Blizzard, Bot Program Creator File New Motions Against Each Other
You may recall that, about a year ago, World of Warcraft publisher Blizzard sued computer whiz Michael Donnelly, creator of a popular WoW botting program known as Glider.
Last week, both sides filed new motions in U.S. District Court for summary judgment, essentially seeking to have themselves declared victorious without having to go through a trial.
We note that in its motion, Blizzard claims that Donnelly sold $2.8 million worth of Glider. That’s a lot of bots. For the legal-minded, here is Blizzard’s motion and here is Donnelly’s.
March 24th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Hopefully the courts take a good, long, hard look at the EULA. Pick it apart with a fine toothed comb. And then slap Blizzard around for hiding behind it.
While we all hate bots, and I can see Blizzard wanting to use this as precedent to slap down farmers… I don’t think this is the right route.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
If the ECA wants to deal with EULA’s this is their chance. Are we going to see anything out of them on this? Even just a press release?
March 24th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I’m conflicted here. On the one hand, as a WoW player, I think it is important to stamp out botting in order to help keep the game economy in check. On the other hand, as a software developer, I know that Blizzard winning the case under the current conditions may impose a harsh legal standard for the industry.
I don’t know the details of MAI v. Peak, but in the circumstances of this case, based on HOW A COMPUTER WORKS, the WoW software, and content, must be copied into RAM anyway in order to be executed. So, how far does Blizzard’s case reach? Am I still allowed to monitor my RAM while WoW is running? In how much detail? Am I allowed to know how much RAM WoW currently occupies? It gets a little ridiculous.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Bot users and Farmers all SUCK. They ruin MMO’s for normal users. Screw them. I hope they all get sued and kicked out of every MMO ever made. I got $50 on Blizzard wasting this fool in court. Good for them.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
If only there were a digital version of the ACLU!
This is one of those situations where nobody sides with the perpetrator, but nobody wants to see the legal arguments used by Blizzard prevail; yes botting is undesirable behavior, but so is legally enforcing a draconian EULA.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I’m conflicted. On one hand, I hate bots. If you’re not going to actually play the game, then your avatar shouldn’t be taking virtual space. Plus, bots are a oft used tool of the RMT (Real Money Trade), another type of activity I hate. Basically, I dislike most activity that goes against the intended spirit of the gameplay.
That being said, I also hate just how much power is behind those bloody EULAs. I understand that they’re there to give the companies the ability to effectively police thier game and make it a fun environment for most customers. But so of the things we agree to when we click that “I Agree” button is insane! They definitely need trimmed down significantly.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I’m strangely amused despite myself. How wierd is it, that Blizzard has successfully created a game that people want to play bad enough, that they pay a monthly fee; and yet, it’s such a timesink - so arduous, and so boring, that they pay someone else to automate the process for them…
Personally, my monthly charges have been driving me nuts lately, I’ve got too many people dipping into my account once a month, if you’re not actually going to play it, turn it the (beep) off. Doesn’t have to be any more complicated then that.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
“While we all hate bots, and I can see Blizzard wanting to use this as precedent to slap down farmers… I don’t think this is the right route.”
Bots are cheating and buying from farmers is cheating. I think Blizzard should have the right to stamp both out. If you don’t have the time to play the game legitimately, too bad for you. It doesn’t give you the right to go ruining the game experience for others.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I must say that I cannot understand why anyone would buy a game just to have the computer play it for them. I understand that gold farmers and account resellers would love this software, but why would a regular game player? I think I know why on that one. The grind.
Case in point. A while back I replayed the original Dragon Warrior on the NES. I was playing out of nastalgia. I got all the way to the end where the only thing left to do was beat the end boss. The only problem was that I was nowhere near a high enough level to beat him. I had about 8-10 evels before I could be strong enough.
I had three options:
1. Quit playing as I had played and beaten it before.
2. Grind for days to gain those levels.
3. Use a Game Genie to speed up the leveling process.
I didn’t want to quit the game, but would have been willing. I have quit games I have never beaten, so no skin off my back.
I didn’t have time to grind for days. My schedule is such as I have limited time to play games and didn’t want to waste time on something that was not engaging.
I decided to go with the Game Genie. I wanted to beat the game again just to say I did. I had played the game legitimately up to this point so I had no qualms wit hinflating xp gained. Took me about 2 hours to max out my level and I beat the game. I have moved on to other games.
So using this as an example, I can see why regular users would be willing to use a bot to level for them so that they can play the quests when they have time.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I have little sympathy for bot programmers and users.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
For the counter point…
Some folks would like to play the game but get real tired of killing five dorks, then killing seven nerds, then going and killing ten geeks, then collecting eight dork rings to give to Dick-Tar, then doing the same old grind for hours upon hours. They are the ones that are primarily doing this. I did it, and loved it. It kept me from having to kill five dorks, then kill seven nerds, then killing ten geeks, then collecting eight dork rings to give to Dick-Tar.
Go Modder!
If you don’t like it, go kill twelve Dick-Tars and bring me eight Flerp Feathers and two Slup Slapper skulls… we’ll talk.
However, it is Blizzard’s game and when I was visited by the lovely Ban Hammer, I didn’t complain.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Why’s Blizzard’s undies all in a bunch? They are still getting their monthly fees. Billions and billions of dollars of monthly fees.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Honestly, I can understand why SOME people would want to use bots. There are a lot of casual players out there who want to do “end game” instances and such, but would take them 3 years to get there. Not that it’s a REAL justification, but I understand it.
However, farmers suck. When I want my mats for something, I hate flying around looking for one of the hundreds of nodes and seeing someone who is obviously farming to sell at a website. Let people play the game.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Thing about WoW is, it’s geared toward the casual player, so those using bots are just lazy in my opinion
March 24th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
People, the EULA is there to protect all the users who are there to play the game as it was intended. And if a person cannot follow the rules of the game as issued by the company running the game, they do not need to play. It is their game, their servers, and their environment. If you want a game with no rules go play Second Life.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
although i would like to see the game companies get a legal edge against gold farmers, botters, and the like, the precedent of enforcing to the letter the EULA is a little unsettling, however, even if that is the outcome what do regular players have to fear? if your playing the game honourably what is the fear of being hit with the EULA stick?
i’ve been playing LOTRO recently, having given up on the WOW grind, and i have to admit, i will not miss the gold-farmers spamming chat every five minutes if the game companies get an edge with which to shut them down
March 24th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
If you don’t have time to play the game, then DON’T PLAY IT!!!
March 24th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Hmm
Zach - You bring up a good point, but there is a big difference between using cheats in a single player game and using a bot or mod on an MMO.
In an MMO these activities CAN have a direct impact on other players. Case in point the use of botting programs to farm items and then sell them for real life money. Not only are players who have not gone through the process of earning those items getting them, which gives them an advantage over legitimate players, but the legitimate players lose out on drops that the botting programs are getting. Especially when these drops come from rare, non-instanced mobs.
I fully support Blizzard’s right to slap down the modders and botters in this instance. Do I like the amount of control they exert through the EULA? Not terribly, but it doesn’t bother me enough to stop me from playing. And that’s what the issue really boils down to. If the restrictions they place on us aren’t enough to stop us from clicking the accept button on the EULA, then we really have no place breaking those rules. If you can’t agree to play under their terms, you don’t get to play the game. Plain and simple, playing is not a right, it’s a privilege we’re granted, in part because we pay for it and in part because we agree to abide by Blizzard’s terms.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Here’s the thing that bother me most about botters. Many claim that there’s a justifiable reason to use bots, because the game is mindless chore to play and level up. If the game is such a tedious grind to you, why the hell do you want to play it so bad? In case you’ve been in a coma, there is no more tedious a grind than the WoW Endgame (actually, the endgame might cause you to slip into a coma). Raid after Raid after Raid, or grinding the same PvP content over and over and over. It gets to the point where people have the instances memorized, and they only perform one or two actions the entire time. Botting doesn’t save you from a grind, it just speeds you up to getting to a different grind.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
# Todd Says:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Why’s Blizzard’s undies all in a bunch? They are still getting their monthly fees. Billions and billions of dollars of monthly fees.
————–
Because it is screwing with the on-line economy of the game and that messing is up for other honest paying customers. Are you saying that Bot users and gold farmers have a right to mess up the game for honest players?
March 24th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Todd
Billions and Billions huh? Last I checked 10 million times $15 is still only 150 million. And about a 3rd or more of that is used up in costs (yes it really does take 50 million dollars a month to pay all their staff and pay for buildings, servers, bandwidth, upkeep, etc.) Even after that a large chunk of the money goes to Vivendi Corp.
