Blizzard 1, MDY 0
World of Warcraft bot creator MDY recently found themselves in a bad spot. In short, according to my severely limited understanding of law, programs like Glider are not only a massive pain in the butt to developers and players, they are against the law. Blizzard won key judgments against the creators of Glider, which I think is a good thing for the entire MMO industry. More at Virtually Blind.
It may be good for the MMO industry but I’m not so sure that it’s good for the mmo customer.
Bots are “mmo customers” now?
Go Blizzard. A great precedent for the industry. Let’s hope others have the fortitude to follow suit.
I wouldn’t worry about this at all as an MMO customer unless you are cheating using a program. Using things like UI mods is within the terms of service, and is therefore completely legal. Copies of the game in memory are also fine if it is necessary for the operation of the game (and instigated by the game’s creator).
Basically, this is a win for the industry AND legitimate MMO customers. If you aren’t a legit customer, it’s a good thing that it’s negatively impacting you.
It’s not like Glider is stealing copies of WoW or anything – killing Glider is good for the MMO industry *because* it’s good for the customers.
If bot farming didn’t adversely affect the players, Blizzard would have no reason whatsoever to care – banning bot accounts is lost revenue.
I don’t play WoW and I wouldn’t know how to run a bot if I had one.
“Using things like UI mods is within the terms of service, and is therefore completely legal.”
It’s within the terms of service unless it isn’t….that’s the problem. Anything that put’s more power in the hands of the company and out of the hands of the customer is bad imo.
“If you aren’t a legit customer, it’s a good thing that it’s negatively impacting you.”
I don’t want to get too political here, but I have the same reaction when some @sshat in the govt. tells me I don’t have to worry about warrantless wiretaps, only terrorists have to worry….since I’m innocent I shouldn’t care about having my phone tapped.
WoW’s TOS is pretty clear. UI mods are actively supported by their development team – they’re completely legal, if you understand what they actually do.
Bot programs which register multiple keystrokes and mouseclicks to play the game are completely not allowed. There is no grey area.
This isn’t like Blizzard invading your privacy to figure out if you’re doing something bad. This is Blizzard suing a company which has made a large amount of money selling a program called WowGlider (eventually renamed to MMOGlider) which has as its sole purpose subverting the license agreement between Blizzard and user. I guess I don’t see how that could possibly negatively impact anyone who isn’t relying on getting hold of their cheater program.
“This isn’t like Blizzard invading your privacy to figure out if you’re doing something bad.”
No, I believe that’s called Warden.
“WoW’s TOS is pretty clear. UI mods are actively supported by their development team – they’re completely legal, if you understand what they actually do.”
Does WoW have the right to set a TOS that prohibits UI mods?
“I guess I don’t see how that could possibly negatively impact anyone who isn’t relying on getting hold of their cheater program.”
I know. Lots of people can’t see why wiretapping could negatively impact anyone who doesn’t have anything to hide. I’m familiar with the mindset. I can say that more power going into the hands of companies and out of the hands of customers is a bad thing but it just disappears into the blindspot.
The only reason Blizzard was unhappy with Bot programs was because they were not getting a cut of the profit. Same reason EQ1 hated ebay and same reason EQ2 tried that special server. Money Money Money.
Don’t like it? Don’t play it. Oh wait, you already said you don’t. People were using this program to CHEAT, which hurts legitimate paying customers.
This is about a game, a game. Not some silly metaphor for how you feel your personal freedoms are being infringed upon by the big bad evil Bush. You only have to wait a few more months and then he’ll be gone and the great savior of all mankind Barak Obama will be here and everything will be roses again.
Take political discussion elsewhere please.
I get it Jujutsu. Those that think WoW is a racing game call Glider cheating, whereas the rest of us, we think it’s just a way to play without it becoming a part or full time job. Not likely to see any bridge between the aisle any time soon.
Last I read the ToS the prohibition was on ALL third party apps. That they make capricious exceptions with a fair play argument kind of just makes it worse. If we would have had to develop wondering if we were going to get sued by MS all the time we’d all probably be using Linux.
In a way it might be like the phone lines. One company spends $100 million on fiber where the rest of em spend $40 million on copper. The company with the fiber won’t let anyone carry on their network. Does that seem right to you?
Daven, that is entirely incorrect. Developers hate bot programs because they harm the game experience for everyone who plays legitimately. Players are banned for botting, which is a far greater loss in profit off that single player than a cut of the Glider profits.
It’s all about making the game as fun as possible for as many players as possible. If you want to cite profit as motivation for getting rid of botters, then you can here; when you get rid of botters, legitimate customers are happier for it, and your game is more profitable because it has more satisfied, paying customers.
ORLY?
