AdWords seems to think you are all about the RMT love now. Front page box at the bottom selling me gold in 3, and a level 70 guide in 1.

I think you’re closest to the mark so far. I have 4 negative comments in my feedback history and ALL of them are from buyers of virtual items who tried to get their money back after I transferred the goods to them in-game. I don’t regularly sell virtual goods. But, when I move on from a game, I usually break up my account, sell what I can, and use the proceeds to upgrade my PC or something similar. Of the approximately 20 transactions I’ve made as a seller, 4 were with scammers.

One guy in particular put on a good show. He paid me US$1050 for a Tram castle in UO (in 2003), and within 5 minutes of me transferring it to one of his characters, there was a paypal dispute in my inbox. My only saving grace was that paypal did not offer any sort of intervention/resolution in virtual items sales.

I’m sure the incidence of scamming, both from a seller’s and buyer’s perspective, are insanely high in the virtual goods market. It only makes sense for Ebay to get out now before there is an enormous lawsuit filed against them that helps define the legal status of virtual good sales for the rest of us. They have little to gain and a hell of a lot to lose.

As I noted with my Wii experience, eBay seems to be clamping down and helping to enforce the legitimacy of auctions. By doing so, they better position their site against future competition. I applaud them for that move, its far better for them to proactively improve their services than it is for them to rest on their laurels and wait for a competitor to come along and do it better.

Just because they ban transactions that are difficult to monitor, and are likely a huge source of complaints, does not mean they have an agenda with either RMT in principle or the sanctity of MMO games and regulations. Its just an ugly transaction to have to manage to.

Actually, Eve-Online has a guaranteed transfer process for gametime codes (which is entirely legitimate), which involves several in-game evemails.

Ebay is known for arbitrary descisions on IP (you can easily find people banned for selling, say, their own music on Ebay). This is just another.

I bought my Wii on eBay, and noticed that during that time they added a number of safeguards to the process, including showing dated receipts with the ebay username to help provide a more scam free environment. They also routinely pulled auctions that weren’t legit, even after bidding had started or completed.

I would wager that with the number of MMO companies that clamp down on cheating, whether it be dup bugs, macro farming, “odd” trades, etc, eBay would just rather not deal with the hassle of someone buying duped gold, then getting their account banned, and dealing with the ensuing complaints.

If eBay is making a conscious effort to provide as legitimate an overall trading environment as possible, then banning RMT is really a no brainer, and it has little to do with the MMO companies themselves.