and doesn't care about his job. Buying game time is one thing because it costs real money. Buying arena wins has NO real life equivalence so it's completely okay. Like multiple people have said though, it's not supported like profession work (e.g., you give someone your mats, they log out and scam you, that's supported and is bannable on the scammer's behalf), so it's completely buyer beware.

[DarkTZeratul]

In this context, clarity between the two is important.

Unless someone is legitimately confused and requiring that clarity, though, posting just to insist that everyone should say "against the ToS" instead of "illegal" contributes nothing to the discussion.