[Unnamed botting program] PWNT

[Tehtsuo]

When I read about Blizzard's complaints that botters "spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time" I was pretty angered. Are we talking coal or barrels of oil here? No, we're talking about electronic gold. Now I won't deny that MMO currency is beginning to gain a reasonable amount of real-world value, but real-world litigation is a very clear statement that Blizzard considers their gold to be a real-world commodity - thus legitimizing gold sellers.

The resources consumed are not gold or virtual mobs, but real world electricity, server capacity and bandwidth. Blizzard charges based on the fact that each account is going to consume a certain percentage of their bottom line in expenses, botting drives that up by being online 24/7. It also causes an increase in customer support incidences as they are reported, investigated, etc. Other resources consumed are the programmers working on Warden, anti-cheating code, etc.

"Well, tough shit. Nobody added your business to the list of protected species, despite what your lobbyists and lawyers say."

Sorry, I love that line. If Blizzard wants to protect the integrity of their environment so be it, but Warden, anti-cheating code, etc are where they need to do so, Not in our legal system. Also, I argue that Blizzard's charges are not solely based on upkeep. Upkeep, customer support, and technical work such as design and programming are a factor in your monthly fee, but first and foremost they are charging for entertainment value. Even with a very massive upkeep pricetag it would be very difficult to justify 15$ per user per month - however, Blizzard is not a non-profit so they don't have to justify it, they just have to keep from claiming they only charge for upkeep.

There was a court injunction against [self-censored botting program] going open source. This could mean that I write a program and I can't share this b/c some company says it might interfere with their product. Kind of a scary idea that you can't share YOUR creation for free with other people if someone has a problem with it.

Lets say I create a program that interfaces with Microsoft Outlook to help consumers manipulate their email for instance. Let's say it goes into Outlook's memory space to perform its function. Should Microsoft be able to take me to court?

Bradster, I'm of the same mind. I played FFXI long enough to see how completely malicious users can ruin a game, so I'm glad to see a game company putting on a hard face. However it's tough to avoid that slippery slope argument when we're dealing with a legal precedent. :S