Also, why si the fact that they profit any defense for people breaking the rules of the game? That’s like saying it’s ok to break the law because the government charges taxes.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
My only contribution is that I agree with everything EZK and jds said. However, I hate MMO’s, so it doesn’t matter to me. But if I were to somehow lose my brain and join one, I would totally use a bot.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I personally take the view that if you don’t agree with an EULA, you shouldn’t be clicking the “I Agree” button. It’s like paying monthly for an MMO you constantly whine about - if you hate it so much, don’t pay for it.
I’m not saying there’s nothing wrong with the way EULAs are structured but even though it’s an idealistic view, I think if more gamers voted with their wallets rather than their mouths then game companies would definitely start taking notice. And to a degree I think the standards SHOULD be stricter for MMO games like WoW.
That said, aside from a couple of posts I don’t see much discussion of the specifics so far. How much of the negative opinion is really because of Blizzard’s specific defense and how much is just because it’s an EULA?
@puddington: I’m not a tech whiz by any means and I know almost nothing about Glider specifically, but my guess is that there are probably some nuances of RAM loading regarding what gets loaded and when. Things like Glider loading parts of the software that wouldn’t otherwise be loaded, or altering the data contained in the RAM. As far as monitoring your RAM, even in detail, I don’t see why that would be a problem as long as you’re not altering whatever WoW keeps in RAM. And even if it were technically against the rules, do you think Blizzard would ban you for monitoring your RAM? I doubt it, personally.
@jds: My solution to the grind is simple: When it gets boring, stop playing. There’s a good reason why after three years I only have one 70 and one other character above level 30.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
While I do believe that this activity is cheating, and I don’t fault Blizzard for attempting to stop this type of activity, I am not happy with the way that Blizzard is going about doing so.
This goes beyond the already not-simple matter of enforcing a problematic EULA. Claiming that those actions constitute direct copyright infringement and claiming copyright circumvention are not the right tools to be using to stop botting. One, it stretches the already broad copyright laws into places that they shouldn’t be. Two, it makes this behavior CRIMINAL. It seems that Blizzard is attempting to use the overly harsh criminal penalties of copyright infringement to stop cheating at a game- and there must be better and more reasonable ways to do that.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
So let me get this straight:
People are paying to play a game and paying to not play it.
That’s pretty messed up right there.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
@Todd
Blizzard Entertainment has a history of bullying/hostility and throwing a corporate temper tantrum (look at how they reacted with “Star Hack” for more information). The DMCA is one of their favorite things, and they use it very aggressively any way they can. Note-the last product I bought from them was Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne and as they have notched up their bullying tactics, I’m not 100% sure I’ll buy or even play Starcraft 2 when it arrives. I don’t like financially rewarding companies who are so blatantly pro-DMCA.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
# kaemmerite Says:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
My only contribution is that I agree with everything EZK and jds said. However, I hate MMO’s, so it doesn’t matter to me. But if I were to somehow lose my brain and join one, I would totally use a bot.
——————–
EZK was playing a single player game. That is different. His actions do not effect other players. Bot users and gold farmers do. They cheat and it effects everyone around them for their own benefit.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
x(wai)x Says:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I personally take the view that if you don’t agree with an EULA, you shouldn’t be clicking the “I Agree” button.
————
QFT, end of story
March 24th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Eight to ten levels, Zach? I think the lowest I’ve been to get Erdrick’s Sword was 16, and I’ve beaten the Dragonlord at 20. That’s maybe an hour or two of beating up green dragons and starwyverns (if memory serves, it’s been a while and I’m not as adept at DW as the likes of EarthBound and Chrono Trigger.)
But I’m wondering just how bad the grind is in WoW that people would really use bots to skip on it. Most of the stories I’ve heard are from people on crazy big raids with very little mention of collection quests, and most of the botting activity seems to revolve around people who get behind in the game and discover that their friends have moved on to saving helpless tigers from angry princesses while they’re still stuck with getting cats out of trees. I agree that grinding is a necessary, time-wasting enterprise, but you’d think that Blizzard would be aware of that and work the mechanics to favour the exciting stuff. Then again, you’d also think they’d know how to g-line the gold farmers by now. There’s a lot I don’t know about this modern MMO stuff. In my day the social-nerds had their MUDs and they were happy with ‘em, dagnabbit.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
You pay the fee every month because you wan’t to enjoy the ingame experience.
But you don’t want to have to deal with the constant grind that wastes your time and money.
Seem’s perfectly fair.
Btw I don’t play WoW, I don’t have the time to waste on something thats just going to end up stealing my soul.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
cjovalle
“This goes beyond the already not-simple matter of enforcing a problematic EULA. Claiming that those actions constitute direct copyright infringement and claiming copyright circumvention are not the right tools to be using to stop botting. One, it stretches the already broad copyright laws into places that they shouldn’t be. Two, it makes this behavior CRIMINAL. It seems that Blizzard is attempting to use the overly harsh criminal penalties of copyright infringement to stop cheating at a game- and there must be better and more reasonable ways to do that.”
Ok first off technically copyright law is not criminal, it’s contractual. It fits more closely into civil law I believe.
Moving beyond petty technicalities however, why is this a bad thing? Blizzard spent a lot of resources building a program. To put it simply. This person has gone outside the scope of their legal rights and abused this program for personal gain. Thus (by our standards) all the money they’ve accumulated is not legally theirs. The way I see it Blizzard is protecting it’s investment, nothing more. This is the exact same thing as someone suing someone else for stealing their game program, just on a much larger scale. Blizzard is protecting a multi-billion dollar project. This project is the basis for hundreds of jobs and almost the entire income of the company right now. I’m sorry but I don’t feel at all sorry for the guy who decided he was going to steal all those people’s work for his own profit.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
@Simon Roberts
When WoW launched, it was criticized for being “too easy” and things going “too quickly” — that the grind was almost completely done with, since there was a feeling of accomplishment from doing quests and such. Compared to basically every other MMO on the market at the time, WoW’s grind was short, sweet, and quickly blown through to the highest level.
It only has gotten faster, what with entire quest series having been added in areas and level ranges that were missing or short on quests, and then a ton of the quests that used to require groups to do were made soloable across the world, and then the amount of XP you get for doing quests was bolstered considerably for most levels, as well as the amount of XP you needed to go from one level to the next was significantly reduced for most levels, the grind is incredibly quick any more.
Which they have. It now is faster than ever to get up to the “end-game” level (currently 70), and get into raids, battlegrounds, arenas, and other things that are “end-game”. Raids were opened up to be more accessible to a wider range of players, etc. Which all of this has resulted in a lot of bitter resentment from a few of the players who felt that it is not fair how “easy” the game is now for people.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
@Dog_Welder: It’s not messed up at all, people tend to believe that the only thing botters do is well, botting, and that’s not necessary the case.
A botter can play as much as a regular player with one big and unfair advantage, when a legit player is sleeping/working/etc, his character doesn’t advance. When a botter isn’t playing his character keeps moving, killing and growing stronger.
Mi guess is that blizzard not only sued for the creation of the bot system but for his creator making 2.8 millions dollars, that’s a pretty large sum of money for an individual and we all know that large corporations hate when people get rich on their expenses
March 24th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I don’t like the precedent this might set, but I absolutely despise gold farmers, and I feel that apps like Glider circumvent the spirit of the game. I am against that, as a gamer and a game designer.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I actually read the defendant’s filing, and it’s actually pretty good from my non-lawyer’s perspective. I don’t have the time to read Blizzards, but they’d better have a good case if they want to beat this guy.
Also, I’m going to go against the flow and say “I don’t hate botters”, at least ones that use this “Glider”. Apparently Glider sucks for farming anyway, and it’s only good for leveling. I DON’T have a lot of time to play, so I would feel it’s perfectly fine to use a bot to get through a lot of grind to get to my friends’ level. It’s not hurting anyone, so why should it be illegal?
Botting for farming is perhaps a different story if its taking goods away from actual players. Even then I don’t have much sympathy, since if your profession is that easy to farm then it’s your fault for doing it. Plus, it’s only a game so get over it.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
@ Simon
Yeah, level 20 is about the minimum that you can beat the Dragon Lord with a whole lot of luck on your side. About level 25 is where it is pretty effortless. Considering the game caps at level 30 I was not far off. I think I was about 18 when I got Erdrick’s sword on that last play through.
The problem was with the fact that the max XP you get from any enemy is 105, it takes a while to get the 10,000 xp needed for each level after 20.
@ Dennis
Where’s the rest of the article?
March 24th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I honestly don’t see the problem, Blizzard’s harsh EULA may seem crazy if you actually read it but the only thing they’re doing with it is taking out a bunch of people messing up the game. I don’t think this sets any particularly strong precedent as far as other games are concerned, it’s just blizzard getting rid of those annoying as F*** spammers. I don’t even care about the farmers who do mess up the economy, I just hate when every 5 minutes I get a whisper from some random assembly of letters asking me in broken english to buy gold from their site, then I go to Ironforge and everything costs a fortune cause of the botters and I’m greeted with more spam in trade channels while I try and play, and then I go to my mailbox and theres a letter from someone else telling me about the best deals on gold, they need to be removed.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
On one hand blizzard has an issue when there game is simple enough for a bot to do something that is central to the game.
