World of Warcraft is one of the most popular MMORPGs, and for a reason. It’s not only one of the oldest games in the genre but also it is one of the most varied in terms of what it has to offer in terms of gameplay and mechanics. 

One of the biggest problems that WoW faces is that many players end up being things from each other in a lucrative aftermarket. Blizzard has done amazing things to combat this issue, but the problem still persists. Anyone who has played WoW can describe one symptom of this to you perfectly as it is something that every player encounters eventually. Do you know what we’re talking about? Botting, of course, the act by which a player deputizes a computer-controlled character to run amok and achieve objectives for the player such as earning gold or grinding for items. These accounts often sell their goods to other services that might make you feel like you’ve stumbled upon Jackpotjoy offers for 2020, but in reality you’re just buying something obtained through in-game manipulation. 

“We rarely communicate publicly about this, because we’ve found that describing our sources and methods can make it easier for malicious actors to work around them, but we feel that it’s worthwhile to expand on the subject today, as many players have recently asked us for more details,” community manager Kaivax wrote in a post on the mass banning. 

As for the bad itself, it seems to be mainly directed at bots and botting. 

“Yes, there have been cases where a legitimate player appeared (to another player) to be botting. In those cases, where a legitimate player is reported and then cleared of wrongdoing, it can be very frustrating to the reporting player to again see what they think is a bot.”

Blizzard further went on to describe the challenges in grappling with this issue as these systems seem to both elude detection and work aggressively to undermine the core values that uphold WoW’s system. Given that, bots are also a sign of WoW’s continued popularity in the marketplace. But, as many analysts point out, the real issue for Blizzard isn’t one about quality of life in-game for WoW players. It might actually have to do with money. Since these organizations re-sell in-game items for real-world money, they circumvent many of the publisher’s baked-in systems for making money and preventing this kind of “cheating” from occurring. Rather than stopping it in any substantial way, this type of player behavior has morphed and evolved as methods to detect them and stop them have changed. The problem of botting and reselling items has become even more pronounced with the release of World of Warcraft Classic – a resurrection of the original MMORPG that came out almost two decades ago which, as you might imagine, is a grind-heavy experience that bots and buying gear might make a little bit more palatable at the end of the day.