WoW Glider loses. Ordered to pay Blizzard 6m.

[Phred]

http://virtuallyblind.com/2008/07/14/blizzard-wins-sj-mdy/

Stolen from qt3.

[Ratman_tf]

Ruh Roe.

[Azaroth]

Yeah, Blizzard was really hurting over those gigantic losses.

I think they caused some emotional distress too, so. Maybe 8m would be fair?


Also: Did they actually MAKE 6m???

[Ingmar]

Little confused, link is the same thing I think we've known since July?

[apocrypha]

The initial court ruling against them was made in July, the $6m damages were set this week.

Also: Did they actually MAKE 6m???

Between June 2005 and September of this year, MDY sold about 120,000 Glider licenses, bringing the judgment to about $50 per sale. Blizzard has argued that MDY's behavior was "willful and wanton" and that the company should therefore be required to pay a staggering $2,500 per licence. Over the past three years, Glider has generated about $3.5m in revenue.

So... no, they didn't.

[schild]

That's hilarious.

[Ironwood]

Good.

Fuckers.

[Dren]

I've heard all the arguments about keeping programmers free and able to do this kind of thing, etc.  I never did get it, at least for this case.  Their intent and impact on the game was so obvious, all those high ideals were just noise to me.

I've heard all the arguments about designing a game that doesn't make you want to run a bot program too.  Noise.  As stated there was something over 100k people doing it.  To me, that means the game wasn't designed to the playerbase wanted to bot, quite the opposite actually.  Certainly, if your intent is to make as much gold as possible as quickly as possible, certainly these bot programs make sense.  Hmm, who would want to do this so badly they aren't actually playing the game?

I'm glad they got smacked and smacked HARD.  It sends a good strong message.

[Hawkbit]

I started a WoW alt in mid-2007 just to get away from the end-game bullshit for awhile and to get back to the story.  All was well until I hit STV and saw the botters there.  It was amazing how many there were... maybe 40-50 at a time, mostly hunters.  They would run from mob to mob, kill, loot, repeat. 

Nobody would believe me that so many people were botting, so I started to tag their kills first and let them do the work.  True to form, not one person complained... they just kept killing and looting.  It was disgusting.  I think I quit my account around then, I just didn't enjoy playing anymore.  It kinda killed it for me. 

[Xanthippe]

I started a WoW alt in mid-2007 just to get away from the end-game bullshit for awhile and to get back to the story.  All was well until I hit STV and saw the botters there.  It was amazing how many there were... maybe 40-50 at a time, mostly hunters.  They would run from mob to mob, kill, loot, repeat. 

Nobody would believe me that so many people were botting, so I started to tag their kills first and let them do the work.  True to form, not one person complained... they just kept killing and looting.  It was disgusting.  I think I quit my account around then, I just didn't enjoy playing anymore.  It kinda killed it for me. 

I guess it depends upon what server one plays on.

I've seen one botter ever and have leveled up 4 characters to 70 or close enough.

[Paelos]

Good.

Fuckers.

This sums up my feelings nicely.

[Jayce]

This was a little bit risky from the Blizzard side.  If for some ungodly reason they would have lost, it would have been open season for bot authors and probably then end of the MMOG scene as we know it.

But since they won, it sends a strong message and sets a powerful precendent that will probably severely restrict bot authors in the future.

So it was sort of an all-or-nothing thing. I'm thinking the Blizzard legal team was probably loaded for bear on this one, regardless of how open-and-shut the case was.

[Ironwood]

Don't be daft.  There was never a case.

[Trippy]

But since they won, it sends a strong message and sets a powerful precendent that will probably severely restrict bot authors in the future.

This has nothing to do with bot writers and everything to do with the "little guy" (i.e. us) continually losing our rights to do what the fuck we what with the software that we bought on our computers.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/do-you-own-your-software-wow-glider-case-not-just-

[Paelos]

But since they won, it sends a strong message and sets a powerful precendent that will probably severely restrict bot authors in the future.

This has nothing to do with bot writers and everything to do with the "little guy" (i.e. us) continually losing our rights to do what the fuck we what with the software that we bought on our computers.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/do-you-own-your-software-wow-glider-case-not-just-

I don't like the logic in that article, and I don't think this is "scary" at all. The "little guy" copying software and stealing scares me more than a company trying to find ways to keep people from fucking with their products.

[UnSub]

But since they won, it sends a strong message and sets a powerful precendent that will probably severely restrict bot authors in the future.

This has nothing to do with bot writers and everything to do with the "little guy" (i.e. us) continually losing our rights to do what the fuck we what with the software that we bought on our computers.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/do-you-own-your-software-wow-glider-case-not-just-

I don't like the logic in that article, and I don't think this is "scary" at all. The "little guy" copying software and stealing scares me more than a company trying to find ways to keep people from fucking with their products.

Although MMOGlider winning wouldn't have been worth cheering, Blizzard winning sets up a nasty precedent for third party apps developers for MMOs. Does your third party app copy the application in RAM? If so, that's copyright violation, please pay up!

[Paelos]

But since they won, it sends a strong message and sets a powerful precendent that will probably severely restrict bot authors in the future.

This has nothing to do with bot writers and everything to do with the "little guy" (i.e. us) continually losing our rights to do what the fuck we what with the software that we bought on our computers.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/do-you-own-your-software-wow-glider-case-not-just-

I don't like the logic in that article, and I don't think this is "scary" at all. The "little guy" copying software and stealing scares me more than a company trying to find ways to keep people from fucking with their products.

Although MMOGlider winning wouldn't have been worth cheering, Blizzard winning sets up a nasty precedent for third party apps developers for MMOs. Does your third party app copy the application in RAM? If so, that's copyright violation, please pay up!

To be fair though, Blizzard has been extremely open about third party modifications to their game, moreso than anybody else in the past that I have played. They drew the line at cheating, though.

[lamaros]

What does that have to do with anything. Make everything a crime and then just hope that everyone gets all benevolent about it?

[Dren]

Given the choice between having Glider win or lose, we would have all lost if Glider would have won.  Rights of 3rd party programmers?  Not top on my priority list, sorry.

[Trippy]

This ruling is not going to do anything to stop bots from being written.

[Ironwood]

That's good enough for me.

[Dren]

This ruling is not going to do anything to stop bots from being written.

It will keep them on the downlow and smaller.  This ruling did make largescale, for profit botters tougher to come by.

That's good enough for me.

Exactly.

[Pyran]

But since they won, it sends a strong message and sets a powerful precendent that will probably severely restrict bot authors in the future.

This has nothing to do with bot writers and everything to do with the "little guy" (i.e. us) continually losing our rights to do what the fuck we what with the software that we bought on our computers.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/do-you-own-your-software-wow-glider-case-not-just-

Blizz dont care what you do with the software you bought, just dont fuck with their service.  You can use the software you bought, modify it all you want and connect it to somebody else's service/server and they dont care.  Dont fuck with Blizz's service.

[Paelos]

That's essentially what I gleaned from it as well. MMOG's aren't just software, but a significant service component, too.

[Trippy]

Blizz dont care what you do with the software you bought, just dont fuck with their service.  You can use the software you bought, modify it all you want and connect it to somebody else's service/server and they dont care.  Dont fuck with Blizz's service.

Nope that's not true at all. See Vivendi vs bnet.d.