On the other hand it gives some people an unfair advantage over others. This also helps gold farmers and others and frankly gold farmers are never a good thing in any game.
So maybe they need to make the grind and ingame money less important in the game itself.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
er.. they need to make it so money isn’t just magically generated from killing things.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I think you guys are overlooking the part where he was SELLING it which is probably where the real trouble for him is.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
@James: “Plus, it’s only a game so get over it.”
Ah, but there’s the rub. It is only a game- but it’s a game that people pay to play, both in dollars and in time. It’s a very easy game, in fact. However, you still need to know how to play.
This is a problem my roommate has re: easy availability of character respecs, and a similar problem with a botter- let us say that a person has botted up to level 70. Unless this person has done it manually in the past, I don’t expect them to know what they are doing at all. What sort of end-game content is he going to participate in? Probably the kind where he fails at his character’s job and gets the party killed.
This effects other players, frustrating them. Frustrated players are NOT a thing Blizzard wants. Frustrated players are players that might stop giving them dollars.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
@ EZK
I agree.
To expand on that I must say I have little love for Blizz on this one and here’s why… EULAs need to be kicked in the head. Many go FAR beyond where they should and it’s high time they be taken to task. Blizz is basically complaining that this mod is selling like hotcakes and making it so WoW players (like myself) could get their character’s skills leveled without having to spend hours and hours in mundane land with the precious time available to them. The World of Warcraft was created by Blizz… Rules by Blizz. Blizzard created this demand and is now upset that someone filled it, profited from it, and posed this under a guise as an unfair advantage to those who don’t glide (like me) in game.
So how do you solve this?
Easy…
Blizzard provides a glider for EVERYONE in game for mundane tasks. Then the playing field is leveled and no one has an advantage.
Why don’t they? So you’ll spend longer getting to those higher levels, pay them more, and allow them more time to create new content.
That’s why I see this as a Blizzard created problem. The mod creater needs the win on this one.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
@Questionmark
“Ok first off technically copyright law is not criminal, it’s contractual. It fits more closely into civil law I believe.”
By attempting to invoke the DMCA, they are trying to move it from civil into the realm of criminal.
“Moving beyond petty technicalities however, why is this a bad thing? Blizzard spent a lot of resources building a program. To put it simply. This person has gone outside the scope of their legal rights and abused this program for personal gain.”
Have they a right to complain? Yes. Have they a right to demand laughably sad restrictions on you in order to protect their product? No.
My take on this, is they’re not banning PLAYERS who violate their EULA, they’re using the EULA to justify suing the botmaker for copyright infringement. If this was really about EULA violations, they’d be going after the players who use this app. But they’re trying to argue somehow that through reverse-engineering a method for bypassing the anti-bot stuff, that the botmaker is in violation of the EULA. He might very well be, but violating the EULA doesn’t not suddenly give Blizzard the right to demand damages…
Violation of the EULA, a breach of contract, just means that the botmaker can have his account legitimately shut down. Nothing more.
Which is why I hope they really go over the EULA with a fine toothed comb, and find out what other “rights” Blizzard has awarded itself…
March 24th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Loudspeaker, having the grind made even easier in an online game such as WoW really won’t help the game or the players in general. In that case the players would get bored even faster, especially if there’s no effort… and they won’t have a clue, as someone else mentioned, on how to do their classes properly.
In either case, I agree Blizzard have a problem, but they do have their rights too, that people don’t exploit their product.
Look at the measures Runescape took instead, in regards to the bot/ farmer problem. Made hundreds of players mad, but stopped them in their tracks. Blizzard aren’t getting anywhere with all this legal action. Sure they can sue one person in regards to one bot program… but seriously.. what do they hope to accompish? It won’t stop the problem…
Basically, Blizzard are correct in the fact they need to protect their game, but the methods they’re using are not going to help in any way.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
@Jaborwock
The problem with you’re argument is that you’re not recognizing Blizzard’s interests.
They’re interest lies in protecting the experience of the players. Sure, banning each player that uses the software is within their power, but aside from the fact that the modder manufactured a way around their detection programs (which he claims are unauthorized but are actually authorized by the fact that the person must install them on their computers themselves and agree to their use by agreeing to the EULA) he is hurting Blizzard’s interests by frustrating legitimate players.
Frankly I would like to see the courts hang him out to dry, not only with monetary damages but with time served. If you want to go into the extreme Blizzard could probably make a case that not only does his program affect the Client software but because of the nature of the relationship of the client and server software that the mod also affects and changes the server software, which he has no claim to.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I think it should be possible to tweak drop rates by analysing what gets in and out of the auction house.
After all, if the botters are a pain, why not negate thier advantage by tweaking the game?
Plus tweak up the memory adressing in an “auto log-off” (or funnier, character deletion?) manner and watch them botters have fun!
Until they tweak thier way around that. Capthcha access to some areas anyone?
Come on Blizzard, be inventive for once in your corporate history.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Personally, I don’t see why Blizzard is taking this to court. It’s their game, put the banhammer on botters if they so choose, and let that be the end of it.
What’s next, is the government gonna sue all the companies that sell radar detectors because it will potentially get them out of a speeding ticket?
My dad botted his warlock from 69-70, then fired up a lower level character. I glance over at his laptop occasionally since my desktop is right next to the desk he usually leaves it on, he’s been botting his second character for about 4 days now (about 8 hours at a time, he turns it off at night), he has barely over 4 gold. The idea that botters “break the economy” is ludicrous. Farmers distribute gold widely, not to a small number of individuals, and they certainly don’t spend the gold they accumulate themselves. The people who buy gold may receive a very high amount of gold compare to what their grinding would give them, but it’s often a small portion of the gold a farmer wields over his usually multiple accounts. A very small portion of this gold is ever spent by the farmer, and never on high-demand items, since a farmer has no need for twink gear, or high level trade goods.
The only argument for “botting is bad” that I see has any merit is when a bot is set to farm in a high-traffic area, or patrols an area that lets the character whore a rare item drop, since this is actually disruptive. However, this really isn’t a huge issue for players who are just grinding, since there are massive areas where mobs of a particular level spawn, though it may cause problems for “kill X of enemy Q” quests. Most players will put bots in low-traffic areas anyway, in order to avoid being noticed by other players.
I wanna see an MMO released that allows all the “disruptive” actions other games will ban for, just to dispel a few of these old wives tales about. “X action breaks the in-game economy!” or “P Action ruins the game for other players!” And if botting really DOES damage the in-game balance, then at least you’ll have proof. I currently see no evidence that (properly used) botting does anything detrimental to other players, and I refuse to truly look down on it until I see something of the sort.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Honestly I cannot stand people who create bots, use them, buy gold, sell gold or do anything else that ruins the game for others. The fact of the matter is simple, you don’t want to spend time learning how to play your class, leveling, obtaining gear and gold you should not play the game. Do not think just because you are paying the money you have a right to cheat because you are too lazy to put forth the effort.
Now before the whole “I don’t have a lot of time a day/week to play” argument comes up again let me throw this out there. I work a full time job Monday through Friday, when I get home, eat dinner and relax I might have 2 hours to play before I need to head to bed 3 if I am lucky. Now that isn’t much time when you get to the higher levels, yet I still was able to achieve level 70 and even raid with my guild with my schedule. Sure it took a little longer than those who had more time on their hands but it made obtaining even better to me.
Now if you are using it to level an Alt because you don’t want to grind for the gear again, then don’t make an Alt. If you don’t want to work for something then don’t do it. You are still going to be mediocre because you have no idea how to play your class because you have had a damn bot running your from 1-70.
@loudspeaker
“Blizzard provides a glider for EVERYONE in game for mundane tasks. Then the playing field is leveled and no one has an advantage.”
So pay a company to give you a program the plays the game for you? No thanks, I’d rather enjoy the game myself than have a bot play it for me
“Why don’t they? So you’ll spend longer getting to those higher levels, pay them more, and allow them more time to create new content.”
Uhhh so they should make everybody get to end game easier, and then quit when they are bored because they cannot produce new content for them to enjoy?
“That’s why I see this as a Blizzard created problem. The mod creator needs the win on this one.”
The only thing the mod creator deserves is a brick to the face, he is no better than those Gold Sellers, or hackers who steal people’s accounts. He is doing nothing more than contributing to the ruining of a game by allowing lazy people to get to a part of the game they did not earn, and giving gold farmers an easier time with getting away with what they are doing.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Uh, guys, you seem to be missing the point here. All Glider does is read memory. Your memory, that you own. Blizzard is claiming that you, as a computer owner, have no right to read your computer’s RAM.
