The poor RMT's...

[Rivienne]

There is no law in any country that i know of that makes it illegal to purchase virtual currency with real currency. There is a rule against it in the TOS. Illegal, and breaking a TOS are two separate things. Lol. Also, to people comparing Gil sellers to drug dealers? Just lmao.

Game companies can and do sue for breach of contract. When you agree to the TOS and EULA that is considered a binding legal agreement. Sometimes people can and do find ways around specific clauses. But in this case, it is most definitely enforceable if the companies can prove the case against a specific offender in a court of law. Additionally most of the methods for acquiring the in game currency are themselves hacks and exploits of the game itself, and that is in fact illegal in many countries including the EU and USA, under IP laws. Thus, the hacking of the game in order to acquire the goods to sell, most definitely does fall under IP laws. Finally in game items are not considered owned by the player by any country that I know of. Rather, the player is considered to have a non-negotiable, non-transferable license to game content that is further revocable at the sole discretion of the IP owner. Therefore any real money sale of in game items is also a violation of IP laws, and the "non-transferable" part of the license.

So yes in fact: illegally hacking the game to acquire virtual goods is covered on many countries IP laws, and the selling of the virtual goods is a violation of a binding legal document, that would be considered a breach of agreement, and is also a violation of IP since the virtual goods are not in fact owned by the seller, but the IP holder which in this case is Square-Enix.

The problem however is not in the legality of the issue, but the enforcing of it, given the people doing the exploiting are typically in countries that turn a blind eye to such international violations.

Eula isn't legally binding in Europe.

Cite one example of 'Game companies can and do sue for breach of contract'

Well the biggest one wasn't one that won on the merits of the EULA but IP circumvention laws. That was Blizzard vs Gilder. In that case they sued due to the fact they were bypassing the system, and facilitating the violating of the EULA. In lower court it was upheld, but in higher the EULA portion was thrown out, not because it wasn't binding (in the USA) but because gilder weren't themselves violating the EULA, they were selling software that others were using, but not themselves using it, and the court found the concept of "facilitating" to be a bit on the sketchy side in that case. They did still win however on the IP law, and then further started sending out cease and desists via pay-pal to the individual violators who used the software to themselves violate the license.

Further Jagex also announced back in 2012 that they were not only suing gold farming companies regarding RuneScape, but individual users who violated the license as well. Just because individual lawsuits like this are not common public knowledge does not mean they do not happen. Usually only the big ones suing a specific company are made common knowledge, while the smaller ones of individuals are kept private.

The point being: yes game companies go after these cases when they have solid ground to do so. Not all portions are upheld, but other cases regarding EULA violations have in fact been upheld, and others have gone through on the basis of IP circumvention laws. Some have settled instead (which usually means that the sued company realized they would lose, and the suing company realized that while they could win it would be simpler/cheaper to settle).

Also regarding the EU, if you are referring to the 2012 decision regarding re-sale of digital games, as far as I know that has not been stated to apply in the case of online game content as contained on the game company servers, which is what is ultimately being discussed here since this is an MMO. In the EU it would be legal to resell a legally acquired digital download of the game client itself, but the license regarding server access is a different question entirely.

[JayCommon]

In the OP when he said "bank accounts were banned"....I would imagine he had to have been talking about their in game accounts they use to hold all their gil. I really can't imagine real bank accounts being banned because of this.

Like stated before, it's illegal in the ToS to sell virtual currency but to my knowledge there isn't any type of laws governing this sort of behavior.

Lol @ tirades.. and yes..... while I hardly saw any shouts yesterday while I played the amount of tells were mind boggling. Almost more irritating because of the constant ding going off every time you get a tell.

[Sandoria]

Moar like this plz!

[Valsh]

Game companies can and do sue for breach of contract. When you agree to the TOS and EULA that is considered a binding legal agreement. .

Eula isn't legally binding in Europe.

Cite one example of 'Game companies can and do sue for breach of contract'

[Teliopas]

Please, quote any case in which any person has been sued or placed in jail for buying or selling virtual currency.

There have been cases and countries have set laws, a bit of googling and you can find http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming

The annoying part is the main culprit like with any intellectual property theft is from China. Their government and economy thrive off stealing what others spend their lives working to create then they brag to the rest of the world that their economy is so great. There are laws and most of the world is pissed off about it but they can't touch these people legally because they are protected by their government. Just like there is no successful legitimate manufacturing company in china, they all steal designs from foreign companies and piece them together with cheap parts. Some have tried to pursue legal action but very few, if any have succeeded because China doesn't care, as long as it benefits them the rest of the world can go eff themselves.

People who buy gil support this mentality as it creates an unfair economy for people playing for entertainment battling a market controlled by people who spend their work hours farming, not to mention hacking player accounts which is also illegal. I don't care what kind of squalor they live in if they make their living by RMTing in game currency, spamming chat channels and hacking accounts then they deserve severe poverty. Go SE for standing up to them and I hope they make this game completely unprofitable for RMTs.

[Wilksha]

It's not that funny, these people live off of this and need money to eat and survive. I don't want them in game but I do feel bad that some of them may lose their livelihood.

Don't feel bad for them. They are doing things that are against the ToS. In real life I think this would relate to trafficking and in most countries it's illegal. People doing this kind of thing only do it cause the money is good without looking at the consequences of being caught. They don't need our pity. They need to know about reality; it's a harsh mistress.

[Yoko_Kurama]

You guys probably don't realize it's usually people from 3rd world countries where 20 american dollars can go a long way. You guys seem to think they are somehow hacking the game and selling gill to people, they are probably spending more time in the game farming with crafting classes or gathering classes than anyone else then when they accumulate enough gil through legit means (sometimes not so legit if using 3rd party software to bot) they just turn it around and sell it for real money that they use to put food on their table. If you really think of it, of all the crooked ways a young teen with no food and money could do (ie pornography/prostitution etc..) going into a game and exploiting the game economy for real money is probably the least hazardous alternative job they can do. That is just my 2 cents

[Kanash]

Hehe well, atleast there is 1 thing about the RMT I like very very much...

They make it so damn easy to utterly hate their guts.

Burn in hell RMT.

[Zaels]

I have zero sympathy for anyone that loses their livelihood that earns it by partaking in illegal activities.

[Zaels]

...they are probably spending more time in the game farming with crafting classes or gathering classes than anyone else then when they accumulate enough gil through legit means (sometimes not so legit if using 3rd party software to bot) they just turn it around and sell it for real money that they use to put food on their table. If you really think of it, of all the crooked ways a young teen with no food and money could do (ie pornography/prostitution etc..) going into a game and exploiting the game economy for real money is probably the least hazardous alternative job they can do. That is just my 2 cents

a large portion of the gil they made were obtained by hacking people's accounts (essentially stealing other people's money, considering this game isn't free) and using those teleport bots to farm high-demand materials.

how the hell can anyone feel sorry for them?