I’m very disappointed that there’s barely any discussion about one of the top RWF guilds being sponsored by scummy RMT company. A few days ago, another forum member tried to bring attention to this, but Blizzard locked the thread because it named and shamed both the guild and the RMT company, despite edits being made to remove the names.
I’m sorry but to me, this makes it clear that Blizzard is choosing to look the other way. They basically benefit from the free marketing that the RWF generates, and since they’re not officially involved in the race, they can pretend to stay neutral.
But silence on this issue isn’t neutrality, it’s complicity. If anyone at Blizzard still has a shred of integrity, they should address this instead of sweeping it under the rug just to secure another strong sales quarter.
It’s not an official tournament → no additional rules apply other than the existing rules for streaming in-game content and the terms / CoC we all have to obey.
Being sponsored, or not, is completely outside of the game’s context, no?
RMT goes against Blizzard’s own policies and yet, a guild benefiting from it gets to represent the pinnacle of competition in WoW without consequence.
I get that the RWF isn’t an official Blizzard event, but does that mean Blizzard should turn a blind eye when a top guild is openly sponsored by an RMT company? Sounds wrong to me.
Sure, sponsorship may be “outside the game’s context” but when that sponsorship comes from a company that profits off breaking ToS, it becomes a game integrity issue.
Maybe I’m being an idealist, but Blizzard shouldn’t just let this slide.
I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect the problem is that Blizzard can’t really do much about it, unless the raiders themselves have completed RMT trades they will struggle to ban them for this, and you can’t shut down a business unless they do so something illegal, and RMT isn’t illegal.
I agree I’d like to see Blizzard come down on something like this, but the question remains…how?
Second best probably. “Quality Assurance” already won. If spending a stupid amount of money and having sponsors (be they RMT or not), private addon designers counts then exploits count as well imo.
But I think that Blizzard does have some options. If you recall, they’ve taken action before, when they banned the Gallywix boosting community (2020) for RMT involvement, even though NOT every member directly participated. They could do something similar now.
Or, at the very least, make a public statement distancing themselves from guilds that accept these sponsorships.
The question remains; based on what rule can they sanction said guild?
I get that there’s a moral discussion to be held till eternity about this, and I’m not in favor of this either. But the practical one is simple; do they violate a rule?
Blizzard could in theory limit who can sponsor teams, however this
a) would require that they endorse the RWF
b) only affect races after this one and hence prevent future issues but not this issue
c) could itself cause a backlash from teams with huge social followings.
I activelly boycot the event untill Blizzard does what it should have done since 2004 :
Put them in their own servers.
I dont like that WOW is on pause untill 100 people or less finish their stupid event. I dont mind that they have it, but in a separate server. With seperate tuning and seperate rules.
While the sponsorship is questionable, Blizzard cannot take action as it is NOT their event.
The guild benefitted from the sponsorship only. If there were NO consequences or actions against them, well then obviously there is no evidence they benefitted from actual RMT.
