Comments on: On Gaming Security

By: Nathaniel H.

Nathaniel H. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:50:37 +0000

@Mordaxus - I think that could perhaps explain some of it besides the design element (which could be a whole post in its entirety, and completely off topic). I should clarify that my above post only stated my experience with MMOs (I've played a few since I started with Everquest). @Alex - This site, and page in particular might shed some light on the value of a cracked WoW account: http://www.buymmoaccounts.com/wow-account-for-sale/?c=wowaccounts

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:01:02 +0000

I wonder what the going price of a cracked WoW account is vs. the price of a cracked bank account….

By: tim

tim — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:09:09 +0000

Whats missing here is that a character in WoW (or similar games) is a different type of asset. It represent thousands of hours of work that carry a lot of emotional connection to the ‘owner’. The ‘owner’ of that character has a much higher incentive to protect it than numbers in a bank account.
(i built up a 70 level character and asked myself – is this it? and canceled my account. However – my bf still plays and I can’t imagine having to deal with him if someone stole his character)

By: Mordaxus

Mordaxus — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:08:43 +0000

Yes, but Blizzard will return lost and stolen equipment. They cannot return any enhancements to the equipment, but they do return the equipment itself. I believe that they will do this only three times per account, but they do do it. If this is unusual in the MMO biz, then perhaps it helps explain why Blizzard dominates the market.

By: Nathaniel Husted.

Nathaniel Husted. — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:21:45 +0000

“Presumably, Blizzard has a transaction log and can rewind it.” — Most of the time, in many MMOs the customer support folks will not return any lost, stolen, bugged, etc. equipment. This either means that most companies don’t care (which could partly be the case) or that their transaction logs are not nearly as useful as some might think. This is something I’d love to hear more from the publishers of these MMOs and their developers, because from the customer standpoint, it seems they have practically no information logged about transactions in their own games.