Quote Originally Posted by 'Tehtsuo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=129363#post 129363
When I read about Blizzard's complaints that botters "spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time" I was pretty angered. Are we talking coal or barrels of oil here? No, we're talking about electronic gold. Now I won't deny that MMO currency is beginning to gain a reasonable amount of real-world value, but real-world litigation is a very clear statement that Blizzard considers their gold to be a real-world commodity - thus legitimizing gold sellers.
The resources consumed are not gold or virtual mobs, but real world electricity, server capacity and bandwidth. Blizzard charges based on the fact that each account is going to consume a certain percentage of their bottom line in expenses, botting drives that up by being online 24/7. It also causes an increase in customer support incidences as they are reported, investigated, etc. Other resources consumed are the programmers working on Warden, anti-cheating code, etc.