Promoting RMT in YouTube Videos - Zero Consequences

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

It's true that they don't really have authority over what people do on completely separate platforms. And while they technically can issue bans on their own platform, they still have to be careful to respect consumer laws and unfair enforcement practices. A company can't just go "this guy looks bad on YouTube" and hand out bans to someone who hasn't actually violated their Terms of Service.

For example, someone on Discord could openly say they hate the company, throw around insults, and if you sent that to GGG moderation chances are nobody would really care, because it's outside their platform. Now do the exact same thing in-game or on the forums and moderation would very likely step in almost immediately because that's actually within their service and under their rules.

Same situation here. The guy is doing his thing on YouTube. YouTube is not part of GGG's platform, and if his actual PoE account is clean and he isn't advertising or breaking rules in-game or on the forums, then from GGG's side there simply isn't really a ToS violation to enforce against.

Also, almost every online game works on a licensed account system. That's not really there so companies can randomly ban people for fun, it's mainly so they legally retain control over the service itself and can cleanly shut it down whenever they want. If PoE ever stopped existing one day, they need the legal framework to terminate access to the service entirely. It would be an absolute legal nightmare to fully shut down an online service if every single user was considered the full owner of their account and permanent access rights.

While I agree nobody should really encourage that kind of stuff, the reality is GGG can't just start policing the entire internet over it. Realistically the best move is simply to not watch the creator if you don't like the content. And honestly, avoiding bait builds is probably a win anyway.

Oh I'm not disagreeing with you in that it's best to avoid those channels and I completely understand the business aspect of it. All my businesses before I retired dealt with customer service and you are right that allowing this to just work itself out is best for GGG from a business perspective.

My point was that they can ban anyone whenever they choose, not whether they should or not, as that's not up to anyone other than GGG themselves and there doesn't need to be a violation of the ToS to ban someone. Saying they can't ban you for actions taken on another platform is objectively wrong also, as I linked you snippets from the ToS itself lol

Players do not own their Path of Exile accounts or items; they only license them.

Sole Discretion: The Terms of Use grant GGG sole discretion to end this license at any time.

No Cause Needed: They can terminate access without prior notice, explanation, or legal liability.

Pretty straightforward. I hope people understand this. They can do whatever they want with their IP and the players of it, even without a single reason given.

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rrogan17#2926 wrote:

My point was that they can ban anyone whenever they choose, not whether they should or not, as that's not up to anyone other than GGG themselves and there doesn't need to be a violation of the ToS to ban someone. Saying they can't ban you for actions taken on another platform is objectively wrong also, as I linked you snippets from the ToS itself lol

Players do not own their Path of Exile accounts or items; they only license them.

Sole Discretion: The Terms of Use grant GGG sole discretion to end this license at any time.

No Cause Needed: They can terminate access without prior notice, explanation, or legal liability.

Pretty straightforward. I hope people understand this. They can do whatever they want with their IP and the players of it, even without a single reason given.

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Also, almost every online game works on a licensed account system. That's not really there so companies can randomly ban people for fun, it's mainly so they legally retain control over the service itself and can cleanly shut it down whenever they want. If PoE ever stopped existing one day, they need the legal framework to terminate access to the service entirely. It would be an absolute legal nightmare to fully shut down an online service if every single user was considered the full owner of their account and permanent access rights.

Even if they do not shut down their service, they would still face significant constraints when it comes to issuing arbitrary bans, as most consumers are protected by fairly strict consumer protection laws. GGG is very unlikely to want to deal with that kind of situation, even if they felt compelled to ban someone like the YouTube user being discussed, because in the most favorable outcome for the company, the user could realistically prevail in a legal dispute.

A simple justification such as “they have done something we do not like outside of our platform” is not necessarily a defensible position once consumer protection law enters the equation, and it would likely not hold much weight if formally challenged.

As Open Source Build Creator, you can only control you, just focus on supporting creators that have passion, I literally had to rush making like 12+ spirit walker builds giving people more options with custom pob instead of going rmt route.

what I have to say on the matter.

