Critical Miss: #29

[Formica Archonis]

Ah, pink or light red. At least they're not unreasonable and demanding ONLY pink unicorns!

 

[ArmorArmadillo]

sigh...when people get mad about legal awards they seem to act like the numbers were completely made up just to be huge. I guarantee this number was based directly on numerous statutory violations that totalled out to this amount.

And considering she made about 3 million running said private server, this may not be so patently unreasonable a number. And I guarantee they will see some of that money, whatever amount she can pay through the bankruptcy proceedings.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

"Bobby Kotick: Activision CEO. Asshat."

Haha, I love swears with random nouns included in them...

Good comic, just not your best.

 

[ucciolord1]

EDIT: Ninja'd from above.
Wonderful comic.
PINK!

 

[Antitonic]

It's not pink, it's lightish red!

 

[cefm]

If I recall correctly, they could prove that she made several million $ in gross revenues from her illegal operation. In order to deter that type of tempting behavior, the fine would have to be substantial and ruinous.

 

[EBHughsThe1st]

Dear Critical Miss,

Too much text in each panel. Please do something, oh please. It's funny, but there's just so much text.

 

[literallyanythingelse]

This is the first one I've actually laughed out loud at, nice one!

 

[ninjajoeman]

Was Bobby drooling?

who wouldn't do that. hes getting a freaking pink unicorn.

 

[Atmos Duality]

The point wasn't to regain stolen profits, it was to completely destroy her life, and really, that's well beyond necessary for crime that did not hurt anyone in any real way (yes, "financial damages", spare me the lecture).

Regular prison sentences are more lenient than never having the ability to do anything but work for the rest of your life.

It's like maiming a cat just because it shit on the carpet.

 

[Jodan]

brilliant

they should sue somebody for duke nukem forever or freespace 3 we need those more

 

[teutonicman]

The day I get to demand unicorns in court is the day that I consider myself a successful law graduate.

Any tit can demand unicorns. The day you GET unicorns is the day you should consider yourself a successful law graduate

 

[nerdpride]

Hah, like Bobby Kotick would demand a Kraken when he could ask for a huge pile of stones to squeeze the blood out of! Good point about the woman Blizzard took to court too, how in the world is she ever gonna be able to pay back even a percentage of that?

Why! With her great great great grandkids, of course! They'll pick up the tab when she's long dead.

The strip hits the nail on the head regarding that verdict.

88 mil is absurd. She won't make anything close to that for the rest of her life. What's the point of passing such a sentence? Oh, I'm sure they'll give her a nice payment plan, after siezing all non-essential items she might own, and she'll be reduced to buying expired food with the meagre leavings of her salary, for the rest of her existance. Oh, and I'm not sure how it works where she lives, but wouldn't it be awesome if when she died her children inherited the debt. Also, some intrest rates to compensate Activision for having to wait for the cash.

If I was her, I'd liqudate all my assets, grab what cash I could, pack my bags and head to a country where Activision couldn't extract payment from me. A chance at a life is better than no chance at all...

Well they pretty much made her a slace with that verdict in fact... Since every penny she will made that wont go to her essential for living will go directelly to Blizzard... She will basically work for free for the rest of her life

You guys are spreading misinformation with comments like this and showing complete ignorance of the laws in question.

#1 - Default Judgment awarded the max penalty for the crime because she did not bother to show up and defend herself.

#2 - Debt cannot be passed onto heirs in such a manner. Any debt incurred from this judgment will disappear when she dies.

#3 - If the company was sued it will be liquidated and any profits will be paid towards the debt and then she will personally be wiped clean. If she was personally sued then she will probably owe the profits (which she should more less have unless she lost the money) and then declare bankruptcy which will reduce the debt to either nothing or close and they will garnish her future wages.

This is the price of breaking the law with a business, you will get financially screwed. But their should be no sympathy, what she did was dumb and now she's paying for it.

QFT, I agree completely. But it's not just the comments. You can knock on Activision all you want for bad business (or bad games), but it's not a bad decision to prosecute to the full extent of the law. The amount of money sued is huge because Scapegaming had a huge number of users, something like 400,000. The message is clear: you cannot make any money by doing this no matter how successful you are. The only way that 65,000 lawyer fees couldn't be paid is if the 3 million in profits (although that's gross rather than net) all disappeared instead of going into some comforts for this woman. The 400,000 potential customers may be worth something, but it looks like people weren't very happy with Scapegaming before this event anyway.

Compare this with another company like Bioware, since people around here seem to love them. They would've done the same thing. I'd bet that this will happen again when SW:OR comes out, especially since they already jumped on the DLC bandwagon.

IMHO, the comic fails utterly (although I'm not the target audience) if not for the content than because it's a week too old. But still, only tell the news if it's funny (the intent is obviously humor), don't put a spin on it.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Was that a Red Vs Blue reference in that last line?

Anyway, great comic. One of the best yet.

 

[Lord Thodin]

Hilarious. Very nice.

 

[ItsAPaul]

The owner made $500k a month btw; just throwing that out there for people who think this was a ridiculous case. She also blatantly didn't care about the customers.

 

[drdamo]

So if i get this right, all we have to do is find the chest with the heart of Captain Bobby "Davy Jones" Kotick to assume control over the Flying Dutchman that is Acti-Blizz to reclaim control over the kraken!?

I have a cunning plan! *rubs hands together menacingly*

 

[HTID Raver]

lol at pink unicorns