…
Yeah, fuck Blizzard.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
@ Cyclone TH,
Look up “Kingdom of Loathing” and “Meatsink”.
Then understand.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
@Questionmark
“The problem with you’re argument is that you’re not recognizing Blizzard’s interests.”
Frankly my dear, I just don’t give a damn.
Seriously. Blizzard cannot legitimately justify a lawsuit against the botmaker over this. They can cancel accounts, as people who use the software must abide by the EULA in order to play. But they can’t use the EULA to somehow transform this into a copyright infringement argument, which is what they are trying to do.
This has very serious implications for software developers. What about virus-scanners? They need to monitor RAM and other resources in order to do their job. Does the WoW EULA forbid them too? I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
The question is not if the botmaker is doing something disreputable. I agree that it is. BUT the question is whether a EULA can be used, not to punish people who use a bot (and are therefore in violation of the EULA they agreed to in order to play the game), but to sue someone who developed the bot? Does agreeing to the EULA “grant” Blizzard that “right”? What EXACTLY are the consequences to violating the EULA? Is the right to sue over monitoring your system listed?
March 24th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
@ d.vel.oper,
That’s what I said.
They should be inventive for once in a while and tweak the memory allocation system to mess stuff up for bot users but that is about all they should do.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I bot, regularly in fact. I’m not a gold farmer, and I’m not paying a monthly fee to not play the game.
I play it regularly to be honest, but I got tired of grinding mobs to get a new 70, spending my hours farming gold for a flying mount, and having to do it multiple times. The rep grinding got boring as well. So I bought glider.
There’s a huge difference between botters and gold farmers. Most botters just do it to level or take care of rep grinding, you rarely notice them, because most only do it a few hours out of the day. I did it 3-4 hours a day to level my characters. And if someone is in the area and they want to grind, I stop the bot and let them have the spot.
Gold farmers are the ones who really have a hand in ruining your precious server economy, and they’re the ones you tend to notice since they farm ungodly hours all over the place.
Sure there’s still the unfair advantage of me being able to level in my sleep, and I have been banned for that, ironically I lost legit characters and not botted ones, but it’s the price I pay.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Botting is cheating.
Its wrong, It undermines the game’s mechanics and is unfair to those who decide to play by the rules and not cheat. Botting is unjustifiable. I know some stuff is boring and tedious, however thats not an excuse to screw with the game’s economy by having a program do everything for you.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
@Questionmark
“Ok first off technically copyright law is not criminal, it’s contractual. It fits more closely into civil law I believe.”
Copyright law contains both civil and criminal elements in and of itself, and the amounts discussed (in excess of 2.8 million) places this well into the criminal area. Blizzard is also alleging breach of contract, but that’s mostly separate.
The violation of an End-User License Agreements should be separated from copyright law, in my opinion. Blizzard is alleging willful contributory and vicarious infringement by “copying the WoW software into Random Access Memory beyond the scope of the EULA.” They’re also saying that the software circumvents a technological protection measure (the Warden software), which would also make the software in violation of the DMCA. I think that’s stretching it.
While I have no problem believing that potential infringement outside of the scope of a license could potentially be infringement, I don’t believe that copyright should be the tool used. It this is the case of violating a license, then use breach of contract, not infringement.
As to your following paragraph, it’s a bad thing not because they’re stopping the cheating or the profit from cheating- like I said, I don’t have a problem with that. I believe it’s a bad thing because of the way they’re doing it. The way they’re going about it has repercussions beyond stopping someone cheating.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
@ Anonymous:
Apart from the “currency drains” (which I assume was the only reason you asked me to look that up) designed to keep inflation at bay (durability, in WoW’s case) that has absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about.
In any case, I already pointed out the fact that botters don’t contribute to inflation. My dad bots regularly with a character currently in the high 20s and has no more gold than anyone else, he ends up spending a lot of it on food & drink in order to keep the bot from dying while it runs, actually.
Farmers, though they do inflate the economy somewhat, are nowhere as disastrous as Blizzard wants you to believe. They sell gold for as high prices as possible to as many people as possible, as such, inflation is next to nil, because they’re in turn distributing an otherwise massive amount of gold, which would be very harmful to the ingame economy if several characters had amounts of gold that high, but since nobody does except the farmers, and they don’t spend it, there isn’t any inflation.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
While I can agree copyright might be the wrong venue for this (mostly because it’s hard to make a case of copyright infringement and not because I see any problem with the use of copyright to stop this) the fact of the matter remains that creating a program to violate a EULA should cause problems for the person that created the program.
I can’t say copyright is the correct or even logical course of action, but there has to be some recourse for a company to stop the distribution of a program that is, by design, violating the terms they’ve set forth for use. Since there is no other way they can go about it, I have to support the use of copyright.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
@CycloneTH: You are using inductive reasoning… One also can use bots to hunt money / certain items of worth over and over.
I’m not familiar with WoW economy, but I’m certain that heavy bot usage can mess up virtual economies big.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
@Equinoxius: It’s true bots can be used to farm trade goods or rare drops, and I think botting for that purpose is disruptive of the in-game economy and shouldn’t be tolerated. However, Glider is ineffective for botting straight cash from corpses, since it requires far more food/drink than an actual player would use over the same period of grinding.
Because bot usage doesn’t directly increase a user’s income (they have to set it to loot certain areas or drops, instead of gaining simply by turning it on), most botters don’t have an unfair advantage other than the grinding they do, which isn’t really all that unfair unless you like to whine about people leveling faster than you do.
As for farmers, yes, they fuck up the economy, but only a little, and there’s nothing you can do to get rid of them. I’d just allow it outright, but put something in the EULA that would make whoring rare drops/trade goods a banable offense. In Blizzard’s case, however, their EULA has already been created, botting is completely against the rules, and they have every right to ban characters that use botting programs. That said, it’s really not all that disruptive, and really only has merit as a good PR move.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I agree and disagree with both sides of the lawsuit, so I can’t back either of them.
What I’m curious about is the Gnome in the headline’s picture. Does he belong to one of the GP crew? And if so, can we vote to make him the official mascot of the forums?
March 24th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
@Questionmark
Thing is, the EULA cannot cover 3rd party utility software creation. 3rd party software USE, yes. But again, I ask, what exactly is the consequence of violating a contract? Does it give you the right to terminate the contract, and shut down accounts? Yes. Does it give you the right to demand a return of what was initially supplied? In most cases, yes. Does it give you the right to demand exorbitant payment as punishment for violating the contract? Not at all.
I’m going to make a weird analogy, so bear with me. The state lays down laws saying you can drive on their roads, but you cannot go faster than 110km/h. You, as a drivers’ licensee, agree to abide by this rule while driving on state roads. Now company A makes a device, that makes your car go faster. Who is guilty, company A, or you, for both installing, and using the device with your car on those roads?
Now when YOU violate the speed laws, you get fined large amounts of money. But you sign the license, KNOWING what those fines will be. They’re not merely listed as “some sum we’ll determine later”. But can you sue the part maker for “enabling” you to violate the speed laws? Nope. YOU took the part, YOU installed it, and YOU used it to go faster than the speed limit. Could Ford/GM/VW/etc sue the part maker? Nope. Can they terminate your lease, or refuse to service under the warranty, if they find out you’re using that part? Absolutely.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The issue here really isn’t about third party software. That’s just the surface. Blizzard is trying to wield the almighty DMCAhammer against somebody who writes a piece of software that:
A.) Reads your computer’s memory.
B.) Generates keystrokes/mouseclicks.
If this becomes a precedent, we’ll get to see more people abuse the DMCA for far less.
EULA != law.
This is the true case at hand. So uh, ECA, did this fly under your guys’ radar or something? Not berating, just wondering where you guys stand on the issue, because I know where I do.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Jabrwock
However do you think there wouldn’t be any consequences for the makers of the parts? I can’t say for sure whether a company can make something that allows people to perform illegal actions without any consequence. The only example I can think of that situation is radar detectors which are only illegal in some states.
Should a company be able to stop someone from creating software which will edit the function of that companies software? Yes. The glider software is essentially hacking the client side software, which then affects the server side software. The program is hacking the server software and changing it.
This is akin to someone creating a program to hack bank databases to edit the amounts of money in someones account. They then sell the software to people. Would the people be prosecuted? Yes. Would the person who created the software get away without being prosecuted? No, because causing the situation where the crime occurs is considered in itself a crime. Is it the same crime? No, but it is creating the crime and deserves it’s own punishment.
Is the guy who created the software guilty of copyright infringement? not directly, but he did create the system which caused the copyright infringement (or even just the EULA violation) to occur, so he is responsible for the entirety of the EULA violations.