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

GGG is very unlikely to want to deal with that kind of situation, even if they felt compelled to ban someone like the YouTube user being discussed, because in the most favorable outcome for the company, the user could realistically prevail in a legal dispute.

Absolutely not. They can ban anyone for anything as they deem appropriate. This obviously includes RMT, whether it be promotion or participation. Read the Terms of Use. Even if you were to be from the EU like I am, where we have extended consumer laws, you agreed to this when you made an account.

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17. Cancellation of Membership:

Grinding Gear Games reserves the right, acting at its sole discretion, to refuse to accept your registration request for a Member Account. To the greatest extent permitted by law, Grinding Gear Games also reserves the right, acting at its sole discretion, at any time to cancel your registration and access to your Member Account or to restrict, limit or otherwise change your existing rights of access to your Member Account, or any specific feature or benefit afforded to you in relation to your Member Account, including without limitation in respect of any Virtual Items, if it believes you have breached these Terms of Use or any other agreements you may have with Grinding Gear Games, if you have engaged in behaviour which Grinding Gear Games deems in its sole discretion is not in keeping with the intended spirit of participation in PoE or for any other reason whatsoever. In such event you agree that Grinding Gear Games will not be required to provide you with prior notice or explanation in respect of such action. Notwithstanding the cancellation of access to your Member Account in any case, you agree you will remain fully liable for any outstanding liability owed to Grinding Gear Games. Grinding Gear Games may also, where it believes such action is necessary, without notice block IP addresses of any users who have breached the Terms of Use.

Edit: To be clear in regards to your prior statement: The difference between someone talking shit about GGG on Discord vs RMT is that the latter is actively harming the game. No legal dispute would earn you a win here. That's a literal no-brainer.

ggg does what ggg thinks they need to do.

if they deem no action is necessary then no action will be taken.

to me RMT has always been a grey area for GGG

as much as i sing praises to ggg for certain things, i m not fully convinced that GGG does not benefit from RMT.

theres nothing stopping anyone at GGG from magically dropping a mirror or two for anyone.

reminds me of the time that raxx was on stream casually playing poe. and he drops 1 mageblood. sorry not 1. its TWO mage bloods since it got duplicated.

like wow, hes so damn lucky. i played the game more or less 10 years and no mageblood dropped for me, and he gets two of them?

also not too long after that, literally within the same minute path of exile account comments on his twitch chat :)

raxx knew what he got was very valuable and he knew how rare it was. i dont recall properly what he did with the magebloods but he did say something along the lines of getting those magebloods were not ethical.

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rrogan17#2926 wrote:

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

There is nothing GGG can do about it, as they have no authority over content posted outside of their own platform.

I mean they banned Jenubu. Is there a reason you think they have no authority? They can ban anyone whenever they want, without recourse lol. They don't need a reason to terminate your account or ban you, it's completely up to them. If they saw someone pushing RMT in a Youtube video they def could ban him.

Don't know why you think this isn't the case, as we've had it happen multiple times just in PoE, but this has happened across all of gaming numerous times.

how come ur post is not modded?

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

Absolutely not. They can ban anyone for anything as they deem appropriate. This obviously includes RMT, whether it be promotion or participation. Read the Terms of Use. Even if you were to be from the EU like I am, where we have extended consumer laws, you agreed to this when you made an account.

No Baumi, they are not able to ban players purely for the sake of it, and even less so when events happen outside of their platform, especially for consumers within the EU where some of the strictest and most consumer oriented regulations exist.

What makes this even stranger is that you already posted the answer yourself with the link you shared.
It is stated right in the very first paragraph, so I would at least expect your own source to be read before using it to support a claim it does not actually make. The opening section explicitly says that the Terms of Use apply to your use of the PoE websites, the software, documentation, associated materials, and services provided in relation to PoE.

A YouTube upload, a Reddit post, or activity on any unrelated website does not suddenly become part of PoE just because somebody wants it to.
Those platforms have their own terms, their own moderation, and their own rules, and they do not particularly care what another website’s ToS says.

Unless I somehow missed the line where “your use of PoE websites, materials and services” suddenly translates into “anything you do anywhere on the internet,” your own citation does not support the argument here, it points in the opposite direction.

