The founder of a service designed to let gamers swap and sell virtual items they pick up in online games has insisted that games companies must get used to the idea.

Joe Youngblood, who set up MMO Market, claimed that publishers of massively multiplayer online games often overstep their bounds. 

"Last month Blizzard told eBay to pull ads from a guy selling an unofficial guide to World of Warcraft, so the guy sued them," he said. 

"These sort of strong-arm tactics really hurt the gaming community instead of helping it to grow."

As well as letting players offer items for sale, MMO Market aims to help online groups such as clans and guilds recruit new members.

Youngblood suggested that some games publishers are already starting to embrace the sale of virtual items, and would have no problem with his site.

"You don't see Ford, GM or Honda blocking the 'aftermarket' sale of their cars," he pointed out.

If the service becomes a hit, MMO Market plans to integrate a payment service such as PayPal in the future.

"We do not want to add something like that so soon, since the site is fairly new and we haven't seen the demand for it yet," said Youngblood. "But if and when the demand is there we want to be ready to implement it quickly."