Evony Hacker Slapped With $300,000 Judgment

[nugarin]

Well. It just took too much of my time - I was seriously addicted. Wake up @ 4am to check on your cities. Run home after work to see if your army had starved, etc. So I did write my own bot - I think I actually invested into learning Adobe FLEX and writing the damn thing more effort than I would have made by clicking their buttons like a robot, so I don't think I cheated @ all. I am not a monkey - I can write the code and I used my fingers to write stuff into Eclipse editor as opposed to holding it on a mouse and clicking away. I wasn't even a freetard - I payed monthly for this game, thus making it available to other players. I fail to see how any of this makes it right for them to charge for the NEXT month after my access was cut off - mind you I am _not_ complaining about the revoked access.

 

[KissofKetchup]

Why would you want to hack that game anyway?

 

[Sewer Rat]

Wait... People actually play Evony? Huh... But damn, that's a steep bill for hacking a free online game.

 

[Quaidis]

Funny, coming from the game company that illegally used photo-shopped shots of magazine models for their adverts without the models' expressed permission.

 

[KelThuzad0398]

While he certainly should be punished, even $300,000 seems a tad steep for these crimes. Wouldn't, to the average hacker non-billionaire, a fine of say $20,000 - $50,000 would be well within the realms of an effective dissuasion. They're not going to see this money and it sounds as though the $300,000 could be enough to ruin a good proportion of his life. I don't know if the punishment here fits the crime.

Also Evony is cancerous bilge.

And do you expect the company to state "No wait, $300,000 is a bit to much. We'll take $50,000." No, they didn't make the judgement, the court did. $300,000 is a lot, but if it does "ruin his life", perhaps it will deter other people who want to hack an MMO. It just seems common sense not to mess with MMOs.

I'm saying $50,000 would have been an effective deterrent, and the court should have made a more just judgement and not let Evony LLC take the helm of dictating their view of an appropriate punishment. Most punishments should not financially cripple you but it seems that this has become the de facto position, the law allows the defendant to take, on even the most petty crimes. The punishment should reflect the size of the operation as it does with more serious crime.

Why should we factor whether punishments will financially cripple a person or not? Justice is supposed to be blind. I hate Evony as much as most other people, but the charges are serious. If the court finds Evony's claims to be unsubstantiated then they will deal with it, but I don't think they should be soft just because punishing him will financially cripple him. He stole from the company, he should suffer the punishment.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

Hell, Runescape has far more private servers and botters but I dont see them getting slapped with such huge fines. In fact, one private server, made in 2008 and ran by a 16 year old kid, he made about ~$50,000 income from stolen property. I dont think its even been shut down yet either.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

Someone hacked Evony? This man deserves a medal.

 

[Ben Legend]

Serves you right. Nobody should be entitled to anything for free. In this case, sponging of someone else's hard work.

 

[Starke]

If he'd even simply shown up in court, and tried to deal with the charges on his own, without legal council there's no way the judge would have issued this order no matter how well the Evony lawyers made their case.

Except he did show up in court.

He said he couldn't afford a lawyer, showed up to court in "sweats," and says he's "barely surviving" off of the income he made from his illegitimate Evony activities.

As we can see he showed up despite not having a lawyer and pretty much told them "I have no way to defend myself because I'm piss broke and my illegal activities were barely keeping me above homelessness"

So yeah, kinda makes the rest of what you said moot.

Except he didn't come into court and dispute their claims, he didn't say "I didn't think I did anything wrong" he didn't say "I thought what I was doing was legal", he said he was not contesting their claims and threw himself on the court's mercy, which is, quite frankly, moronic.

 

[rsvp42]

Evony? Really? I mean, I suppose if you're going to run a scam, you should do it on some dingy stepchild of a game like that, but $300,000 fine? I think having to spend any amount of time in that game would be punishment enough. I doubt the IP is even worth that much. Etc, so on and so forth. It's a crap game is the idea I'm going for.

 

[Zefar]

Oh a scum sucking lecher is getting what he deserves for making bots for games? Well I can't actually care for this guy at all. In fact I hope it happens to more people who make bots and cheats for games.

If it ruins his life so much the better. Bot makers and cheat makers are people who need to be dealt with in some way.

If he had a real job he can probably pay it off in some years.

Though it might be true that the company is demanding a bit too much. Still he's one of those bot makers and they just ruin MMORPGs.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

i think he deserves everything he gets.

Yikes...

Well, that's the lesson there. Don't cheat. It has far reaching consequences. :3

no, the lesson is, dont get caught.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Evony? Really? *SNIP* It's a crap game is the idea I'm going for.

yh i got that in the first two words of your post.

but i do agree with you.

 

[AsurasFinest]

Isn't this the same company that tried to sue people for "defamation" as they saw it against them, when it was brought up that they might be using spyware in their game

The same company that aggressively puts adds on EVERY SINGLE WEBSITE
Yeah screw these guys

 

[ThisIsSnake]

This needs to happen way more often