Guild Wars 2

Is it allowed?

I love to create character artwork for players, and I have done it for players in other MMOs, but I don’t want to get banned for it in GW2 in case it’s not allowed. I have not found any online discussion on the matter, so I would like to have it clarified to be sure.

I don’t know what I would do with my life if I got banned from this game!

Thank you!

You can wait for the offical answer, but I believe you’ll find it’s not allowed. One option that would probably be allowed is if they paid you with gem cards. Then you could convert the gems to gold.

Although Arenanet loves and promotes fan made artwork. The problem with this however is that it is not allowed to trade an ingame item (gold)for a service outside the game (artwork).

How can anet check if you delivered the artwork to that person??? They could easily claim that you never delivered artwork, but that you delivered US dollars.

Simplesimon’s tip bout the gemcards is the best solution here.

Unless you take ingame money in some way, how would ANet even know you have an art business on the side in real life? Unless you are doing it for free, just handle it like any online business where you discuss it outside the game by email.

It’s against the rules to sell RL services/items for in game money, just like it’s against the rules to sell in game money/items/services for RL items/money.

Since you have asked on here, be sure that the mods will be looking at your account for this.

EDIT: Side note, you could use paypal. It’s both safe and easy to use on both sides and you get the wraith of anet.

Using Paypal would be wronger, no? Because the artist would be making RL money off Anet’s copyrighted artwork. I also wonder why none of the commission threads in the forum are being closed.

I hope to get a clear official answer soon.

Thanks all!

Hmmm. Since you are making art from what you see, not using say prints of Guild Wars 2 art and selling it as though you owned it, pretty sure that’s legal. Surely a company doesn’t have rights to art you make, that would mean that people would be prohibited from taking pictures of coke bottles for example and selling them.

For example: Andy Warhol made art of Campbell soup cans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell's_Soup_Cans

And here, people have WoW based art.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/fanart/