"Such behavior not only negatively impacts the economy of a realm, it diminishes the achievements of those who play legitimately," the representative said. "We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and our players from the harmful effects of cheating."

Blizzard urged those who traverse the fields of Azeroth to report suspicious activity to the company. A fellow maker of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, Square Enix, recently announced similar account bans, albeit in much smaller numbers. After cracking-down on 250 Final Fantasy XI users in June, the company handed down 2,000 bans and suspensions this month.