Picture this: A struggling early-game Lost Ark player arrives at Luterra Castle with little more than his equipped gear to his name.
He opens the bustling city’s local chat to find hundreds of rapidly spammed messages from accounts that, at this pace, must be doing so automatically. They all feature what seems like some variation of a URL, with each avoiding the dot that precedes the “com,” as to get the website past the game’s chat filters.
These posts all advertise the selling of Lost Ark gold, for as cheap as 1,500 gold for only a dollar, provided they do business on the provided third-party website. To the new player with almost no gold at all, a dollar for that much sounds like a steal.
However, this player may be misunderstanding the ramifications of real-world trading.
Real-world trading as a black market service
Most, if not all RWT-based deals are organized and settled on third-party sites that operate outside the jurisdiction and control of both Smilegate and Amazon.
As such, there are very few, if any, safeguards in place to protect potential buyers from getting scammed of their money. From sellers not delivering on their gold to dealers running off with players’ credit card information, a lot can go wrong for buyers dealing behind closed doors online.
Related: Lost Ark Leveling Guide – How to level up fast
The Amazon Games Code of Conduct: Cheating and fair play
Lost Ark publisher Amazon Games takes a hard stance against both those who sell in RWT exchanges, and those who buy from them.
“Do not engage in real-money trading of in-game items and in-game currencies,” Amazon Games’ publicly released Code of Conduct reads. “We reserve the right to determine what constitutes unfair play and to take corrective action we deem appropriate.”
By “corrective action,” Amazon games most likely refers to disciplinary action, such as a temporary suspension, or, in more grave cases, a permanent ban to an account.
It is in Amazon Games’ policy to issue warnings to a player if their infractions to the Code of Conduct are considered minor. However, real-world trading could lead to anywhere from a 24 to 168 hour suspension of play. Suspensions could grow to become permanent bans if the offender repeats.
Speaking objectively, and rather than simply resigning to do the right thing, players should ask themselves whether or not buying a few thousand gold is worth losing the progress on every character they’ve built to that point.
Related: What is the best class to play solo in Lost Ark
