Account Selling: Wrong or Justifiable ?

[The Lawn]

I know it's an age old subject, but it recently came back into the light for me.

One of my friends told me that they were going to sell their old MMO accounts.
While I am extremely against any form of real world trading when it comes to getting an unfair advantage in a game (one of the reasons I also never play games that involve micro-transactions for gear), I have to say that his reasons were quite justified.

He said that since he was unemployed and no longer enjoying the character on the account, he would be giving it to someone that would enjoy it in exchange for money he desperately needs for important things like food.

So out of curiosity, I asked how much he was going to get for selling them.
A whopping $950 for his 2 accounts!

Which made me wonder, is it really worth that much to some people?
Surely learning the story behind the game, feeling a bond between you and your avatar after hours of adventuring, knowing that the accomplishments are yours and yours alone, are worth more than the time you save just paying someone to get you some high numbers and shiny looking pixels.

 

[tzimize]

In the end its all about the shiny pixels.

I say when he's worked for it he can sell it if someone is willing to pay for it. Hell, sometimes you make a comeback to a mmorpg after deleting your account and just dont want to start at level 1. You know the quests, the classes and the "story"...not much fun grinding then.

 

[kawaiiamethist]

I'm in favour of your friend (unemployed student here) taking advantage of stupid, lazy people. If you have to pay for an already built character you're doing it wrong.

 

[erbkaiser]

Why not? You own the account, you should be allowed to sell it. Better than letting the account (and all the value in it) go unused.
Buying a previously played account on an MMO is no different than buying unlock DLC for games that offer it -- some people don't want to spend time unlocking/levelling and are willing to pay for it instead.

 

[acosn]

Everything is worth what it's purchaser will pay for it.

Really, considering how much time you pour into an MMO account I have to say that if you're really willing to part with it its entirely your call.

Where it gets out of hand is when you get wide spread item selling, ect.

 

[Jamieson 90]

I don't see the problem, if people are stupid enough to trade things of real worth in the real world such as money for items or accounts in the virtual world then let them.

Nothing has changed, there are no new items, all that has happened is that the account now has a new owner, most likely one that does not have a clue what to do.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

If someone is dumb enough to pay for it, then sure why not.

I've never understood MMO players in the first place.

 

[Dr Evil42]

Account selling I think would be okay regardless of what the rules are. If someone is willing to pay that much for a character already covered in teh phat lewts instead of going through the fun experience of leveling and gearing them themselves for a cheaper amount of cash than $950, then fine. As long as you are willing to send away that character you spent days working on to cover in teh phat lewts (yes I have to say it like that). I wouldn't do it, but if they want to then sure.

 

[Craftybonds]

Only for the buyer, but even then, meh. the seller is doing nothing wrong in my view, and is totally justifiable he did some work, and took advantage of the lazy consumer. For WoW, i've sold 15 level 80's, 35 level 70's, and 3 60's over the course of the last 5 years, during their respective level caps (multiboxed in sets of 5, except the level 60's, which i did one set of three). it's really easy money, and it's a better dollar to hour ratio than working at mcdonalds, if you have the right equipment to multibox.

if the buyer really wants to blow some physical money, i suppose he has the right to. doesn't make things fair for other players in some games, but it's still a waste of money either way. unless buying something at that price had a dollar/hour ratio for total number of hours it would have taken to accomplish.

Also, buying gold for WoW is stupid, it is incredibly easy to obtain; but there are a lot of other mmo's in which buying gold is totally reasonable, seeing how impossible it is to obtain, but this is usually only true for the various "free" korean mmo's

EDIT: didn't mean to quote that. (quote removed)

 

[SimuLord]

If some retard wants to pay money because actually PLAYING the game isn't enjoyable enough that he'd want to raise up a character by himself, then I say there's a sucker born every minute and there ought to be a market for that kind of Stupid.

It does not speak well of a game that people would rather pay money not to have to play through it. It speaks even worse of people who pay money to have someone else play the game for them...the game they're paying money in order to play...

My head hurts from contemplating all these extra chromosomes floating around the gene pool.

 

[Grumman]

The only thing wrong with it is that you probably said you wouldn't when you agreed to the EULA. But as long as your sale isn't having a negative effect on the game (advertising gold selling in game, for example) you're not hurting anyone and you are giving the company a customer who avoids the bits they don't like and therefore is more likely to stay with the game, so go for it.

 

[reg42]

$950?!
...
What level were these characters out of a matter of interest?

 

[rabidmidget]

If there's a demand for it, why not?

$950 though? I'm regretting giving my old account to my friend for free

 

[Auric]

Think of it this way.

If you put 300 hours into an MMORPG account, assuming you could have worked or do something else equally as productive during that time, youve effectively wasted 1500 dollars at minimum wage.

If on the other hand, you just buy a MMORPG account with 300 hours put into it, for a significantly lessened sum of say 500-1000 dollars, then you could say its worth it.

Of course, this doesnt take into account the fact that alot of those 300 hours are actually quite fun, its not like you can work every hour your on a PC game, blah blah, but when you think about it, it all sort of makes a weird sense.

And the seller, walks away with money, and they had a good fun along the 300 hour way

 

[Delusibeta]

The only problems I can see is "does it break the EULA?", and "if caught, will there be punishment issued (e.g. ban)?" I don't he wants to pay out a refund.