Why the sudden change in policy regarding gold swapping?

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
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I’m concerned about the reasoning behind banning gold transfers and exchanges between game servers, factions, and game versions in World of Warcraft.

For the past two decades, gold swapping was discouraged but never a bannable offense. It was considered an “at-your-own-risk” activity, with Blizzard offering no support for scams. This was widely accepted by the community.

Players exchange gold because they lack the time to grind across multiple game versions. Expecting players to maintain a subscription, restart progress repeatedly, and invest thousands of hours without any carryover feels unreasonable.

While buying and selling gold has always violated the Terms of Service, why is exchanging legitimately earned in-game currency now prohibited within the Warcraft community? The policy also bans gold exchanges between factions on the same server. Wasn’t the neutral Auction House in Booty Bay and Tanaris designed to facilitate cross-faction trading? Will Blizzard now restrict or remove the neutral Auction House entirely?

If I’ve spent over a decade earning gold legitimately and want to use it to enhance my enjoyment while supporting the game’s development, shouldn’t that carry some weight, or should I have no more impact on the game than a brand-new player that hasn’t played for 20 years like me?

Why the sudden change in policy after 20 years?

Side note:

If Blizzard wants to start cracking down on in-game transactions that involve legitimate players and currency exchanging, how about it’s time to start taking action where players are impacted the most?

1. Crack Down on Obvious Bots: Every day, players encounter countless bots, predominantly Hunters with nonsensical names like “Fjijfisjof,” paired with starting-area pets named “Boar.” These are obvious and undermine the game’s authenticity. Want to restore fair gameplay, then get rid of them. I have mailboxes littered with thank you reports that should have been handled by the system automatically and not dependent on my interaction as a player. I do my part, but I don’t get paid to waste time monitoring the community.

2. Stop LFG Summon Spam: The LFG channel is flooded with bots spamming auto-summon services for 8 gold a pop. Hundreds of these low-level accounts operate unchecked, clogging communication and enabling questionable gold transactions. If gold exchanging is against the Terms of Service, why are these automated services allowed to thrive? When does Blizzard plan on cracking down on that?

4. Address Invasion Boosting: Players are charging 40 gold per level for invasion boosting, raking in thousands of gold in hours while largely AFK. This practice erodes the community and contradicts Blizzard’s stance against boosting services. If boosting violates the rules, enforce them consistently to prevent these exploitative schemes from overshadowing genuine gameplay.

The Warcraft community deserves a game free from bots, spam, and exploitative practices. Blizzard, please act now to uphold your policies and safeguard the experience we cherish, rather than seemingly attacking the Warcraft community over exchanging legitimately earned gold.

3 Likes
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chatgpt thread

5 Likes
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Not reading this entire thing.

Heres the train of thought:

SOD is winding down, MOP/TBC is winding up. So bots/gold sellers are trying to offload into other more active platforms for little to no cost. So blizzard banning it, directly ties a ban to normal players, they will not be likely to do it.

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players should see their characters as individual entities and each with his own independent finances.

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Nah, been married 30 yrs and the money my wife and I bring into the household is OURS. Not mine, not hers, OURS. She plays Alliance, I play Horde but under these ridiculous rules, one of us is gonna have to change

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that’s an out-of-character situation that has nothing to do with the game world.

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Blizzard’s sudden crackdown on gold transfers seems less about punishing long-time players and more about cracking down on the wider ecosystem of exploitation. For years, gold swapping was a tolerated gray area—a “use at your own risk” activity that helped players bypass extensive grind without technically breaking the rules. However, with rampant botting, LFG summon spam, and boosting schemes muddying the waters, enforcing a strict policy on gold exchanges is a straightforward way to start reining in abuse and maintain control over the in-game economy.

While it’s frustrating for veterans who’ve spent decades advancing their characters, Blizzard appears to be opting for a consistent rule set that treats all gold transactions the same—whether switching servers, factions, or game versions—even if that means sidelining features like the neutral Auction House that once fostered cross-faction trading. In this light, the move isn’t so much an attack on loyal players as it is a measure to safeguard the overall game integrity and curb widespread exploitative practices.

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It’s a video game—play it however you want. If you enjoy seeing your characters as self-contained entities with independent finances, that’s great; but if you prefer to mirror real-life relationships by pooling assets, like Beardman points out with his decades-long marriage, that’s perfectly valid too. After all, if real-life partners merge their money, why not let in-game characters do the same? And Robokappa, if you consider any shared finances as “out-of-character,” maybe your strict separation is just as unrealistic as insisting every hero lives completely alone.

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i submit Blizzard’s recent decision as supporting evidence for my viewpoint.

it feels a lot of players use their characters as tools towards … well it’s not clear towards what. i don’t know if they even know what they’re pursuing,

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Oh Robokappa—if our characters are mere tools with no clear purpose, maybe we should lobby Blizzard for a quest log that finally tells us what we’re supposed to be doing.

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Because blizz wants you to give them actual dollars instead of buying wow tokens.

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Its Microsoft

NOONE can infringe on their property dang it.

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NEVER going to happen. Current blizzard is not worth a single penny.

Either they ban me for swapping to buy more tokens or I run out of sub time from my current tokens. But I am never going back to giving these frauds 15$ a month.

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My guess would be two possible reasons. Maybe a combination of both.

1.) People can use GDKP to acquire mountains of gold on Cata, then swap it for SoD gold where GDKP is against the terms of service. This is essentially GDKP with extra steps and not allowed on SoD.

As for the timing… the “why now?”. Not sure, maybe an uptick in this?

2.) Possibility #2 is that a bunch of people were doing this and getting scammed. Blizzard was sick of the reports from it and the headache, so they just banned it. I think this possibility is less likely, but still a possibility.