Frankly Blizzard could probably add a clause saying they can seize monetary damages to the EULA, do the normal you must agree to this in order to play and go after him for that. He would be free for the programs already distributed, but any new sales would be prosecutable.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
@Questionmark: “The glider software is essentially hacking the client side software, which then affects the server side software. The program is hacking the server software and changing it.” Bullshit. You have no idea what Glider does. I’ve seen how it works, it takes in-game coordinates (which can actually be displayed and used by non-bot users through a simple UI mod, it’s also part of how Questhelper functions, should we sue the people who made that, too?) for your character, relates them to a pre-recorded walk-path, and then walks the path, killing any enemies that get within a certain range of the character if they were of the type and and approximate level that were killed during the time the player recorded the patrol.
That’s all it does, it doesn’t “hack” anything. It doesn’t access any information that the player wouldn’t have access to, and doesn’t input any data into the game client that a regular user isn’t able to.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
@Questionmark:
Whoa, whoa. You have NO idea what you’re talking about. Glider is NOT a hack. Glider does NOT modify the WoW code in any way. Glider READS from memory. Glider generates the keystrokes and mouse movements to automate the character in-game. Also, in client/server programming, YOU DO NOT TRUST THE CLIENT. The server is authoratative. 95% of all multiplayer-related game hacks stem from poor server code. Look at all of the projects based on the Quake engines. Since the projects source code has been released, all of the known ‘hacks’ have been patched.
I’m not trying to insult your intelligence, but take it from somebody who knows what they’re talking about. This is not a ‘hack’. It doesn’t patch any executable code, it only reads from your PC’s memory much the same way an anti-virus program does to scan processes for virus signatures.
This is why this issue is so hard to bring into court, because I doubt there’s a judge alive who understands the true heart of this issue, and Blizzard knows it.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
It’s kind of odd, I play Eve, and we get ‘Macro Miners’. The odd thing about Macro Miners is despite the fact no-one likes them, if it weren’t for the crowds of them hanging around mining Ice to sell, half the Player Owned Stations in the game would go out of service due to lack of fuel, so CCP are sort of between a rock and a hard place with them….
March 24th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
@GoodRobotUs
It’s true. Without them there wouldn’t be much ice on the market. None of the regular players and miners want it.
I myself used to play quite often. If you don’t mind me asking, what corp/alliance are you with? I used to be a member of XF before the break up, then we joined ASCN for a while, then they fell, not that surprising. Then I left for a bit. Came back rejoined my corp right as the alliance they were in was getting kicked out by Tri, then we joined Insurgency. Then I left again. Getting off Academic probation at school is more important than Eve.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t change any values, it’s creating value within the system out of nothing. The system is designed to only have value created from user input. The end result is what matters, not the process. The effect is the same thing as if a player had a program that simply changed the values of the characters inventory, experience, etc.
Rather then trying to determine what actions are being done by players and what are being automated, Blizz made a policy that said no automation could be done. This is why macros can’t even have chained commands within their system.
I see a lot of people crying out about consumer rights, and normally I would agree, but something has to be said for protecting the design of the game. If a player doesn’t like playing the game for the game play, they shouldn’t be playing it at all.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
@Questionmark
“The only example I can think of that situation is radar detectors which are only illegal in some states.”
There’s a reason I left radar detectors out of my example. Because they *explicitely* interfere with law enforcement. They don’t make your car go faster, they make your car either invisible to, or warn you of, radar/lidar dectection. Had Glider interfered with “Watcher” in some way, by fooling it into thinking the software was not tampered with, when it was, you might have a smidgen of a valid case.
But Glider does no such thing. Glider would be the equivalent of driving down the highway at normal speed, making a note of all the police checks, and then telling people where they are, and they then use that information to speed at the places the police are not. Is it disreputable? Yes. Is it illegal? It would be very hard to justify that you making a note of police traps is. The speeders on the other hand… well…
“This is akin to someone creating a program to hack bank databases to edit the amounts of money in someones account.”
No, it’s not. This is akin to using virus scanning software to check your outgoing packets to your own account at your own bank. Only the bank doesn’t want you to scan the packets for whatever reason. So they forbid you to scan for viruses while you do your online transactions. But you do it anyway. Is it in violation of the banking EULA? Yes. Does it give them the right to terminate your ability to do banking online? Yes. Does it give them the right to sue virus-scanning companies? Why?
March 24th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
@Questionmark: “it’s creating value within the system out of nothing.” That’s where you’re wrong. The values it inputs are exactly the same as what would be input if a user were sitting at the computer, the only difference is that those values are created by an automated script, and not the user’s fingers on the keyboard. This is absolutely NOTHING like changing the values of a character’s experience or inventory, doing so would require the character to hack the server side code, which isn’t possible in the way you describe.
The end result would look similar, but that means absolutley nothing. If I were to open Oblivion, sneak next to a creature, then glue down my forward key to have the character walk into the corner, I’ve done something radically different than opening the console and changing the value of my sneak skill, though both actions would accomplish the same thing. I have no idea where you’re getting your logic from.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Except in your examples there is no gain from “check your outgoing packets to your own account” Glider creates new value without any input from the user, thus you’re not just checking your packets, you’re increasing the amount of money in your bank account.
Please tell me HOW it would be legal for someone to create and distribute a program which incrementally increased the amount of money in their bank account without any actual deposit from said person?
March 24th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
@Questionmark: “Please tell me HOW it would be legal for someone to create and distribute a program which incrementally increased the amount of money in their bank account without any actual deposit from said person?”
Ask the people that make all the automated programs designed to sell stock in your portfolio when it reaches a certain price.
But really, Glider is more expensive than playing legit unless you use it to farm. The costs of keeping the automated character alive are far greater than what it takes to keep a regular user alive. The entire basis of your argument is that players that use glider have some kind of unfair advantage, and when used in certain ways, it’s true. But I doubt that the fact it took far more effort for a legit player to hit 70 than a botter is REALLY worth the court’s time.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I started playing WoW at level 1 just like everyone else. Problem was, my friends that got me started were level 50. They didn’t want to roll alts. They didn’t want to help me. So I got left behind on everything. I can relate to the plight to the people who use bots to level. Endgame calls, and just try to convince your guild to wait. By the time your ready for Kara, they’re on Hyjal.
Well, how about this proposal. Cash money for a level 70 toon. From Blizzard. No eBay. No Bots. No grind. Just give Blizz say sixty bucks (about 4 months of service) and they give you a level 70, with greens.
It’s essentially the same crap they’re doing with the World Arena Tournament, but for the PvE. Then put a cooldown on it like their Transfers and Name Changes, and bam. Easy revenue for Blizz, leaving Gliders in the hands of only those who wish to use it to farm (mostly, can’t always account for the financially or intellectually impaired) and then go after them.
Simply put: Make the crime legit and it will shrink the black market.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
“Except in your examples there is no gain from “check your outgoing packets to your own account” Glider creates new value without any input from the user, thus you’re not just checking your packets, you’re increasing the amount of money in your bank account.”
Not at all. You’re assuming there’s no checking at the server end. Instead what we have, is, without user input, the app is requesting that the back make a 2nd transaction, after noting information received from the 1st. Say it notes that the bank says you’ve been paid today, so it send back a request that you pay Mastercard $100. No money is created or destroyed.
“Please tell me HOW it would be legal for someone to create and distribute a program which incrementally increased the amount of money in their bank account without any actual deposit from said person?”
You’re talking about server-side hacking, which is a completely different issue.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Look, the problem isn’t that he made it, or even that people used it. The problem is that he sold it. He’s essentially making money off of Blizzard’s Intellectual Property and that truly is a Copyright Violation.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
@CycloneTH
“Ask the people that make all the automated programs designed to sell stock in your portfolio when it reaches a certain price.”
Good example.
Or eBay auto-bidders. Or subscriber auto-purchasers (my wife has one set up, so she doesn’t lose her membership in a buyers club. if she doesn’t make any purchases by the 15th, it auto-selects products and orders them for her).
The only difference between these, and Glider, is that WoW doesn’t want you to use the automator. But since you aren’t actually hacking the server, or even the client-app, they can’t come up with a better argument than to sue the 3rd party automator under the EULA… which is only an agreement between WoW and the end-user…
March 24th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
@ScorpSt
“Look, the problem isn’t that he made it, or even that people used it. The problem is that he sold it. He’s essentially making money off of Blizzard’s Intellectual Property and that truly is a Copyright Violation.”
He’s not selling copies of WoW. So that argument doesn’t work. If he was giving it away for free, Blizzard would likely still be suing him…
They’re essentially trying to argue that when the game is running, they alone are allowed to tell you what you can and cannot do on your computer.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Hmm. Well, look at it this way:
If Donnelly had just made the program for his own benefit, that would be one thing, and I highly doubt that Blizzard would have done more than ban him.
