Blizzard Suing Creators of StarCraft II Hacks 385
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
"Blizzard have taken the extremely peculiar decision to ban players from playing StarCraft II for using cheats in the single-player game. This meant that, despite cheating no one but themselves, they were locked out of playing the single-player game. Which is clearly bonkers. But it's not enough for the developer. Blizzard's lawyers are now setting out to sue those who create cheats. Gamespot reports that the megolithic company is chasing after three developers of hacks for 'destroying' their online game. It definitely will be in violation of the end user agreement, so there's a case. However, it's a certain element of their claim that stands out for attention. They're claiming using the hacks causes people to infringe copyright: 'When users of the Hacks download, install, and use the Hacks, they copy StarCraft II copyrighted content into their computer's RAM in excess of the scope of their limited license, as set forth in the EULA and ToU, and create derivative works of StarCraft II.'"
Blizzard used similar reasoning in their successful lawsuit against the creators of a World of Warcraft bot.
Interesting Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
While we do realize that once you buy our games, they become your property, we do reserve the right to terminate your game at any time whenever we feel it is necessary.
Erm, what?
Car analogy (Score:2)
This one's easy. "While we do realize that once you buy our cars, they become your property, we do reserve the right to terminate your car at any time whenever we feel it is necessary."
Also, "While we do realize that once we pay for your games, the money becomes your property, we do reserve the right to demand our money back at any
Re:Car analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Except of course you dont actually lease the game, and it si a strict Sale.
At least in UK law it would be :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just imagine Ford doing this: While we realize that you purchased the F150 pickup, the black box has detected that are consistently driving 10mpg over the speed limit on the interstate, which looks bad for Ford, so we have disabled your vehicle.
One more reason I prefer to buy my games from Valve/Steam, as they have shown to be the most user friendly gaming company on the planet.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One more reason I prefer to buy my games from Valve/Steam, as they have shown to be the most user friendly gaming company on the planet.
Uh, what? Not being able to play a backup without having it blessed online is not friendly. Indeed, it is an attempt to deprive you of Fair Use rights. We have a tendency to forget but this is a basic human right which is right up there with those enumerated in the constitution. Any time you are being deprived of ANY right you have a slippery slope before you. Instead of disabling your vehicle for driving too fast on the interstate, they prevent you from starting your vehicle after working on it yourself un
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Let them know how you feel (Score:4, Insightful)
The message I just sent to billing@blizzard.com:
Re:Let them know how you feel (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, if you want to actually be taken seriously you should refer to it as SC2, and not SC3...
Re:Let them know how you feel (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm, did you mean SC2?
Otherwise good going!
I loved SC1 and brood war, but Blizzard have gone totally overboard on their assumed ownership of everything your machine does with the software you bought from them.
Limited use license my arse, I should be able to do what the hell I like with it in the confines of my own machine, and distribute tools to allow others to do the same.
Sure, ban me from your servers, whatever, but hands off MY computer.
Re:Let them know how you feel (Score:4, Interesting)
I loved Blizzard, loved StarCraft and Brood War, and wanted StarCraft II. I even had a StarCraft website they liked once, and received beta tester status and a free comic book for it. But now, so many years later, this is the final drop. No LAN and requiring internet connection to play the single player game, is not the kind of game I play. But a company I once loved turning evil, that's way too bad, now I'm not interested in them and the games they make any longer.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had a recent change of heart as well when it comes to Blizzard. Not as a result of this, but some of their other recent and monetary based decisions. I have been a fan from the beginning and have bought all of their games. But no longer. I've already sent them an email expressing my feelings.
It's sad that such a great company is being run my greedy wankers.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a slightly tricky one for me. I entirely in favour of very strong action against the development and use of cheats for multiplayer games. They ruin the experience for legitimate, paying customers. When Blizzard go after the developers of multiplayer RTS or WoW cheats, I'm with them 100%. Humiliate the users in public, lock their accounts and pursue the developers through the courts. They're damaging Blizzard's product and they should be treated accordingly.
Singleplayer cheats, however, are another s
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, I didn't know that. In fairness, I didn't look - I should have.
In that case, go Blizzard! It should be open-season on the cheat developers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My biggest gripe, and the reason I have not yet purchased SC2, is their region locking and the inflated cost of the Australian version.
The price of the US version is currently USD$59.99 [blizzard.com]. The australian version, AUD$89.95 (USD$87.38) a 45% markup.
Re: (Score:2)
And why is Blizzard's poor client / server coding any concern of ours?
Re: (Score:2)
No, this about lawsuits against people who make tools to mess around with the memory in a machine you own.
In a sane society Blizzard would be laughed out of court.
Cut them off, don't let them use your network, whatever. Lawsuits are a step too far.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Spore got this right (Score:2)
For all the flaws Spore had, it got this one right.
It detected the use of cheats and gave you a very special achievement that blocked out getting any other achievements on that save. Ever.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You can actually enable cheats in SC2 and it will disable achievements. I think the program used for cheating allows you to get all the achievements in single and probably also in multiplayer which probably is what they are trying to "fight".
Imagine the courtroom... (Score:2)
Plaintiff: "When users of the Hacks download, install, and use the Hacks, they copy StarCraft II copyrighted content into their computer's RAM in excess of the scope of their limited license, as set forth in the EULA and ToU, and create derivative works of StarCraft II"
Judge: "Mr Player, how do you plead?"
Player: "Innocent, Your Honour. I didn't do it, a virus did."
