Runescape Bot Maker Loses Big In Lawsuit

[Andy Chalk]

Runescape Bot Maker Loses Big In Lawsuit

The makers of the Runescape-hacking iBot are about to eat a seriously expensive knuckle sandwich of litigation.

A lawsuit between Runescape [http://www.runescape.com/] studio Jagex and Impulse Software, the maker of the "iBot" software that allows players to level up even when they're not actually playing the game, is about to end in a big victory for Jagex in the form of an award "in excess of six figures." While the judge in the case has not yet signed off on it, a Boston court ruled last week that Impulse is guilty of copyright infringement, circumvention of technological protection measures and even computer fraud.

Along with having to fork over an unspecified but inevitably hefty amount of money, Impulse is also forbidden from providing information on how to hack Runescape, its employees are permanently banned from any and all Jagex games and it must transfer ownership of its websites to Jagex and destroy all bot code. It's even legally barred from commenting on the case, although it did issue an apology to Jagex and acknowledge that it was in the wrong.

"Throughout the course of this lawsuit, we've come to understand the harm that botting does to Runescape and Jagex.
 We'd like to apologize to Jagex and to all legitimate Runescape players for the damage and harm iBot has done," Impulse said in a statement.

"In the next few weeks our websites, domains, code and customer details will be passed over to Jagex along with details of all those people who we know have developed scripts for iBot and sold or re-sold those scripts," it continued. "Shortly, all references to iBot and Impulse Software will disappear from the internet. We'd encourage all of you who have scripts or iBot to delete them and certainty not to try and use or develop them."

It's not a conclusion that most people would have expected back in 2010. In September of that year, a court denied Jagex's request for a preliminary injunction against Impulse and iBot, saying that it did not believe the studio would "suffer irreparable harm" without the injunction and furthermore, that the company was "unlikely to succeed" with its claims.

Sources: Gamasutra [http://www.develop-online.net/news/39563/Imminent-court-ruling-to-choke-Runescape-hackers]


Permalink

 

[Kopikatsu]

Along with having to fork over an unspecified but inevitably hefty amount of money, Impulse is also forbidden from providing information on how to hack Runescape, its employees are permanently banned from any and all Jagex games and it must transfer ownership of its websites to Jagex and destroy all bot code. It's even legally barred from commenting on the case, although it did issue an apology to Jagex and acknowledge that it was in the wrong.

Ouch. Still, I do hope this sets some kind of precedent. People who use bots/trainers are terrible people and should feel terrible. (Yes, Escapees. I made a blanket statement. COME AT ME, BRO!)

 

[Electric Alpaca]

"In the next few weeks our websites, domains, code and customer details will be passed over to Jagex along with details of all those people who we know have developed scripts for iBot and sold or re-sold those scripts,"

It hasn't ended yet, those that have purchased these programmes are just about to be subject to Jagex's continued wrath - there isn't any way I wouldn't make an example of all of those taking advantage of the iBot and hit them with at least lifetime bans also.

If you circumvent rules of a game once, you'll certainly look to do it again, and if one cares about something enough to pursue illegitimate means to progress themselves, they shall definitely care when their accounts are destroyed.

 

[keiskay]

Along with having to fork over an unspecified but inevitably hefty amount of money, Impulse is also forbidden from providing information on how to hack Runescape, its employees are permanently banned from any and all Jagex games and it must transfer ownership of its websites to Jagex and destroy all bot code. It's even legally barred from commenting on the case, although it did issue an apology to Jagex and acknowledge that it was in the wrong.

Ouch. Still, I do hope this sets some kind of precedent. People who use bots/trainers are terrible people and should feel terrible. (Yes, Escapees. I made a blanket statement. COME AT ME, BRO!)

rune scape is a terrible game that should be renamed to grindscape. considering how long it takes to get one skill to 99 let alone 5 or 6. wanna make money go fish farming for 20 hours and rake in the money. wanna get the best armor? well go fish farm or enemy farm till you get enough supplies or money to buy or make the damn thing.

if runescape wasn't so tedious and boring to level up skills there wouldnt be much bot use. and how do bots hurt the company anyways? you still gotta be a member if you want to access all the skills/weapons/armor/world anyways.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Along with having to fork over an unspecified but inevitably hefty amount of money, Impulse is also forbidden from providing information on how to hack Runescape, its employees are permanently banned from any and all Jagex games and it must transfer ownership of its websites to Jagex and destroy all bot code. It's even legally barred from commenting on the case, although it did issue an apology to Jagex and acknowledge that it was in the wrong.

