Do People Buy/Sell MPQ Accounts

Leugenesmiff

If so, what do they go for?

h4n1s

I guess this subject is not appropriate for this forum and as such it might get soon locked or even deleted (we witnessed similar moderator reaction recently).

Bloo_Alliance

I bought my MPQ account from a guy living in a van down by the river

GothicKratos

h4n1s wrote:

I guess this subject is not appropriate for this forum and as such it might get soon locked or even deleted (we witnessed similar moderator reaction recently).

Good guess.

[edit]

Actually, I changed my mind since he's not saying he's trying to sell anything, I'll leave it open and just saying the following;

Selling of in-game goods is prohibited.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

Selling of in-game goods is prohibited.

Unless you buy them from D3P !

_RiO_

GothicKratos wrote:

I'll leave it open and just saying the following;

Selling of in-game goods is prohibited.

Except probably in Europe, considering the high court has ruled that it is legal to sell on a license you own on pre-packaged software including any attached online components. No end-user license agreement can take away any rights granted by law. Actually, I still don't recall having been presented any kind of EULA that would try to deny me that right to begin with. (D3P/Demiurge really needs to get their legal **** sorted out...)

Unknown

_RiO_ wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

I'll leave it open and just saying the following;

Selling of in-game goods is prohibited.

Except probably in Europe, considering the high court has ruled that it is legal to sell on a license you own on pre-packaged software including any attached online components. No end-user license agreement can take away any rights granted by law. Actually, I still don't recall having been presented any kind of EULA that would try to deny me that right to begin with. (D3P/Demiurge really needs to get their legal **** sorted out...)

I believe though there is a qualifier. Namely that it is permissible for a company to say that it only needs to honor a contract with the original purchaser (i.e. non-transferable). In this scenario, given that we can't recall a TOS being signed, then a f2p account could reasonably be transferred, but if an account where an in-game purchase was made (and the company found out) then the account could be sandboxed in a justifiable fashion.

However, given that no TOS was signed, then it is really "caveat emptor"; the account could be suspended by the company with no recompense to the buyer (that is a scenario we all face regardless of the legal claims we have to the account). In the case of a paying player, if they unexpectedly are forced to shut their servers down the day after you purchase a stark salary, you could reasonably file a return request through Apple/Google, but I don't believe that there's any legal obligation on the part of the company (given that it was unexpected; if there is fore-knowledge of the impending game end, there may be some legal grounds for them to have to stop selling in-game purchases. Of that I have no real knowledge).

This is all just armchair lawyering from google searches. Regardless, (putting on my moderator hat) it is the stance of the forums to not allow the selling/trading of accounts here and as such all posts of that nature will be deleted and warnings / bans issued.

Edit: Replaced EULA with TOS. A licensing agreement is very different from terms of service. The TOS is far easier to defend if you say that you are only going to honor the service contract with the original consumer.

Unknown

Regardless of the laws adn the TOS, for PC users the MPQ account is linked to Steam, so you could really only sell your Steam account. Which will get your Steam account banned, and there is a big chance you get **** by the buyer anyways.

I am unsure how MPQ account works on mobile devices (I assume it also has a device identifier somewhere, and that is why ppl ask CS to help with account transfer from one device to another). But I might be wrong on this part.

Unknown

I have ordered my account with extra ketchup. Can't wait to get my hands on it!

Oldboy

If time is money, then I paid a lot for it

(Just to clarify I didn't actually pay $$$ for an account )

Unknown

If time is money, i am richer than bill gate

Unknown

noisnam wrote:

If time is money, i am richer than bill gate

False, unless you are older than Bill Gates.

noobprime

Okin107 wrote:

noisnam wrote:

If time is money, i am richer than bill gate

False, unless you are older than Bill Gates.

False. Bears Beets Battlestar Galactica.

mohio

Riggy wrote:

This is all just armchair lawyering from google searches. Regardless, (putting on my moderator hat) it is the stance of the forums to not allow the selling/trading of accounts here and as such all posts of that nature will be deleted and warnings / bans issued.

Perhaps this is more for a red name than a green one, but does this mean that if I get sick of the game, burnout or whatever, and decide to give my account to a friend or alliance-mate perhaps, that is against TOS? Or is it the compensation aspect (I guess trading for something is getting some form of compensation) that is the issue?

Unknown

The TOS/EULA/whatever for virtual goods/ownership isn't as ironclad as the average armchair lawyer would like you to believe. Otherwise there wouldn't be a significant secondary market involving selling of all kinds of accounts/in game stuff. However it is indeed quite ironclad if you're posting on D3's official board to let them know your intention so that they can catch you. It's something that's definitely frowned upon and not something you want to let everyone know you're doing even if a lot of it does happen behind the scenes.

Unknown

I hardly believe you can ask people to spend (so much) money into the game, and forbid them to get some compensation when they quit.

It's like : you either stay or lose everything. If someone can prove he spent a significant amount of money, I can't see why he could not sell his account.

A User Agreement is not the law if it goes against the Consumer's interests.

In understand Ebay forbids the sale of virtual goods, because of potential scams (and Paypal issues), I also understand you may not resell a WoW account for a significant amount that would be higher than the game itself (since everything is earned through time spent), but I can't understand why a roster could not be sold, as it has some value whatever it is...

