Mafia Wars is arguably the most popular of the myriad of social networking games that are available today and it was only a matter of time until Zynga took a harder line when it comes to suspending or even banning accounts.
The buying and selling of intellectual property is one of the biggest concerns for internet gaming companies. While the practice has been around for years many companies turned a blind eye to it because of the expense in prosecuting those who traffic in currency, accounts, and items.
In the last year or so many of the bigger gaming companies have done one of two things. First they have cracked down not on the sellers of such items but those who purchase them. Second, many have opened up their games for free play while requiring players to purchase the top items or even the all but bare necessities with micro-transactions using real cash. Some have done both.
Zynga has not missed what is going on in the industry and has started to follow suit by targeting those players who participate in the buying and selling of intellectual property. Presently they are suspending or banning accounts quite regularly. If you are a player who has purchased items or entire accounts do not be surprised if you try to log in one day and discover that your accounts is no longer accessible.
Leveling and acquiring the best items in Mafia Wars is too easy to put your account at risk. With a proper plan you can level to level 200+ in mere days and will be rolling in cash along the way so there is no reason to participate in such shenanigans.
Recently I have come across a few Mafia Wars “information” sites that are blatantly trying to sell items and accounts right on their front page. While I will not name these sites for obvious reasons I find the practice to be unethical. It is one thing to write a guide or sell a report detailing how to master the game but selling items and accounts crosses the line.
All of the site that I have visited which are doing this are also making use of graphics and logos from Mafia Wars and other Zynga games. I predict that somewhere in the near future the publishers of these sites will receive a nice letter from Zynga which will in essence order them to cease and desist in using the intellectual property of the company.
I will make one promise to all of my readers right now. You will never see accounts, items or currency from any game for sale on my sites. The only disclaimer I will make to that statement are those sites that earn revenue from Google AdSense since the end user has no control over which ads are displayed.
In conclusion, if you are buying or selling the intellectual property of any company and get your account closed, you have nothing to whine about …you brought it upon yourself.
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