However, by marketing it and selling to others, the issue grows much larger. The more people do this, the more resources Blizzard has to devote to counteracting the bots. And the more money this one guy makes with his program, the more copycats he inspires, which causes more programs to go out there and thus forces Blizzard to use even more resources to stop it. And so on, and so on…
Blizzard, therefore, has a choice: either play a perpetual game of catch-up with the bot-makers, trying to put out fires as they happen… or they can pre-emptively put a stop to the whole shebang.
I feel they have every right to do the latter.
As for the objections to the ‘monitoring RAM and keystrokes’ thing… sometimes just because you own something doesn’t mean you still have 100% control over it. Take, for example, your car: many states have emissions requirements, and if it doesn’t pass an emissions test, you can’t drive it. Thus, even though you own the car, if you don’t maintain it at a certain level, you can’t legally drive it. Not the best analogy, I admit, but the situation is somewhat similar.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Correct you finally got it. The fact that one player gets an advantage over another is my argument, but it’s not the courts problem. Blizzard set up their EULA to prevent the advantage of using a botting program over not. The modder broke EULA and profited because of it. Not only did they break the EULA with the original program, but they went a step further to circumvent the check system put in place to prevent it. The entire time this was done with the intent to profit, not with the interest of the players using the program but with the interest of the modder’s own profit.
A EULA is a contract, enforcible by law and the courts. When a contract is broken as in this instance the party who broke contract is subject to certain penalties. In this case they are going through copyright based on the fact that the copies made to the RAM in conjunction with the program were unauthorized copies and therefore monetary penalties can be sought. Even without that however Blizzard has the option to change the contract at anytime without consulting the people who have agreed to it. The only requirement is that they must present the new contract with the revisions for people to choose to agree to or not again. When the modder created this program he lost his right to run the software he was using (Blizzard’s software) along with every person that used the software. Beyond that the fact that he profited from the misuse brings it into the realm of copyright.
SO while I still don’t agree with the use of copyright that is what the courts have to deal with. Blizzard has already made the advantageous program against EULA, which voided the programmers and users right to use the program. Once their right to use the program was voided they stepped into the realm of copyright infringement.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
“When a contract is broken as in this instance the party who broke contract is subject to certain penalties.”
Such as? Does anyone actually know what the EULA says the penalties are? Or even what general ballpark they fall into?
This is why I want the court to go through the EULA with a fine-toothed comb. Because I’m pretty sure Blizzard is affording themselves certain “rights” to do more than is reasonable.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
For me, Glider seems to be software that is intentionally designed to assist people to violate Blizzard’s terms of use for their software. The Client software is licensed to the customer, as the only valid means to access Blizzard’s servers. Blizzard has every right to control how the client and server interact with each other, as well as the server code themselves. As this is not a stand-alone program, the notion of “just modifying/doing things to the Client program” is a farce at best.
Claiming that it does nothing to the Client’s code — in memory or out of it, other than reading is also a bit of a sham. Because while yes, it only “reads” the memory locations that WoW uses for their client, it does take control over the input functionality for that Client, and therefore interferes with the Client’s “normal operation” by proxy… by automating the keystrokes, mouse movements, etc.
Yet again, WoWGlider’s expressed intent behind its design is to violate Blizzard’s Terms of Use to play WoW on their servers. And, it quite honestly becomes a “their house, their rules” scenario. If you pay to go to a private nightclub, you are expected to follow the rules of that club, or get bounced. Are the owners of the establishment violating your rights? No, they are maintaining the rules of their establishment. Now, this analogy doesn’t work with regards to Glider itself, but I am mainly using it to establish an analogous example I think that works for the situation with Blizzard. There is a certain amount of “fairness” Blizzard wants in the game, to make it attractive to players. Without that, it kind of falls part real fast, and it will make the game more unappealing to a number of people, lowering Blizzard’s revenue, and therefore fundamentally not a smart move from a business standpoint.
I do believe that the Glider analogy works best with things that are made intentionally to break a rule, or possibly a law. If a company was to start selling presses which can make counterfeit money, would the government be correct in taking out/getting rid of the company making the presses, or should they just stay on “clean-up” handling the individual cases where people bought the press and made counterfeits? After all… the counterfeit press could be classified simply as a “novelty item” for “display”. It doesn’t actually do anything to interfere directly with the currency maintained by the Federal Reserve (using the US example). But, it does produce all kinds of other real-world problems. What Glider does is something, in a sense, similar to that within the confines of the game. Once again, analogies aren’t the greatest, and this isn’t an attempt to compare based on scope, just an analogy to the situation.
Blizzard is protecting their own assets. At the same time, they are trying to protect the interests of their “legitimate” player-base. The latter because keeping the players happy helps with keeping them as paying customers and therefore keeps revenues up, which everything in a business eventually boils down to making money, turning a profit.
What would happen if Blizzard made their own Botting program/system/mechanic in WoW? It could kill Glider, but then the problem would magnify, and it would make them lose a *lot* of the playerbase that they’ve built up over the years for WoW. 10+ million active accounts is nothing to scoff at — and any business which starts to stomp on that will find itself running out of customers quick, fast, and in a hurry.
Now, like others, I’m not fond of what has been done with EULAs by businesses for a while now. I am all for getting those removed. But, I also am huge on wanting a relatively fair mechanic/control in a game to help counter the people who would just want to exploit things. Glider gets around the EULA or ToU by it not actually violating anything, or rather, the developers don’t violate anything (as long as they don’t use it when playing WoW, if playing WoW at all). But it is disingenuous at best, and using specific wording of rules and laws to circumvent the spirit of them.
It is quite simply, in Blizzard’s best interests, in order to keep the game a relatively “fair” environment for their “legitimate” players, to try and stomp out Glider by any means available. It benefits their “legitimate” players to do this, and in turn, it benefits Blizzard to do this, to keep the “legitimate” players happy, and thus keeping the revenues up.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
@KotatsuNeko: “As for the objections to the ‘monitoring RAM and keystrokes’ thing… sometimes just because you own something doesn’t mean you still have 100% control over it.”
Ownership
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Own):
Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property, which may be an object, land/real estate, intellectual property (arguably) or some other kind of property.
So yeah, that’s kinda exactly what it means.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
@Jabrwock
They have a Policy Page about it. Basically, the most damaging thing they do is close the account. And for botting, it pretty much jumps straight to that. They also tend to close accounts by the tens-, twenties-, and fifties-of thousands for this each month any more. It is an incredible hassle to have to deal with it, so Blizzard is looking to cut the problem off at one of the roots, and see what happens with it.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Honestly I haven’t looked, but it’s just as possible that a clause says “If you break these rules you will be fined 10 billion dollars.”
The scary thing is that if it’s in the EULA, it can be enforced. As long as people are hitting “I accept” anything in the EULA becomes legally binding. The next thing you have to think about is what can happen assuming Blizz does lose the case. All they have to do is ass in a few small clauses and they can bring the man right back to court under the new EULA.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
That’s the lamens definition, you can’t apply it to law.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
“They have a Policy Page about it. Basically, the most damaging thing they do is close the account. And for botting, it pretty much jumps straight to that.”
So how do they manage to expand this to anything more significant than closing WoWGlider’s accounts?
See, this is why they’re resorting to claiming DMCA/Copyright violations. Because they can’t come up with anything legitimate through other means that would do anything more than just force WoWGlider to buy another copy of the game…
March 24th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
@Questionmark
“The scary thing is that if it’s in the EULA, it can be enforced. As long as people are hitting “I accept” anything in the EULA becomes legally binding.”
Not necessarily, and that’s the point. You are still afforded some inalienable rights, no matter what the contract says. That’s Glider’s argument, that the EULA may full well allow Blizzard to close people’s accounts, but it doesn’t take away Glider’s right to write software to monitor system resources and affect keyboard/mouse drivers. Users who agree to the EULA cannot USE the software, while running WoW, but that’s not what this suit is about.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I’m going to have to go with Blizzard on this one. Gold Farming is pretty bad, and they should have every right to get rid of this type of activity. I doubt that Blizzard would go after legitimate customers over their EULA. Granted it sets a standard down against this activity, which I don’t particularly see as a bad thing, and I just don’t believe that any company going after the real customers would win in court, but then again, anything is possible.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
The Eula agreements are a much worse issue than the spoiling of the game that is caused by those who use bots and farmers…
While I want the bots and farmers gone, I want the Eula slapped down a lot more…
If there was only a way to declare bots, farmers and Eula agreements illegal at the same time…
March 24th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
As a WoW player I find people who use these bots extremly annoying and don’t understand why people use it! The purpose of the game is to enjoy leveling! And as for selling it… it’s giving him money off someone else’s program (sorry if anyone’s already said this) but I mean, if I was the owner of Blizzard and someone was making money off me without permission, I’d wanna sue him! I personally hope Blizzard wins so I can play without all those lazy jackasses doing nothing to get to 70 while I toil night-after-night to level like a decent player
March 24th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
“That’s the lamens definition, you can’t apply it to law.”
