A prominent World of Warcraft: Forever streamer has been banned following comments made on stream encouraging his viewers to buy gold on his behalf.
Forever, which is currently in beta ahead of the MMORPG’s full launch in November, is currently mired in a gold buying and real-money transaction (RMT) controversy. Players buying gold from third-party websites that use bots to farm the game’s primary currency has been a problem for the entirety of WoW’s existence and has always been against the game’s terms of service. What’s changed is that developer Blizzard has made comments that it’s looking to more aggressively punish gold buyers in Forever, even going as far to admit its been too “lenient” on the matter in the past.
That more hardline stance against gold buyers was put to the test earlier this week when WoW: Forever streamer Ziqo was seen on stream accepting suspiciously large amounts of gold from strangers in the lead-up to a $100,000 prize pool PvP tournament he and many other streamers will be competing in. Given the huge sums of gold being traded, many believed there was little chance the gold had been acquired naturally through farming and was likely bought by a third party and then given to Ziqo as a gift.
Almost immediately, the Forever community was up in arms demanding Blizzard take action. In a forum post seemingly issued in response to the Ziqo controversy, Blizzard stated that it would increasingly punish not only gold sellers, its standard practice, but also those buying the gold. In addition, accounts accepting large amounts of questionable gold could also be punished by having the illicit gold removed, their account suspended, or even permanently banned. Blizzard encouraged players not to accept “suspicious” transactions to avoid these consequences.
Even if Ziqo wasn’t the buyer, according to Blizzard’s own words, he could in theory be punished for taking what many viewed to be ill-gained gold. That same gold in question was later removed from Ziqo’s account by Blizzard, though the streamer was not banned or suspended, as many players called for.
The same can’t be said for another WoW streamer looking to participate in the game’s upcoming tournament, Payo. Amidst the Ziqo drama, Payo said on stream he hadn’t been shy about the fact he is more than okay with members of his community buying gold on his behalf.
“I never hid the fact I want my chat to use their credit cards to fill my bags,” Payo said on stream.
Those comments look to have caught Blizzard’s ire, as it was only a few days later that Payo’s account had been banned from the game. He has since apologized and said he’s never bought gold personally. He said he was “happy” about the ban, because it shows Blizzard is serious about the RMT problem.
Though his main account was banned, Payo was not banned permanently and was allowed to create another account and continue streaming Forever.
“I learned from my mistake, and I will never ever promote gold buying again, that’s for sure,” Payo said.
In the wake of Payo’s ban, Blizzard issued another warning shot of a forum post. Community manager Kaivax in a post on October 1 said Blizzard has continued to take action against botting accounts and those who have bought or “knowingly received illicit gold.” In addition, Kaivax announced Blizzard will be adding a warning to Forever that will appear when trading with strangers. The warning that will appear is as follows:
“Be wary of accepting gold from unknown or suspicious sources. If the provider is engaged in Real Money Transactions, you could put your account at risk of closure.”
Kaivax concludes by making Blizzard’s stance on RMT “crystal clear:”
“Any account belonging to any player that is found to have participated in generating, selling, buying, or receiving illicit gold is subject to the gold being removed, account suspensions, or permanent account closers.”
Some players on places like the WoW Classic subreddit are still skeptical. Blizzard has always talked a big game about banning bots, for example, but as any WoW Classic player can tell you, botting is still a major issue. More than a few in the community point to the fact that Payo and Ziqo weren’t permanently banned as Blizzard still being too lenient, especially towards streamers. For others, Blizzard going as far as adding an actual in-game warning about the dangerous consequences of engaging with RMT is a major escalation in the war against gold buyers and sellers.
“Players are being given plenty of warning,” user Dessiato said in a post discussing Kaivax’s forum post. “I look forward to the reckoning.”
Whether Blizzard lives up to its word remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt the Forever beta is putting WoW in the spotlight in a way that hasn’t been seen since the launch of WoW Classic in 2019. Blizzard developers have commented that the Forever beta is breaking records, with the Forever beta population cap needing to be raised multiple times since its launch on September 17. The beta, which requires the purchase of the $60 Skyborne Heroic pack in order to gain access, will run until October 21. WoW: Forever launches in full November 4.
