(via World of Warcraft’s new statement on buying gold and its “long-lasting effects on players’ personal lives that can take years to recover from.”)

Live Gamer Inc, (www.livegamer.com) today announced its introduction as the premier provider of a publisher-supported, secure platform for real money trading of virtual property. Live Gamer is partnering with top massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) publishers and virtual world operators worldwide, including Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment, 10TACLE STUDIOS, Acclaim, GoPets LTD, and Ping0 Interactive Limited.

Interesting. Very, very interesting.

(The rest of the press release is entertaining reading — don’t miss it. Those young go-getters with their unique mix of talents from Wall Street and gaming! Their Wall Street-developed platform has GOT to be good! And safe!)

You might think by the title that he got suspended from work for exploring the Tower of Azora with a group of night elves — not so. He was suspended from Warcraft for exploring the Tower of Azora from multiple IP addresses.

Let’s assume the Original Poster is telling the truth, and I’m inclined to do so, what should a MMOG company’s policy be with accounts that are accessed by multiple IPs? Clearly there are legitimate, TOS-compliant reasons when a player would use several IPs to access his/her account. Conversely, there are non-legit, TOS-breaking reasons also.

Suspend first, argue later? Ask first, suspend later? Say nothing, spy on the player at the Tower of Azora?

I’m leaning towards flagging the account and looking for other suspicious behavior connected to the account.

My opinion, this shouldn’t be a high priority for investigations. Realize, however, that I’m in the “I don’t care if people sell/buy virtual currency and accounts” camp. People in the “I think selling/buying virtual currency and accounts is wrong” camp might consider this a higher priority and some collateral damage is expected and acceptable.

I’ll qualify that with “FOR THE MOST PART, I don’t care if people sell/buy virtual currency and accounts camp”. I’ll illustrate with a high quality graphic.

Ya see? We’re not so different you and I. (In fact, I used to be much more fundamentalist in my view on IGE/Ebaying game stuffs. Over the years, I moved towards the “fuckit, I don’t care” side of the high quality graphic.)

Back to the original question: how to limit collateral damage when on a seek-and-destroy TOS-violators mission?

For future reference and for the firewalled:
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