Sam set himself up with the retarded racing analogy. By his logic, "He who spends the most money will almost always win.". It"s been proven wrong again, and again in racing and many other sports. The problem here though is with MMO"s it"s quite often true. And I think the majority of players believe their video-games are much closer to a sport than just pure entertainment.
And that"s where the major problem lies. If a game allows 1 person to play 24 accounts as effectively as 24 thinking individuals, that game needs to change, and fast. Or the rules need to prohibit it. This isn"t a case where the majority have a near equal opportunity to meet Sam"s standards of running a frigging army.
2-boxing? I think the majority can achieve that. In EQ the majority can probably achieve 4-boxing. If a game is going to allow multiple accounts, I think it should be aimed at a limit most anyone can achieve (if they wanted to), or at least enough people where it wouldn"t be seen as "cheating". Even if the word is misused here in lieu of "unfair".
But the bottom line is these companies want to make money, it"s their purpose to create rules that help that. If 10,000 accounts quit over Sam, they"ll ban anything above 2-boxing; or ban it altogether if that"s what keeps the most paying accounts active. So, as long as it doesn"t cost them more accounts than they"re gaining why would they even care? They"re not looking to be the trailblazer on MMO Morality. Their job is to make money and keep folks entertained.
The main reason gold farmers exist in every game is because they pay. MMO companys only take as much action as needed. They ban the account, the farmer buys a new one. The next simple step...ban the IP? But why bother? They don"t make any money off of their internet sub. That"s why no MMO game to date has bothered taking any further steps than to ban the account. I"ve had multiple Devs including some pretty high-ups joke with me about how many accounts per month these farmers sub to, and how many new boxes they sell when they mass-ban accounts. They"ve found a way to exploit the farmers, and good for them. It"s all factored into the cost of doing business. But it does cost you if/when you buy your gold
Okay, enough fucking rambling. I meant only to point out that, no, it"s not cheating. But it"s not entirely fair either, but let the game decide. Our choice is who to sub to, not to inflict our twisted sense of morality upon video-games. But these companies damn well know the limits on how to keep people playing.