Blizzard is Seeking $8.5 Million in Damages From Cheat Maker

[9tailedflame]

As shitty as cheating is, especially in multiplayer, pvp-focused games, this just strikes me as petty and greedy. Ban the guy, sure, ban the people using the software, but putting somebody in debt for the rest of their lives because they let people cheat in your game personally strikes me as a huge overreaction.

 

[Pyrian]

In any case, describing an award that will likely put the creator out of business and seize most or all of their remaining liquid assets as "not punitive" is a tad laughable.

In this context "punitive" has a specific legal meaning - above and beyond legally awardable damages.

Ban the guy, sure, ban the people using the software, but putting somebody in debt for the rest of their lives because they let people cheat in your game personally strikes me as a huge overreaction.

Eh, it's a company, I doubt the individuals involved will inherit the legal debt.

 

[Zulnam]

I'm usually against big companies coming down on individual people/hackers, but these guys made a business out of making the game unenjoyable for the fair players. Screw'em.

 

[Kahani]

I find it's a lot easier for me to get annoyed at the idea of making a cheat/bot for a game like Overwatch, where so much of the basis of the thing is the competition between human players, than it is to get up in arms about a cheat/bot for World of Warcraft, where it seems likely the bots are less about getting one "up over" your fellow players and more about not having to grind endlessly to get basic resources.

My thoughts exactly. WoW is essentially non-competitive; as long as you're not using cheats in arenas and battlegrounds, there's really no reason for anyone else to care. Cheating in PvP-only game like Overwatch, on the other hand, really has no excuse at all.

One can certainly argue that it's an odd way of playing the game, "cheating yourself" out of large chunks of the game-play, but I can't entirely hold it against a player if they just want to skip over repetitive segments that they find to be a waste of their time.

I wouldn't say it's even particularly odd. The thing about many games is that there's some interest in playing the game multiple times to see different bits of story or play in a different style or whatever, but that often means seeing the same bits and doing the same things over and over again. What may have been fun the first time can quickly become less fun on repetition, especially if you're only doing it to get to something later on. If I've already finished a game once and just want to see what a different class' high-level abilities are like or see what happens if I make a different choice at some point in the story, why would I want to waste time playing through the whole game again to get to that point if I can just skip straight to the part I'm actually interested in?

Admittedly things do get slightly fuzzy with WoW, since Blizzard now allow you to pay in order to skip straight to high level, so it can be argued that you're effectively cheating them out of that. But the very fact that they offer that shows that skipping parts you've seen to get to the more interesting parts is clearly something people want. Legalities aside, certainly the motivation shouldn't seem odd.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

As shitty as cheating is, especially in multiplayer, pvp-focused games, this just strikes me as petty and greedy. Ban the guy, sure, ban the people using the software, but putting somebody in debt for the rest of their lives because they let people cheat in your game personally strikes me as a huge overreaction.

Their business is harming Blizzard's business by undermining the integrity of the competitive environment within Blizzard's games and causing potential harm to Blizzard's brand as a result. Think how bad it would be for a company's image to be known as a company that tolerates cheating in their games. That would make their games less appealing to gamers that want to play fairly and thus hurt sales. Maintaining then integrity of their games is important to protecting Blizzard's brand, so Blizz is well within their rights to sue Bossland into bankruptcy.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Good.

I wish they were hitting them harder.

If someone wants to cheat in a solo game, or to make grinding in WoW easier, I can have sympathy. If someone makes a bothack for those things and releases it for free, I shrug and grumble a little, but that's it.

But if the software is used to cheat other players like the overwatch cheats? Aimbots, autohotkey stuff, reticles that autofire if it detects that it's over the target? THAT is not ok. It ruins the entire point of the game because people are literally cheating to win.

And if people are making money SELLING those hacks to players? Screw them. Screw them, they deserve to be smacked down with all the force of the law. It's not right.

 

[9tailedflame]

As shitty as cheating is, especially in multiplayer, pvp-focused games, this just strikes me as petty and greedy. Ban the guy, sure, ban the people using the software, but putting somebody in debt for the rest of their lives because they let people cheat in your game personally strikes me as a huge overreaction.

Their business is harming Blizzard's business by undermining the integrity of the competitive environment within Blizzard's games and causing potential harm to Blizzard's brand as a result. Think how bad it would be for a company's image to be known as a company that tolerates cheating in their games. That would make their games less appealing to gamers that want to play fairly and thus hurt sales. Maintaining then integrity of their games is important to protecting Blizzard's brand, so Blizz is well within their rights to sue Bossland into bankruptcy.

Don't get me wrong, i know it's well within their right, and that blizzard has a clear incentive to do so, but i feel like they could have gotten away with just not acknowledging it, or just sending a cease and desist or whatever. It's the kind of thing that's a bigger problem the more out in the open it is. I don't know, i'm just opposed to vindictiveness overall i guess, and this is going to ruin this guy's life forever. As much of a piece of shit move as the cheating was, there's no redemption after a 8.5 million dollar debt. This guy will never be able to get a place to live with what his credit will be, he's doomed to homelessness, which pretty much is just a slower version of hell. Seems kinda shitty just for harming a corporate image, though again, i know it's within blizzard's rights, just seems like it could have been handled without destroying someone's life.

 

[The Lunatic]

Curious to see how this pans out.

As far as I'm aware, making cheats for a game only really violates their EULA. Possibly, you could argue that an EULA is a contract. And therefore aiding the breach of a contract is illegal.

However, EULAs themselves are often illegal, and state things which themselves are not allowed to do by law. So, if the ruling is that EULAs are contracts, they'd have to be policed a lot more strictly.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Sucks to be a bunch of cheaters right now. When you play an offline game, cheat to your little heart's content, but when you play online competitive, play by the rules or don't play at all.

I hope Blizzard nail these hacks to the wall. Then knocks the building down. Then salts the earth. Then lays a slab of concrete on top.