The scope is framed around their platform, their services, and conduct tied to them, not arbitrary unrelated activity outside of it. If the same behavior happens on their platform, moderation steps in and handles it.
If someone actually violates terms they agreed to, for example by making use of or engaging with whatever is being advertised, then that becomes an entirely different discussion.

But the idea that companies can arbitrarily ban someone over unrelated outside activity and simply get away with it sounds far easier in forum debates than it tends to work in reality.

Sure, any company can technically press the ban button, but the real question is whether they are willing to defend that decision if someone decides not to quietly accept it and instead puts it under legal scrutiny. That is also why larger companies generally avoid going down that route unless they are standing on very solid ground, because even in situations that arguably should not exist in the first place, the cost, time, and headache involved if somebody actually pushes back instead of rolling over can very quickly outweigh whatever point the company was trying to make.

People sometimes talk as if companies operate in a legal vacuum where pressing a button magically ends the discussion, when reality tends to become a lot less convenient once someone asks whether that decision actually survives outside of a forum thread.

So I might actually suggest taking a deeper look into EU consumer protections at some point, just to be aware of what they are there for and what rights consumers like you may have.

Could come in handy instead of shrugging everything off and presenting it as if companies can simply do whatever they want.
Consumer protections exist for a reason, and a lot of them are deliberately designed to protect consumers when the balance of power is heavily one sided. At the very least it gives a more grounded picture than assuming every agreement automatically overrides everything else.

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

What makes this even stranger is that you already posted the answer yourself with the link you shared.
It is stated right in the very first paragraph, so I would at least expect your own source to be read before using it to support a claim it does not actually make. The opening section explicitly says that the Terms of Use apply to your use of the PoE websites, the software, documentation, associated materials, and services provided in relation to PoE.

Your account is part of the website and GGG's intellectual property. While you do have some consumer rights, they do not bypass certain clauses.

Besides, I'm not reading all that when we already have proof of that happening with PathofMatth getting perma'd after he insulted Chris with slurs live on Twitch:



(I believe I'm allowed to share this since it's public and from his own Discord.)

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

Your account is part of the website and GGG's intellectual property.

Yes, but YouTube is not your Path of Exile account. It is also important to separate different types of situations, because not all enforcement scenarios are legally or contractually comparable.

For example, there is a clear difference between a situation where a user is engaging in serious misconduct such as harassment or targeted abuse (even if it occurs across platforms and is later considered in broader moderation or legal context), versus a situation where a user is doing something that may be undesirable or discouraged but does not actually violate any stated Terms of Service.

In practice, if you brought a case claiming you were banned for personal harassment of an individual, even if the behaviour happened off platform but was also prohibited on the platform where it occurred, courts would generally place significant weight on the nature of that behaviour.

They would also consider the platform’s legitimate interest in enforcing its own rules.

In such cases, misconduct can still be taken into account even if it happened elsewhere.

Where the behaviour clearly violates the service’s terms, the likelihood of a court ruling in favour of the claimant would typically be low given the contractual and legal context.

A game service can issue account bans under its Terms of Service, but under EU consumer protection law there are limits to how far that discretion goes.


In practice, bans are generally enforceable when they are based on a stated violation of the ToS. However, if an account action were issued purely arbitrarily, or without any reasonable contractual grounding in the stated rules, such a decision could potentially be challenged under EU consumer protection standards.

The key distinction is between enforcement following an actual breach of Terms of Service versus discretionary action without a defined contractual violation. Only the former is normally supported by a clear contractual basis.

Similar consumer protection frameworks exist in many jurisdictions worldwide and are generally more consumer-friendly and more extensive than often assumed.

You're welcome for the clarification.

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

For example, there is a clear difference between a situation where a user is engaging in serious misconduct such as harassment or targeted abuse (even if it occurs across platforms and is later considered in broader moderation or legal context), versus a situation where a user is doing something that may be undesirable or discouraged but does not actually violate any stated Terms of Service.

You can't advertise, link to, distribute material, make guides or hand out tips regarding RMT, either, even though this isn't directly outlined in the Terms of Use. A logical fallacy in your virtual argument. You are welcome for the clarification.