With an exchange rate of nearly 10g to the dollar, World of Warcraft Gold certainly has real value. When gamers find themselves lusting after tools in the game, such as the Hammer of the Titans weapon or the Epic Flying Mount, they have one of two options—they can tediously grind or hunt for gold themselves, or they can purchase it with real credit cards on one of the many World of Warcraft Gold sites. While buying gold in World of Warcraft can seem like a quick and easy fix, it does not come without some serious repercussions.

Blizzard has made their stance of Gold Buying in World of Warcraft very clear:

As stated on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft site:

“What many people don’t realize when buying gold is the large impact it has on the game economy, and also how the companies selling gold obtain it. Our developers, in-game support, and anti-hack teams work diligently to stop the exploits these companies use and help players who have become victims of their services. We regularly track the source of the gold these companies sell, and find that an alarmingly high amount comes from hacked accounts. These are the friends, relatives, and guildmates you may know who have gone through the experience of having characters, gold, and items stripped from them after visiting a website or opening a file containing a trojan virus.”

Before you pull out that credit card and purchase some World of Warcraft Gold from some likely unsavory characters, consider that Blizzard holds players “responsible for what happens with the account they play on. Selling gold for real money and having characters power-leveled through outside services are violations “ of their Terms of Use and End User License Agreement, and can often result in getting your account banned.

However, increasing your gold in World of Warcraft in essential to increasing the ability to play effectively, and luckily there are other alternatives. Of these, the best is to use a World of Warcraft gold guide, such Warcraft Riches or Warcraft Millionaire. Unlike buying gold, these guides teach you how to get gold yourself, using 100% legal and approved methods. You get the best of both worlds, the ability to quickly increase your gold as well as the satisfaction of playing the game really well.