The story
GamePal emerged in June 2004 as a multi-feature platform for MMORPG players interested in digital asset trading. The buying and selling of in-game assets such as virtual currency is also a practice known as "real money trading" or RMT.
In June 2005, GamePal launched virtual account rental services. This allowed gamers to rent a high-level character and play as long as they like, then return the character for a different one or for a character in another game.
GamePal worked closely with companies such as IGE, expanding their options to virtual account trading allowing the buying, trading and selling of accounts.
From Wikipedia’s article on GamePal, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3