Blizzard co-head Mike Ybarra and his guild sells raid boosts within World Of Warcraft, causing players to debate the ethics of trading in-game progress for money.
As reported by TechRaptor, Mike Ybarra – who was promoted to Blizzard co-head along with Jen Oneal back in August – has revealed that he sells raid boosts in World Of Warcraft.
On October 16, Ybarra tweeted he would be streaming a “heroic SoD sales run”. While SoD is short for Sanctum Of Domination – a raid in World Of Warcraft – a “sales run” refers to the practice of carrying players through in-game content in return for payment.
Likely streaming our heroic SoD sales run and high'ish end m+ tonight (20-23) starting at 5pm PT.
— Mike Ybarra
(@Qwik) October 16, 2021
Players can pay real money, in-game gold or WoW tokens (which can be bought with real money) in return for guilds such as Ybarra’s running them through raids.
This is a controversial topic in World Of Warcraft, as it allows players to effectively purchase progress instead of earn it legitimately.
Some have called out Ybarra’s tweet within the context of his position at Blizzard, with one person saying “If the leader of this organisation [Blizzard] can’t see that selling cold hard cash (WoW token) is killing it, then there really is no hope left”.
On the other hand, over on Reddit, some say that boosting has a place in World Of Warcraft. One comment states that boosting is the only way that guilds can make back gold that was spent on other topics, while another acknowledges that “it can be seen as part of the games world” but identifies other reasons that boosting is a problem within the MMO.
In other news, the official Tomb Raider YouTube account has shared footage of Tomb Raider: Ascension, a cancelled title that would have been more of a survival horror.
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