Blizzard Closes 18,000 World of WarCraft Accounts

An official statement from World of WarCraft developer Blizzard has announced that administrators have closed more than 18,000 user accounts for the massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) game in the past three months, for violations of the game’s Terms of Use. According to the statement, the majority of these accounts were found to be using third party programs to farm gold and items – actions which have been found to negatively impact the virtual economy within the game. The statement also reiterated Blizzard’s policy forbidding the selling of World of WarCraft content for real world money, as first announced last December. The activity is tolerated and even encouraged by some MMORPGs, but Blizzard have always maintained a strong policy against both cheaters and any other external activity which affects online gameplay. World of WarCraft is currently one of the most popular MMORPGs in the world with a new total of 5 million subscribers having been announced earlier in the month. Blizzard has encouraged anyone to report suspicious online behavior in the game to a Games Master or to e-mail [email protected].