Free the WoW 60,000!

Back in July (it seems so long ago...) approximately 60,000 players were banned from World of Warcraft for breaches in the Terms of Use Agreement. In addition, this was reported to have removed over 22 million gold from the economy across all of the game servers. Of course, before there was an MMORPG the size of WoW (6.5 million plus at this time) this would have represented more that a significant percentage of the games entire user base. What I found most interesting is the variety of observations and analyses that came out from the different sites reporting this news. Here are some of the different angles or "lenses" they viewed this through:

www.thisisanotherdimension.com
"Combating virtual hyperinflation."

www.boomtown.net
"Such behaviour not only negatively impacts the economy of a realm, it diminishes the achievements of those who play legitimately." - Blizzard

biz.gamedaily.com
When a player purchases in-game currency using real world money, it causes an imbalance in the economy of the game. Many of the highest priced items sold by non-player characters (NPCs) in FFXI do not exceed 600,000 gil, with a vast majority of these items selling for less than 100,000 gil. However, thanks to RMT, items sold by players typically exceed 1 million gil, with rare items selling for over 20 million gil in some cases.
The high prices of items caused by RMT have forced some players to contribute further to the problem by buying in-game currency with real world money. It also encourages players to use unlicensed third-party software to setup characters that will automatically kill enemies or collect items that can be sold to make more in-game currency. This also has a negative affect on the situation, and forces players who are not using these software programs or contributing to the RMT problem to enjoy the game less and excerpt a great deal of effort to keep up.

G4 TV's "The Feed"
Hopefully, the bannination will help improve the games economy and result in a lot less auction house usry.

So, what's your take on this? Add your comments and create a new spin!