Yeah, we had someone over at the Elder Scrolls Wiki creating blog posts linking to Buy Gold sites a few weeks ago.

Man, *** those guys. I can't say it strongly enough: *** them. If there's one thing that almost made me stop playing this game it's the gold sellers (and the bots that come with them) that used to infest ESO. It took a while (it seemed like forever), but ZOS did a fantastic job of eradicating them. We must be ever vigilant against their return, and support ZOS in their efforts to keep the game as free from them as possible.

That is commendable, GaryA, but ZOS itself is selling items for cash that save in game gold, effectively selling gold for cash, in broad daylight. That differs from what those bad, bad, evil gold sellers do exactly...how?

JamilaRaj wrote: »

That is commendable, GaryA, but ZOS itself is selling items for cash that save in game gold, effectively selling gold for cash, in broad daylight. That differs from what those bad, bad, evil gold sellers do exactly...how?

For example.

You buy 1 mil of gold from a gold seller so you can spend it all on the best gear and make it all legendary.
You have an advantage over other players.


You pay crowns and buy dwemer motif.
Your armor looks nice but you still die to the player who bought gold

JamilaRaj wrote: »

That is commendable, GaryA, but ZOS itself is selling items for cash that save in game gold, effectively selling gold for cash, in broad daylight. That differs from what those bad, bad, evil gold sellers do exactly...how?

If you don't see the difference, then you weren't here when the gold sellers all were, and you haven't compared what can be bought in the crown store to what can be bought in guild stores.

kevlarto_ESO wrote: »

The instant gratification player that has to have it now, or someone who has deep pockets and little time to play, so they want it now,

I call these people potential buyers for a bridge I have for sale.

JamilaRaj wrote: »

That is commendable, GaryA, but ZOS itself is selling items for cash that save in game gold, effectively selling gold for cash, in broad daylight. That differs from what those bad, bad, evil gold sellers do exactly...how?

Because ZOS owns the game.

Makes all the difference in the world.

HeroOfNone wrote: »

JamilaRaj wrote: »

That is commendable, GaryA, but ZOS itself is selling items for cash that save in game gold, effectively selling gold for cash, in broad daylight. That differs from what those bad, bad, evil gold sellers do exactly...how?

I doubt ZOS is going to answer this, but let me play the devil's advocate here and use something from another gaming industry lead

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem"

-Gabe Newell

In the article Gabe is talking about game piracy and region locking games, however I feel the same can be applied here.

I would not say so. Steam or even more so GOG (because its games are DRM free) may be trying to offer service on par with getting a game from torrents, so whoever can and is willing to pay will pay and won't turn to torrents.
Companies running MMOs are after their cut from gold selling business or real money transactions in general (which may be huge volume), while service, that they e.g. guarantee player gets what he pays for, is by product. Though ironically the higher the risk for player, the better for players.

HeroOfNone wrote: »

ZOS is offering only cosmetic and convience items that others want but don't necessarily want to grind for and are locked toward your account. These sites however, offer gold plus pay 2 win options (gear, leveling, etc.) with their product, threatening to flood the market with cash to gold conversions that can be easily transferable. Two very different services here.

I would almost say that obviously yes, different offers are different, but in fact you can compare gold with gear or levelling by amount of time it takes to get it. If it takes X units of time to farm Y amount of gold, while you could make Z levels in same X units of time, you see there is equivalence between gold and levels. Most of the time you gain multiple resources, which complicates it a bit, but whatever.

HeroOfNone wrote: »

In addition, anything you do buy from these groups is not going to ZOS for future development, it's going into the pockets of folks who hardly play the game. It is the epitome of pay to win, though I understand if some see things in only black and white and don't want to accept the grey that is necessary to keep games maintained and updated.

Heh, if you put it this way, corruption almost sounds like a noble deed.

pugyourself wrote: »

That was a horrible time in-game. Inbox was filled with garbage, chat was all about gold selling. Keep these guys out.

Not like now the game is all crown store and big fat ads over the screen.

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

JamilaRaj wrote: »

That is commendable, GaryA, but ZOS itself is selling items for cash that save in game gold, effectively selling gold for cash, in broad daylight. That differs from what those bad, bad, evil gold sellers do exactly...how?

Because ZOS owns the game.

Makes all the difference in the world.

Exactly that. As with Blizzard's tokens in WoW, which are an official way to buy gold if you want to without compromising your account or credit card, as well as being a way of paying in-game for your game time. Smed must be wondering why he didn't think of it first.

One thing to keep in mind is that many if not all of these 3rd party sites are phishing for identity theft purposes. That is not going to happen when you go through ZOS' store.