Recently, there have been a string of account bans on people who have purchased WoW gold from other players. While this is a common occurrence, it seems that the Game Gods at Blizzard have decided to crack down on it.

There are a lot of sites available that sell cheap WoW gold, and for a lot of players, buying WoW gold is a reasonable practice to help save time in-game – after all, grinding is only fun for so long… and who doesn’t like a World of Warcraft gold sale to help cover the cost of expensive repairs? However, for one top player, it was only a week after his gold purchase that he received an email from Blizzard, stating that his account was under investigation for possible fraud and was going to be closed down: permanently.

When you buy WoW gold, it’s technically a violation of the game’s user agreement. By accepting the game’s Terms of Use, you are agreeing to use the game within license limitations, and this covers the buying and selling of items or gold outside of the game. Since Blizzard owns the license to all the content in WoW, no one else has the right to sell Blizzard content in any form: that includes gold. You can’t sell or purchase virtual items for real money, and this is written right within the Terms of Use. Blizzard even states their right to shut down any websites found to be doing this.

So, does making WoW gold have to be a tedious and arduous process? No, there are WoW gold guides available online that will give you tips and tricks for making gold, but you aren’t going to get the cheapest WoW gold available unless you buy it off one of these real-world sites. If you absolutely must buy your gold outside of the game, do your research and make sure it’s a legitimate site – ask around and see if you can find anyone else who’s bought from them and is still going strong. The last thing you want is for all your hard work to be destroyed, just because you bought gold off a sketchy site and had your account banned.