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

In this scenario, given that we can't recall a TOS being signed, then a f2p account could reasonably be transferred, but if an account where an in-game purchase was made (and the company found out) then the account could be sandboxed in a justifiable fashion.

Actually, there is a EULA. On the iOS version, it is under License Agreement on the App Store, and you implicitly agree to it by downloading the app. I assume there is something similar for Google Play/Steam.

arktos1971 wrote:

I hardly believe you can ask people to spend (so much) money into the game, and forbid them to get some compensation when they quit.

When you agree to the EULA by downloading the game, you're suppose to have known about this and proceeded accordingly. Of course no one actually reads these things but that's a different issue.

Though I've never heard of any game that permits the sale of accounts.

Edit: The EU decision (and similar cases) deal with the first-sale doctrine under copyright law. What that is limiting is D3's right as the copyright holder to stop resales of their copyrighted material. This generally applies to software like a hypothetically non-digitally protected Skyrim for example. Let's say you can buy Skyrim, download it, and copy it a million times. The ECJ essentially said that copyright doesn't give Bethesda the right to stop you from selling off the copy you originally bought (provided you delete your own copy) just because technically you can make a million duplicates. Just like if you bought a book, you can resell it if you like. Not sure how this would work with games whose primary component is online and not stored on your harddrive though.

However, the EULA operates under contract law. So even if D3 can't get a court to enjoin the sale of your account because of copyright violation (which frankly sounds like a hassle anyway), they can just ban/sandbox/delete everything on your account because you've broken your contract with them. Now if you've already gotten your money, this might not matter, but I'm guessing your buyer will care. That's why it's much more dangerous to buy an account than to sell one, and to do it on the forums is basically writing D3 a letter saying you're about to violate the EULA.

(Wow, is this giving me flashbacks to my Copyright law class where the Prof managed to make a case on Harry Potter boring.)

Unknown

You guys might be new to online gaming or haven't ever read a ToS, so I'll make it really simple.

You don't own anything other than the app in your phone or the program in your PC. Every service and data stored on other servers (including your ability to play the game you paid for online, Access to your account, characters, heroes, iso, hp, items etc) can be legally taken away from you without prior warning. You have agreed to this when you pressed one of those "please read this giant legal document then press next to install" prompts.

You know that huge game library in your Steam account?

Yeah, not actually yours.

Unknown

ark123 wrote:

You guys might be new to online gaming or haven't ever read a ToS, so I'll make it really simple.

You don't own anything other than the app in your phone or the program in your PC. Every service and data stored on other servers (including your ability to play the game you paid for online, Access to your account, characters, heroes, iso, hp, items etc) can be legally taken away from you without prior warning. You have agreed to this when you pressed one of those "please read this giant legal document then press next to install" prompts.

You know that huge game library in your Steam account?

Yeah, not actually yours.

I heard courts in Europe ruled out those ToS/EULA w/e and sided with the customers in cases stating customers own stuff they paid money for regardless. I don't know the the details about the cases though.

_RiO_

Sea wrote:

Edit: The EU decision (and similar cases) deal with the first-sale doctrine under copyright law. What that is limiting is D3's right as the copyright holder to stop resales of their copyrighted material. This generally applies to software like a hypothetically non-digitally protected Skyrim for example. Let's say you can buy Skyrim, download it, and copy it a million times. The ECJ essentially said that copyright doesn't give Bethesda the right to stop you from selling off the copy you originally bought (provided you delete your own copy) just because technically you can make a million duplicates. Just like if you bought a book, you can resell it if you like. Not sure how this would work with games whose primary component is online and not stored on your harddrive though.

However, the EULA operates under contract law. So even if D3 can't get a court to enjoin the sale of your account because of copyright violation (which frankly sounds like a hassle anyway), they can just ban/sandbox/delete everything on your account because you've broken your contract with them. Now if you've already gotten your money, this might not matter, but I'm guessing your buyer will care. That's why it's much more dangerous to buy an account than to sell one, and to do it on the forums is basically writing D3 a letter saying you're about to violate the EULA.

The EU decision afaik also held that all online services that form an integral part of a software package fall under that software's license and are by law sold and transfered together with said license to a new license-holder. The software's producer is not allowed to interfere with these online components when a license is transferred and are expected to treat the new license-holder the same as they did the original license-holder.

This ruling is iirc also the reason the german consumer rights authority is preparing a case against Valve and Steam.

Sea wrote:

Actually, there is a EULA. On the iOS version, it is under License Agreement on the App Store, and you implicitly agree to it by downloading the app. I assume there is something similar for Google Play/Steam.

Whether or not there is a EULA is actually not all that interesting at all. In Europe a EULA, ToS, etc. cannot limit rights granted to you by law. Any clauses attempting to do so are automatically void...

Unknown

Thanks Rio.

Besides, an MPQ roster is not "virtual" at all. For those who paid huge amounts (and I am far from being the only one which those huge amounts), it doesn't make sense.

In every contract, there must be some kind of equality of treatment. You make me pay : I own what I am paying for.

For the time being an MPQ roster has very little value when resold, but that might change in the future, who knows.