Gold Selling Sites and You

[Melchizedek]

You know, I saw a really silly thread about someone saying we should click every gold selling banner we see so they eventually go broke. Well you and I both know this is a flawed idea as even if every active member of all the VG gaming network did this, it wouldn't cost the gold farmers much anyways.

So the question is, with the advent of Merc and WoW Glider, why not write a bot that actively clicks Gold Seller banners?

Think about it, while you sleep, your bot hits a banner perhaps thousands of times a night. If 5000 people run the bot, you may be able to have a mild impact?

Am I crazy?

Piro? Ivan? Is this a conceivable thing to do?

[DorianBrytestar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud

Probably not a good idea.

Click fraud occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating an improper charge per click. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud whether they like it or not.

Use of a computer to commit this type of internet fraud is a felony in many jurisdictions, for example as covered by Penal code 502 in California, USA, and the Computer Misuse Act 1990 in the United Kingdom. There have been arrests relating to click fraud with regard to malicious clicking in order to deplete a competitor's advertising budget.

In 2004, a California man created a software program that he claimed could let spammers defraud Google out of millions of dollars in fraudulent clicks. Authorities said he was arrested while trying to blackmail Google for $150,000 to hand over the program.

[Irvyn]

If you had a bunch of people running a program like that, it would be considered Distributed Denial of Service which is illegal in the US.

[Mobius]

Not to mention two wrongs don't make a right, Melchizedek. The best way to stop companies that sell gold and run down the ingame economy is to not use their services, and frown upon their use in your ingame communities, you usually can tell who's abusing the system.

[Wakygreek]

I think and stop me and call me crazy if im wrong, just make getting gold in a game somewhat easy or at least give players a easy to way to earn the gold fast as oppose to long hours of farming which on mmorpgs are rediculous because some games take too long and people often go to these companies because its much easier.

Yes i realize its still easier to buy gold, however if they make it easier to get through quests and such then i think it would make an impact.

Some MMO's have quests that give horrible pay per quest..look at WoW their quests gave awesome exp sure but their pay out was rediculous at higher levels. Eq had no quests whatsoever that were beneficial as you level. If VG can get the ratio right with making it easy to get money but not too easy i think its going to limit the gold banners.

[Pirotess]

Originally Posted by Melchizedek

Piro? Ivan? Is this a conceivable thing to do?

Unforuntately its very easy to do with just a limited amount of programming experience. Thankfully as the others have posted its being frowned upon since it can definitely damage legitimate businesses when people do that.

[Naurki]

Like Mobius said, the best thing for us to do (until someone comes up with a legal and more effective way) is just for each of us to stand our ground and say no to gold selling and buying.

Spread by word of mouth its evil and why its bad for our realm and hopefully each person can impact the community in a positive way and make a difference.

[Pel]

hmm point taken... i would rather boycott gold selling sites by not using them ^^

[Born]

Better to ostracise those that buy and sell gold and ruin the in game economy. Let them live a lonely life.

[dprundle]

There will always be people who want things done the easy way. The weekend gamer keeps the gold selling sites in business. There's no way around this and it will never change so there's no point in arguing about it.

There's no definite way of telling if someone is buying gold or not, one can only assume.