We were told by developers and publishers over the years that real-money-trading was a scourge on online gaming and ruined the experience for everyone. Rules were added to the term and conditions for just about every game to make sure that everyone knew it was not allowed and wouldn’t be tolerated. Those that did not heed the warning would risk their account being banned forever.

It seems that in the end, money rules and no one really cares whether or not real-money-trading ruins games or not.  Sony Online Entertainment was the first to allow item and account selling for Everquest and Everquest 2, but shut-down the service in early 2008. Probably because of the enormous fees they charged and sellers decided the blackmarket was better for them.

Yesterday Diablo 3 launched with it’s own RMT auction house, even though Blizzard has been railing against RMT for years. It seems the real issue wasn’t that it ruined their games, but they weren’t getting a cut of the cash.

Blizzard has been adamant about their game accounts, stating time and time again, that they are the owners of the accounts and not the players, but by allowing players to buy and sell accounts to each other, isn’t Blizzard indirectly conceding they really aren’t the owners?

What Blizzard is trying to get away with here is renting you an online account, while making you pay for the game. If I paid for the game and the game requires me to make an online account to use it, then you can’t say I don’t own that account.  Otherwise I cannot gain access to the game which I paid for.

Having said that, it would be reasonable to say that since I purchased the game, and the game requires an online account, then I own that online account. Going a step further, I should then be able to sell my account to anyone I want without using Blizzard’s auction system.

Where do you guys stand in the new RMT world? Is what’s good for the goose, good for the gander? Does Blizzard have any leg to stand on when it comes to RMT and players selling their accounts and items privately? Or do you believe that RMT still ruins games?

Activision Blizzard revealed today their first quarter 2012 financial results showing that World of Warcraft lost approximation zero subscribers during the first quarter, maintaining their 10.2 million player-base.

This marks the first time in over a year that WoW has not lost subscribers since the decline began in the fourth quarter of 2010. Since then the game has lost 1.8 million, losing only 100k in the fourth quarter of 2011 and zero last quarter. Giving WoW about 6 months of steady numbers.

One can argue that the Diablo 3 Annual Pass promotion had a major impact on subscription figures this quarter, but even still, it’s pretty impressive.  I’m sure there’s also a few ex-SWTOR players who have been slowly returning as well.

It seem like every few months Blizzard does something that invokes the back-lash of its gaming community. This time it’s over the Mist of Pandaria beta invites that were promised to those who purchased the one year Annual-Pass subscription for World of Warcraft.

It seems Blizzard originally promised Annual Pass holders beta access as the time of launch, but have since updated their site to say that beta invites will be staggered.

In the top right, we have the original advertisement and to the left we have the new one.  The original advertisement under the “When do I get Diablo III and other exclusive benefits?” clearly states, “beta acess will go live with the beta launch“.

For further proof, players have cited a video from Blizzcon 2011 where in the opening ceremony, President and co-founder of Blizzard, Mike Morhaine, states, “guaranteed access into the next World of Warcraft expansion beta when it goes live.”

Well there you have it, pretty solid proof that Blizzard did indeed promise Annual Pass holders beta access from day one and have since reneged on it. Whether or not that language was used in the Term of Service or contact has yet to be determined, but at the very least, from the images above, this constitutes as false advertising.

Perhaps Blizzard did not expect the Annual Pass to be as big of a success as it was and realized they could not possibly give beta access to that large amount of players, but that’s really no excuse.

We’ll keep you updated once Blizzard responds.

Blizzard announced today that it will be reducing its global workforce this year by about 600 employees, with only 10% of them coming from the game development departments.

With Diablo 3 being released in the 2nd quarter, and no other major project anywhere near release, it’s not very surprising to hear Blizzard is downsizing. Sure there’s Mists of Pandaria and the first Starcraft 2 expansion coming soon, but those do not require the resources that a brand new game like D3 requires; so I’m sure a majority of the cuts are due to the imminent D3 launch.

Along with the launch of D3, Blizzard will also be launching the new BattleNet, which also probably has a role in the cuts.

With only 10% or so of the cuts coming from game development, that begs to wonder whether Blizzard support will be hit hard by the cut? Does this mean longer phone waits and responses to game issues? I’m willing to bet yes.

Of course, a company’s gotta do what’s best for them and their share-holders, so if that mean cutting staff (or merging), so be it.