The O-fficial Glider website say differently. Who’s in the racing game? Me? I’m the guy that plays the 1 to 40 content everyone blows through. Endgame bores me. I’m the guy who contends with these bots daily.
Ryan, I have never had my play experience affected by a Bot. I have never used one of these programs, sold/bought anything. If people want to do that I have no problem with it.
“I know. Lots of people can’t see why wiretapping could negatively impact anyone who doesn’t have anything to hide. I’m familiar with the mindset. I can say that more power going into the hands of companies and out of the hands of customers is a bad thing but it just disappears into the blindspot.”
This is one of the least seductive straw man arguments I’ve ever seen. Banning botters and prosecuting for tortious interference has nothing to do with wiretapping. It’s not a means of surveillance; it’s sentencing people who have already been caught (by whatever means) and convicted. The Warden thing is done to death, if that’s your problem fine, play something else, but that’s not what anyone else is talking about.
Internet privacy is all well and good (and a bit of a joke), but it’s a completely different topic. We’re talking about Blizzard going after Glider, which is not even remotely the same thing.
Actually Bryan it is a fair use issue, which stems from the first amendment, free speech. It’s also a bit of a net neutrality issue too. Just amazing how people can have such contrasting double standards depending on wether or not they are (or favor) the party in power. When the shoe gets put on the other foot people who yesterday scream oppression and talk about the bill of rights today calmly inform us we don’t have the right to run software on our computers, we have no right to read our own RAM and if we don’t like it we can commit virtual suicide. People will say the net is neutral so gamers shouldn’t have to pay more but these same people will make a brilliant case on why WoW accounts should be capped at 20 hours a week to limit the “unfair advantage” people can gain over one another.
We have the right to bear arms and thus have the highest violent crimes rate in the world. But we don’t have the right to run bots, apparently, because people’s virtual accomplishments might look a bit tarnished and it would be all the more apparent why contested carebear content sucks so bad, if we did.
“This is one of the least seductive straw man arguments I’ve ever seen.”
It’s hardly a straw man argument, it’s a direct response to people telling me that the court decision only hurts botters. Exactly the same argument that people make about warrantless wiretaps….it’s only bad for the guilty. I think the decision is bad for all software customers not just the “”Guilty”".
The court decision isn’t about surveillance in any way, though. Surveillance has nothing to do with it and never did. The issue is what to do with people who are clearly violating the law (in this case, interfering in contractual agreements for MMOGlider, violating their own contractual agreements for people using it), not how they are caught.
robusticus – unless you’re prepared to argue that the notion of software licensing is groundless, your fair use argument is more than a little bit of a stretch. If you enter into an agreement with Blizzard in order to use their product, then violate that agreement by running a bot, unless there’s something illegal about the contractual requirement to not run a bot, you’re in the wrong. If you don’t like the terms of a contract, you are free to not enter into it in the first place.
We have the “right” to bear arms because it’s guaranteed to us by the founding document of our government. Right or wrong, we can debate that. There’s certainly no “natural right” to guns (how could there be, guns being a product of human invention?); it’s arbitrary – or rather it was judged worth the risks and nobody has successfully challenged it. If there was a right to bot in computer games, comparing bots and the second amendment would be valid. As is, it’s silly.
I think ultimately fair use trumps ownership rights but regulation of the commons determines fair use. In other words I would not think it unconstitutional to limit use to 20 hours per week per account, given that is how WoW is balanced. However I do think it is unconstitutional to govern what a user is running on their own PC, given the software in question is transformative, not at all a substitute, and copies a very very scant amount of data that is itself temporary in nature. It was built after WoW was published and the motive for its creation was not for profit. It is also a sort of parody and those are the classic fair use cases.
Wasn’t comparing the 2nd ammendment to the right to party. Was illustrating the importance of rights in our society. The 4th amendment I think comes in to play with the, accepting fair use, unlawful seek-and-destroy automatic countermeasures.
You know, the data copying bit always makes me jumpy. Checking what I have in RAM is none of your damn business (though not actually illegal – notice that for instance the fourth amendment only applies to the government, which Blizzard is definitely not).
But there is such a thing as tortious interference, and going after MMOGlider on those grounds? Totally legitimate and MMOGlider is probably going to lose.
We’ll see if there is an appeal about the contract stuff and what the appellate court says. It is in San Francisco (?) and a ruling there in favor of MDY just enables a trial. Which is all very expensive, way more money than Glider ever made.
Since this is cybercourt we can just say the original ruling for the contract issue took into account actions taken when Blizzard was in fact operating as a government institution, albeit one from the 1300s, vis-a-vis regulation of the commons, which is the purview of the government itself, particularly the judicial branch, not Blizzard’s CSRs.