Ouch. Still, I do hope this sets some kind of precedent. People who use bots/trainers are terrible people and should feel terrible. (Yes, Escapees. I made a blanket statement. COME AT ME, BRO!)

rune scape is a terrible game that should be renamed to grindscape. considering how long it takes to get one skill to 99 let alone 5 or 6. wanna make money go fish farming for 20 hours and rake in the money. wanna get the best armor? well go fish farm or enemy farm till you get enough supplies or money to buy or make the damn thing.

if runescape wasn't so tedious and boring to level up skills there wouldnt be much bot use. and how do bots hurt the company anyways? you still gotta be a member if you want to access all the skills/weapons/armor/world anyways.

As a former Runescape player, bots harm the community and they wreck the ingame economy.
Yes the bots still pay membership, but thousands of legitimate players get fed up and stop playing because whats the point when half the people on a server are botting.

 

[Sylveria]

Wonder how many accounts they'll lose now that all the bots are gone. I remember Aion's subscription numbers dropped by about 75% once they started banning bots.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Along with having to fork over an unspecified but inevitably hefty amount of money, Impulse is also forbidden from providing information on how to hack Runescape, its employees are permanently banned from any and all Jagex games and it must transfer ownership of its websites to Jagex and destroy all bot code. It's even legally barred from commenting on the case, although it did issue an apology to Jagex and acknowledge that it was in the wrong.

Ouch. Still, I do hope this sets some kind of precedent. People who use bots/trainers are terrible people and should feel terrible. (Yes, Escapees. I made a blanket statement. COME AT ME, BRO!)

rune scape is a terrible game that should be renamed to grindscape. considering how long it takes to get one skill to 99 let alone 5 or 6. wanna make money go fish farming for 20 hours and rake in the money. wanna get the best armor? well go fish farm or enemy farm till you get enough supplies or money to buy or make the damn thing.

if runescape wasn't so tedious and boring to level up skills there wouldnt be much bot use. and how do bots hurt the company anyways? you still gotta be a member if you want to access all the skills/weapons/armor/world anyways.

It doesn't really hurt the company (at least not that much), it hurts the other players. It allows for a bot using player to out compete all the other players in the game. This is why I hate the people who made these bot and those that use them. Fucking piss me off. I am pretty happy to see bot programmers getting what they deserve.

 

[gigastar]

and how do bots hurt the company anyways? you still gotta be a member if you want to access all the skills/weapons/armor/world anyways.

According to Jagex, almost all bot users were gold farmers and thier bots were paid for with stolen credit cards, meaning that they ended up having to pay that back.

It may sound like its not much, but 2 months ago over 60% of the active playerbase was banned for bot-related offences.

Plus Runescape has a player-driven economy, so with bots doing all the tedious labor almost no one could make a decent earning with gathering raw materials.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

and how do bots hurt the company anyways? you still gotta be a member if you want to access all the skills/weapons/armor/world anyways.

According to Jagex, almost all bot users were gold farmers and thier bots were paid for with stolen credit cards, meaning that they ended up having to pay that back.

It may sound like its not much, but 2 months ago over 60% of the active playerbase was banned for bot-related offences.

Plus Runescape has a player-driven economy, so with bots doing all the tedious labor almost no one could make a decent earning with gathering raw materials.

Hey, they're only doing the work that Americans players don't want to do.

OT: Don't play runescape, but I found this to make me happy.

 

[Mischlings]

Funny that I see this here first, not on the Runescape official site (former player, but still follow the news and community).

For those asking, 50-60% of the player base disappeared when the bots were banned (the "Bot Nuke", they called it, which was a large change to the underlying code that, amazingly, didn't affect how real people played the game but, if I understand the programming properly, completely changed the object and class structure that the bots took advantage of), so it was large, but not catastrophic.