Why not? Do you not own the wires in your computer? Does Blizzard automatically get all rights to control all inputs to your computer just because you’re running their software? Are they allowed to tell you what brand of keyboard to use?
March 24th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
@Jabrwock
Like I said, Glider was designed specifically to violate Blizzard’s EULA/ToU. What Blizzard HAS been doing is shutting down every account that they found using Glider. However, this is an endless battle, and Blizzard now is turning to other options (like Copyright/DMCA) to nail Glider’s developers. The most the EULA is brought up, from my understanding of Blizzard’s position, is that the program was designed with the intent to break the EULA/ToU. So, Blizzard also is pointing out that the system was made for that explicit purpose — but that is not a strong position to argue from, that’s for sure. Fortunately, it isn’t the only leg they are standing on.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
@Cafalump
“And as for selling it… it’s giving him money off someone else’s program”
So would you lump player guides/walkthroughs into that category? The courts seem to feel that walkthroughs are legit, even though they too make money off someone else’s program.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
@Xlorep DarkHelm
“However, this is an endless battle, and Blizzard now is turning to other options (like Copyright/DMCA) to nail Glider’s developers. The most the EULA is brought up, from my understanding of Blizzard’s position, is that the program was designed with the intent to break the EULA/ToU.”
But the DMCA covers copy protection. Breaking EULA/ToU doesn’t fall under that. You can’t link the two. Intent to break contract != copyright violation. Their copyright violation argument is actually the weakest they have against Glider, because Glider doesn’t actually break any encryption at all.
I really feel for Blizzard, I really do. Botters are a scourge that should be eliminated. But I really can’t see a valid legal avenue for using the EULA/DMCA to do so. Especially considering how Glider works…
March 24th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
okay then, he’s getting money off someone else’s program without there permission, as I slightly put later, but I guess it wasn’t al that clear
March 24th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
@Cafalump
“he’s getting money off someone else’s program without there permission”
The walkthroughs in question were unauthorized. Otherwise, who’d care?
March 24th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
The EULA issue aside, if the ECA were to intervene on behalf of a bot software writer, it would ensure that I would *never* join that organization.
The majority of entertainment software consumers are far more interested in making sure that online multiplayer games remain as fair an environment as possible.
For some people, cheating is anathema, and when some people cheat, everyone has to cheat or be at a competitive disadvantage.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
@Jabrwock
You are misrepresenting and misinterpreting what I am saying. I never said there was a link between the two. I never said the DMCA covers the EULA. I said the two were separate issues Blizzard is pursuing. The EULA one is weak, and they know it. The DMCA one has potentially a stronger case, despite me disliking the DMCA anyway. There does not need to be “breaking encryption” for Copyright infringement, last I checked.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
MDY’s motion is a good read. Especially the bit where they argue that EULA terms in no way afford Blizzard extra “rights” under the Copyright Act.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
id say my biggest problem with “glider” and other is that you cant start a new character on any server without getting spammed! (for those of you with space on your wow accounts go create a new character then time how long it takes you to get bot spam)
i think you will understand (at least some of) blizzards arguments after that.
im not saying blizzards totally in the right here but they are dealing with a frustrating problem
March 24th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
@ Angelfire
How would not having to do the mundane tasks in game (all the gathering tasks) ruin the game? You like fishing in game? Come on. Protect their game, fine. I’m not condoning anything else, I’m simply pointing out they’ve created their own monster.
@ Demontestament
Uhm you took what I said out of context. I never said Blizz should pay for the mod I said they should add it. It’s their game and there’s nothing against them creating a bot program. If you don’t wish to use it you don’t have to. It just seems stupid in the day and age of databases and the ability to create mailing lists that in order to get higher in level you sit around fishing in game for hours to make the higher levels… Oh fun.
On content let’s take that into perspective… Take $15 x 9,000,000…
How often do you think content should be updated when a company intakes that much gross revenue per month? Currenly it’s once every 3 months give or take.
The reason the gold sellers, hackers, and the spammer exist are people with your mindset. If you REMOVE the advantages there’s no reason for them to exist anymore. Hence add the mods/hacks and the like in game. If you wanna grind manually, go for it. But why would anyone try to sell you gold, toons, stuff anymore when you press a button and the game will do it for you?
It’s only cheating when only a select few can do it.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
@Xlorep DarkHelm
I’m not saying YOU are making a link. I’m saying Blizzard is. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Their assertion is that MDY is engaging in DMCA/Copyright violations in order to enable users to violate their EULA. They’re linking the two. By asserting that while copying in RAM occurs, it’s illegal copying because the user has to break the EULA to do it.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
@Cafalump
The purpose of the game is debatable. While you may enjoy leveling, I do not, so I bot, because I enjoy end-game raiding, and do not feel like putting my time into getting extra characters up to 70.
My bot does not take your enjoyment of the game away if I don’t interfere with you. Only one person on my server even knows that I bot, there are no complaints to me, only thing people say about my characters are nice things since I often give stuff away.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Lamens terms are often not clear enough for legal definition. As someone already mentioned just because you own something doesn’t mean you actually have full control over it. This is especially true in copyright and Intellectual Property.
You own your cds for wow, but you don’t own the code, program, characters, items, levels, gold etc. Just the same as you don’t own the music on a cd, you own a copy of the cd. Owning a copy of a game disc does not grant you the right to do anything you want with that program. The EULA is a way for companies to set out what can and can’t be done based on a license. Once you break that you lose you’re rights to almost any action with the program.
Yes it would be great if Blizz could just continually ban every account that used Glider. It would be nice because everyone would win. Companies could count on EULAs to enforce their terms of service, consumers could feel free to experiment knowing the worst that would happen is a banned account. The problem is all the enforcement of the EULA eventually becomes a drain on a companies resources, so the options are:
1. Turn off service entirely (IE turn off WoW completely to all users)
2. Go after the people supplying people with things to break the EULA.
Blizz is using the only means they have to go after someone who is constantly attacking their terms of service. In instances where it’s impossible to stop all occurances of a crime, it’s sometimes necessary to remove the source. Examples - rather then trying to keep every gun owner from shooting someone, the government restricts access to guns.
So rather then trying to ban every person using the program, Blizzard is attempting to remove the source of the program.
Honestly if you think about it, there is no legitimate use of Glider, any use of the program is against EULA and should result in a ban. So Blizz is taking the logical, least costly step and going after the makers of Glider to have it removed from the public.
Makes sense to me.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I fail to see how it is “affording them extra rights”. Blizzard has all of the rights from the Copyright Act. And, they can attempt to shut down those who build software that infringes upon those rights. Glider was explicity made to infringe on Blizzard’s copyright (as well as explicitly allow other people to violate the EULA). All Glider is doing is potentially going to get a legal scramble that will result in *more* freedom in controlling content through EULAs in this. They may think they are doing themselves a favor, but I only see this as getting worse.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
@cullarn
Glider doesn’t message people to spam them. In fact most bots don’t message people, at least the ones used for leveling and farming.
Also I don’t get bot spam, I only got it once at level 33. A year ago.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Last bit because I need ot get some work done.
Honestly any company making a profit from programs or services which get people items, gold, or experience that isn’t obtained “legally” occurring to the EULA is violating copyright. The reason is all the stuff that has any meaning or value in the game belongs to Blizzard.
Those mats your bot just farmed for 6 hours? They’re Blizzards. The exp you gained? Blizzards. You don’t own any of it. You’re basically paying Blizz to touch it. When a company starts making money off that virtual property by breaking rules Blizz has set forth, the company is violating Blizzards copyright on all things wow. Is it entirely in line with physical items and belongings? No, but intellectual property never has been.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
@Godkarmachine O Inary
i have quite a few characaters at lower levels i do get spam (its not as bad as it was ill admit when i first started ploaying) but im still getting farmer spamming ( i didnt really pay much attention just enought to know that it was spam then register the complaint)
March 24th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
@Godkarmachine O Inary
aswell as what cullarn says above it does get in my way when your bot is in an area I am killing everything along with 15 other bots I want to kill MYSELF!
@Jarwock
… be quiet now!
