Blizzard Admits It's Been "Too Lenient" on Gold Buyers in WoW

Blizzard has shared its plans to take a much stricter approach to players who purchase gold in World of Warcraft: Forever.

Community Manager Randy Jordan and Senior Game Designer Josh Greenfield discussed the issue during a developer Q&A celebrating the game's beta launch. Greenfield said Blizzard will "very aggressively punish gold buyers." The creators also confirmed that GDKP, the practice of auctioning raid loot to the highest bidder in gold, will be banned in the new addition to the WoW franchise.

Greenfield also shared that the main concern isn't the overlap with real-money trading, but that GDKP can become so dominant it overtakes the traditional guild loot system, creating "a really big barrier to entry for new players, or players that just don't have as many resources."

On gold buying specifically, Greenfield didn't rule out permanent bans:

"Being frank, we've been probably too lenient on gold buyers, and it's been a little easy to get around some of our actions. We are taking this very seriously, and as someone who's got a 22-year-old World of Warcraft account, I can tell you it's not worth losing it permanently. It's not worth losing any of your accounts permanently. So I would very strongly recommend that you don't do it. It's not worth it. I promise."

World of Warcraft Forever, announced at BlizzCon 2026, launches on November 4. Its Beta started a week ago with mind-blowing success, and WoW Classic developer Josh Greenfield called the numbers "the craziest" he'd seen in over a decade working at Blizzard.