Botting has always been a big deal with Runescape -- they completely changed the way the game operated in December 2007 to make botting not worth it, then changed it back last year -- so it's good to see them making so much headway towards getting that under control.

And to the people I've heard talking about the real problem being grinding -- they know, and it's something they've been working on -- not just a change you can make to the game overnight.

 

[Smallells]

Despite playing it for a period of over two years, I despised this game with a vengeance. However, I always thought that Jagex were fantastic in what they did do to the game and the community - adding random events that both served to break the mundanity and to further their own attempts to stop bot, thus managing to to not affect normal players in any way.

Rubbish, mind-numbing game. But it's nice to see Jagex get a win that they thoroughly deserve.

 

[Soods]

Maybe it wouldn't be so easy to make such bots, if the gameplay consisted of something else than clicking on a spot and waiting. But still, using (or making) bots is pointless and evil.

 

[Freyar]

Is ANYONE else concerned that Jagex is actually getting customer details from them too? That just reeks of "WTF".

 

[darkszero]

I like the fact that bots got banned. I don't like exactly how it happened: "copyright infringement, circumvention of technological protection measures and even computer fraud."
The second is just DMCA, just ugly but legal. The third one is odd while the first one is WAT. I fear for the future.

 

[Atmos Duality]

People who bot aren't half as terrible as the people who put huge amounts of grind into their game. Grind is anti-game. It isn't fun. It doesn't add anything to the experience. It doesn't even balance gameplay.

Knowing that, I see botting as a purely reactionary response to a bad gameplay mechanic. Does it suck for everyone else who isn't botting? Depends: (PvP or PvE.)
But even then, you're trying to defend a poorly-designed game when you defend grind.

(hacking that changes the parameters of the gameplay on the other hand, I don't agree with at all. Botting will enable someone to reach an established threshold quicker; it doesn't actually increase the threshold. Bots that replace a players' skill like aimbots, obviously don't count here, as they effectively change the rules by eliminating skill from skill-centric games)

 

[Sovvolf]

snip

Well, honestly, if you* don't like the grind, don't play the game. If that truly is the main focus of the game (I don't know, last time I played runescape was about 8(?) years ago) then you know what you're getting in for when you start playing. If grinding isn't your style then you shouldn't be anywhere near it.

Botting is just cheating, it goes against the point of the game. To me its no different from buying a top level character in an MMO cause you can't be bothered to level it up.

* You as in people in general, not specifically you.

 

[Weaver]

I think the only game I ever botted in was ROSE Online. It wasn't very popular and it took, if I recall correctly 1.5 years for the first person to hit max level. And this dude was a korean super gamer who played 16 hours a day.

It was the biggest grind i've ever seen.

 

[Micalas]

As a former Runescape player, bots harm the community and they wreck the ingame economy.
Yes the bots still pay membership, but thousands of legitimate players get fed up and stop playing because whats the point when half the people on a server are botting.

The fucked up economy boat has long since sailed. I haven't played the game in about decade and I remember the 100 million gold items people sold quite well. The Runescape economy envies Zimbabwe's economic prowess.

 

[weirdee]

"In the next few weeks our websites, domains, code and customer details will be passed over to Jagex along with details of all those people who we know have developed scripts for iBot and sold or re-sold those scripts,"

It hasn't ended yet, those that have purchased these programmes are just about to be subject to Jagex's continued wrath - there isn't any way I wouldn't make an example of all of those taking advantage of the iBot and hit them with at least lifetime bans also.

If you circumvent rules of a game once, you'll certainly look to do it again, and if one cares about something enough to pursue illegitimate means to progress themselves, they shall definitely care when their accounts are destroyed.

Actually, depending on what kind of person we're talking about here, bots are usually throwaway accounts gathering for either black market profit, or personal gain without as much risk depending on how your IP addresses are handled. The largest offenders haven't had any personal risk...up until now.

As for the WTF about getting customer details, it was kind of their risk when they decided to give them to an entity operating under shady means...

Although the main details are omitted, the settlement was "in excess of six figures" and the losers had to pony up the house they got with their botter money.

This is not the house of an honest person.