March 24th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
You know what is funny> If Blizzard says no, then no it is. All this arguing if WE think it is okay or not is a moot point. WoW is no democracy. You as a player get only one vote that matter, your cash. After that you get no more votes. AS IN NONE. Blizzard and and will tell you what to do on the servers because they own them. They can and will tell you what to do with the game code because they own it. They own everything in WoW. You won nothing, not even your characters. This is not Second Life. The fact that the code resides in your RAM does not make the code yours. Blizzard will win the law suit and bot fools will lose.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I hate to say this but all this “Fuck Blizzard, This, Fuck Blizzard, That” talk reminds me a great deal of when I see people come online who have been “hacked” (Aka: Gave up there password or were looking for ways to cheat and dropped their items for a false duper, etc) and when they’re told that Blizzard explicitly does not restore items (period), they go on a temper tantrum screaming “fuck you blizzard”, blah blah blah, etc. etc. (Throw in a couple of sexist and racist remarks too - Not a joke, by the way).
Blizzard has always had a staunch position against bots of any kind in their networks and games. They used to seek out and ban those who used a nice little utility known as UltimateBot back in the day, which was later modified to meet Blizzard’s demands and only could join public channels (much like Diablo). Such makes sense though as users were using them to exploit channels on Battle.net by filling them with bots, using them to spam channels, etc. (Still happens).
Considering the amount of exploits they regularly probe Warcraft III, Diablo II, and World of Warcraft for, it does not surprise me they have some kind of intolerance to any manner. What I do not appreciate however, is the manner in which they choose to rectify the situation by placing such a ridiculous price on it. To be honest, I hope the court in which it was filed throws both parties cases out and says have a nice day.
In addition, I hope that the ECA makes some reasonable statement regarding this and maybe the ESA… though I’m possibly hoping too much now.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
@Loudspeaker :
> Take $15 x 9,000,000…
$15/month is only the price in the USA, for people paying monthly. I pay in 6 month blocks and it’s less. People in Europe probably pay more (they ALWAYS do) but in China it’s per hour.
Anyway, it probably won’t be too hard to see the actual numbers Blizzard pulls in now that they’re owned by a publicly traded company (as well as what it costs them). It probably won’t marked “World of Warcraft” in the 10-Q but the revenue stream will probably be the lion’s share of any subscription revenue which is likely to shown separately.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
@Papa Midnight:
What other choice does Blizzard really have? I say sue the fool and if does not stop, sue him again. And sue anyone else who does this kind of crap. If people want an open game where they can do anything, let them go play Second Life.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
There’s got to be a middle ground somewhere. EVE Online similarly tries to stamp out farmers and other illegal exploits, however they’ve also worked with some in the community to develop third-party utilities. For example, EVEMon, a player-developed utility, will keep track of characters, skills being learned, and provide data on ships, items, and current mineral prices. The EVE Online developers actually set aside a server connection and developed an API so that these independent utilities could have a dedicated tie into the game universe to get the relevant (protected) player data and other information without impacting the game.
So I believe there is a way for independents to work with developers for a game they enjoy that doesn’t trigger draconian EULAs or ruin the game for everyone.
But not everybody likes playing nice or respecting effort, I suppose … ?
March 24th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Does this affect anyone who doesn’t play WoW?
March 24th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
EULAs are ruining the game industry. As soon as games are recognised as goods rather than services will gamers get anything resembling rights. EULAs ought to be banned.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
@Delin
Sorry for the late reply
I was mostly a small-corp player in Eve, we weren’t part of any real alliance, though we did arrange some 0.4 mining permission/support with one alliance and tended to work alongside them for a while, but only for industry & research.
I’m actually part of an NPC Corp at the moment, working on my standings, which is useful in some respects, but means that going into low-sec is a no-no. Everyone seems to assume a non-aligned Heavy Assault Cruiser is up to no good
March 24th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
@GRIZZAM 512
It does, because it shows that Blizzard Entertainment is prepared to do pretty much anything and everything, including using the DMCA (or attempt, since the initial bullshit injunction they tried did NOT work) to shut down someone making money off them, without Blizzard Entertainment’s permission.
I don’t play WOW, and I don’t see the charm that MMORPG’s offer (WOW or otherwise), incidentally. I’m just anti-DMCA, personally and do not think highly of companies who crush consumer rights because they think they can at will-even with their own products.
Blizzard Entertainment can sue the creator of this glider program until they run out of money (Scientology does that with their enemies and Sony did that with BLEEM), but it doesn’t mean that the tool-even if it seen as cheating in the spirit of the gameplay, is automatically illegal.
If Blizzard Entertainment loses this fight, I will be happy, because it means that the DMCA can’t be used for Blizzard’s far-fetched ideas that somehow, their content is protected by copyright in YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM MEMORY.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I can agree with las except in one instance. An MMO, or any continually supported game (patches, new content, persistent world, etc.) is not JUST a product, just as phone service, internet service, and anything that requires continual work from a company is not JUST a product.
An MMO is by and large a service, and really in a lot of instances people expect a little too much for their dollar. I’ll say it again, you don’t own anything when it comes to WoW or any other MMO. The content is all owned by the company and you’re leasing it for fun.
You can cry out that Blizz is a terrible company but what it ultimately boils down to is that they are looking out for the majority of their 10 million customers at the expense of the minority. It’s not some evil plot to control your computer or to keep you from enjoying the game. It’s a perfectly legitimate plot to keep something they are constantly investing resources into under their control. Want a comparison? How about this, if you own a computer (which I’m assuming you do) how would you feel if you’re neighbor decided his bandwidth would be better if he “fiddled” with your internet wiring a bit. He’s a customer of the same IP company, he pays his money just like you do, and since he’s only online on his computer 3 hours a day, while you’re home and online a lot more (for arguements sake making the assumption) he sets up the wiring in your apartment complex so when he signs on, you lose signal. When he signs off, you get full service.
In a world without some kind of agreement between the service provider and the service reciever, he has every right to do this, because who is going to step in? Who has authority? Without an agreement of some kind the company can’t take any action, and since you have no agreement with him you would have no recourse save trying to fix the problem yourself. You have no agreement with the company, thus they have no incentive to fix it for you.
Even a basic “I pay you and you make it work.” is an agreement. In Blizzard’s case, their CUSTOMERS have cried out against this program, and thus they’re taking action. I say good for you Blizz, and good luck.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
uggg where to start….
Firstly i would like to address what world of warcraft truly is:A hobby and like any hobby many people spend money on it with some spending more than others.The next issue is time,some do not have 5 hours a day to devote to getting gear do to work,kids,rampant whack-a-mole addiction or whatever and need a slight boost to stay competitive in a ever changing world.
so for many its a alternative to keep pace so they can actually have fun when they do have time to play,which is the whole point of the game to begin with.Its time for numbers!!!
1.gold farmers are not all evil some of them are the brightest,funniest people i have ever met.
2.a fairly good chunk just sell spare gold person to person this helps the workaholic keep up and the one who plays more can use the money to buy pizza and arizona drinks to play more wow.everybody wins.
3.gold farming in wow has the exact opposite effect people think it does considering the data over many years that whenever blizzard does a mass ban of gold farmers prices inflate massively(as seen on dreden server when the shard farmers where banned……shard prices jumped by 30 fold for 5 weeks straight due to severe lack of supply).
4.wow is a near unlimited material supply game:which means the more materials out there to craft,quest or kill bunnies with grenades with the lower the average price.The only mmos who have this in reverse are ones that have rare spawns on set re pop timers that drop 1/8 trillion kills loot.
in which case the same thing happens if a regular player gets it anyhow(im looking at you FFXI -.-).
5.I have sold gold to a few friends before who can’t stay on for 11 hours to get the epic mount.I’m not going out of my way to sell them this but when the opportunity occurs for extra spare change to go towards a computer that doesn’t lag to hell in shattratah so i can enjoy the game more than so be it.(its not like im out in skar farming 21 hours a day for the gold anyhow).
6.EULA’s already have a very high amount of power as is,blizzard doing this is no different than the modchip raids not to mention they can twist this so far they could even take his patent on his program since blizz has a part in the eula saying they can use any and all information from mods used in future updates.aka eula stealing livelyhood.
6a.example:i make a mod that makes the screen flash red whenever illidan gets ready to use his instant death eye lazorzs,under blizz eula(hidden very well mind you)they can take the source code and use it for updates that do the same thing in game but without my permission.
6b.i make a new version but they slap a c.a.d on me saying im infringing on their copyrights…wait…who infringed who again?
7.I don’t agree in the current “oh you bought it but we ultimately have last say in what you can and cannot do with it”crap.If i buy a truck and want to paint it silver with dragons on it i don’t want ford coming to my house saying you are not allowed to have dragons on your truck…only their buyer agreement of unicorns…screw unicorns they suck.The fact is If i buy something I should be able to mod it to do whatever I want from a toaster n64 all the way to a wow startup disk that can kill a tiger in 1 shot.
8.originally the only way to say anyone copyright infringed is if they were