World of Warcraft Player Suing to End Gold Farming


It is the end of the world… of Warcraft. A gamer from Fort Lauderdale, FL is bringing a lawsuit against a video game store for selling virtual gold for real money. This practice is called gold farming and has the same inflation effect that would occur if people printed their own money. This sounds like an absolute waste of time and it probably is. Yet, this could be one of those cases that turns out to set a precedent.

In order to win the lawsuit, the gamer must show that he suffered actual damages. There is nothing written that says people have any rights to virtual property. How can you own something that is not tangible? This is the basis of the Antonio Hernandez’s case:

“This loss of time, conservatively, amounts to hundreds of thousands of hours of subscriber time and causes the irreparable harm of driving subscribers away from World of Warcraft,” according to Hernandez’s lawsuit. “The economic harm incurred by this loss of time is in the millions of dollars.”

This instance, though sort of pathetic, does have the implications bring a whole new facet to the rights of gamers and their property inside the virtual world. We will keep a close eye on this and see just how far the government is going to allow these types of claims to be heard.

Thanks to Princess Omala for the news tip.

Tags: ,

About Steve Kohlbecker

Senior Managing Editor of Loot Ninja, ACS Certified Biochemist and Research Scientist for a major Pharmaceutical Company. I also benchpressed 415 lbs when I was in college.

Around the Web

5 Responses to “World of Warcraft Player Suing to End Gold Farming”

  1. WoW Millionaire
    March 13, 2009 at 12:54 pm #

    Do not buy wow gold you will get banned, there are tons of ways to make really fast wow gold.

  2. John
    July 27, 2009 at 4:45 pm #

    Hey guys I know this is a bit late but there are many ways of finding good honest gold in war of warcraft…..

  3. Matthew Hayes
    October 15, 2009 at 1:33 am #

    I don't really play warcraft, I just heard it from my friends.. Gold are really precious..

  4. WoW Fan
    January 23, 2011 at 1:46 pm #

    Get to the Auction House, can make a mint smelting ores!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Loot Ninja » Week in Loot Ninja - April 19th Edition - April 20, 2008

    [...] World of Warcraft Player Suing to End Gold Farming [...]

Leave a Reply

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.