An IP block means they will sell in-region because it’s easier, NOT because they can’t afford to sell out- of region…note the “decrease” of bots/sellers and not “the elimination” of bots/gold sellers. No one abandons money…
And just so you’re aware, there are next to no IP blocks in “Global” (aka, “not enough NA players, stuff it full of anyone who wants to play” servers) in any game I’ve played until there is a fallout because of hacking/cheating or social issues, even when the company contract states that they are not allowed to register and play in that region. You can still find non-NA/EU players on those servers in MS and other games.
**Smaller companies have smaller servers, smaller IP pools, to run their smaller farms on…**what you’re trying to assume in your argument is that a VPN inherently will cost more than what a company may make, which is not the truth.
Make note of the Blackhat example I previously stated: infected small-business servers can handle the game and any traffic the game and VPN tunnel passes. Instead of holding onto “hot-stock”, underground forums (many in China…) will sell access to those servers to other parties for CHEAP.
**Cheap as in $10 each…**a small farm of 30 bots costing $300 is able to make upwards of 2 million+ silver a day and resell that to get their investment money back.
After that, regardless of competition with larger farms, they’ll still see a reason to continue selling/farming.
On another note, a “large” farm and a “small” farm will still have the same advertisement foothold in-game: they will not seem any larger or smaller of an entity to a player walking by.
And even a smaller company could hire a cheap intermediary to run point on spamming and the creation of accounts for the express use of spamming…