Unfortunately, this might just stand up (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is that courts tend to automatically accept EULAs as being valid contracts even when they are so one-sides that they should be legally ruled unenforceable. When ruling on similar cases where there is no EULA, the courts have generally found that it is not a copyright violation. For example, the same theory was advanced to argue that a service which offered a DVD-playing program which removed certain scenes from movies (particularly, scenes deemed "offensive") was creating a derivative work from the original movie and thus should not be allowed. The courts ruled that the DVD-playing program was legal. So, basically, the question has only hinged on copyright law, the courts have ruled that it isn't a violation. When there's also an EULA, such as in the cases Blizzard has been involved in, they have consistently ruled in favor of the copyright owner.
Now, there are several reasons why this should be a non-starter. The first is that a copy in RAM should not be considered a fixation, and hence creating one is not a copyright violation. If copying something into RAM is creating a fixation then every CD and DVD player and most newer TVs continually break copyright laws every time they are used since RAM buffers have become ubiquitous. CD and DVD players simply cannot work without copying at least some of the CD or DVD into RAM in the process of playing it (although CDs could get away with as few as 16 bits at a given time). So this shouldn't legally be considered a copy to begin with, but the courts have ruled that it is in several previous cases.
Secondly, the copyright law that if someone owns a copy of a piece of software then they have the right to make the copies of it needed to run it. As a consequence, the idea that a user has to agree to an EULA in order to make the copies needed to run it is ludicrous. And the license agreement itself generally only takes away rights from the user without granting anything in return. As such, it should be considered unenforceable. However, the courts have either tended to ignore that section of copyright law and consider that the license grants you the right to make the needed copies or consider that the sale itself never happened if the medium that was bought contains software. They have ruled, effectively, that if you walk into a store and give money for a shiny disc, that if that disc contains music or movies, you've bought a copy, but if it contains software you've only licensed a copy, which is, to say the least, bizarre. As such, they've rejected arguments in previous cases that the defendants never agreed to the EULA as being irrelevant since they rule that the defendants don't own a copy and hence the relevant section of copyright law is inapplicable.
Now, Blizzard is in a slightly more realistic position from an EULA situation than most companies because they do actually have something to provide the user which the user doesn't already have: access to their on-line play servers, Battlenet. So, if they were to tie it all together in the EULA: you give us back ownership of the physical copy and you relinquish your reverse engineering rights, etc and in return we let you use our servers, then that contract would be enforceable (still lousy, but enforceable). However, in the previous Blizzard games I owned (which doesn't include StarCraft II, so I'm just speculating, someone else probably has more exact information) the EULA itself didn't mention BattleNet, only the game program and BattleNet was covered by a separate agreement you had to agree to in order to get your account. If the same is true here, then the EULA should be unenforceable.
But realistically, the courts never rule EULAs unenforceable, no matter the terms, and they rule that copies of software are licensed, not sold, and they rule that copies in RAM are fixations. So Blizzard will probably win again just like they did last time. They can usually afford the better lawyers and, as a result, they wind up getting the case-law put in place to support what they perceive as their interests and the rest of us get screwed. Woo.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's
Blizzard Jumped the Shark (Score:4, Interesting)
You might call me a Blizzard fanboy. I don't consider myself a fanboy of anything, but I think Blizzard has produced nothing but excellent PC games. Not a single bad one. All 7 of the games they released have been fun, well polished, well supported, and ran decently on older hardware. SC2 is really good. I uninstalled it yesterday because the network-centricity of it is pissing me off. I have a fast computer. I should not have to sit and wait for things to load when I hit the custom maps folder icon (on single player), as the custom maps I have already paid and I assume downloaded, should be on my local machine. Instead I wait for it to do whatever network activity it does to monitor me playing a single player custom map. And then beyond that it just gets worse. This is the first time I personally think I agree with the argument that I would be getting a better product if I find a hacked/cracked version of the game that doesn't do all this network garbage when I just want to start the game from my OS, load a map, and play single player.
It would also be nice to be able to change my account name when on multiplayer. Or even better to just let me make up new account names and start with a 0-0 record, so that I can learn other races in the game without lowering my rating with my main race (as I would lose lots of games and get stomped playing zerg for the first time when I am say at the gold or platinum level with protoss.)
Does win-loss count AI matches? (Score:2)
Or even better to just let me make up new account names and start with a 0-0 record, so that I can learn other races in the game without lowering my rating with my main race (as I would lose lots of games and get stomped playing zerg for the first time when I am say at the gold or platinum level with protoss.)
Does the win-loss record include skirmishes against AI? Because if not, you can train [tvtropes.org] until you can curb-stomp [tvtropes.org] the maximum number of AIs set up on a team against you, and only then try online.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, I feel like I'm the only person here who is actually positively excited by this move by Blizzard to cut down on multiplayer cheating.
So, maybe I am wrong. I've been wrong before...
Still, my immediate reaction was positive excitement. It's not fun to play multiplayer games when there are lots of people cheating, or even when you're not sure whether the other person is cheating. Maphack is pretty much impossible to detect. Did that person hack their way to your expansion, or did they just walk all ov
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe that's because it's a spazz-move
Instead of securing their servers (you know, the ones they insist on controlling), and having an untrusted client, they trusted the client, got boned, and now they're playing catchup and stamping on a handful of authors of the cracks that they do know about.
If that makes you feel better, well, bully for you. Just try not to thin
Re: (Score:2)
How to you design out a map hack? My computer knows where his units are, therefore there is always going to be a way for me to find that out.
The only way I can see would be to have the players' machines as simply dumb terminals, with the actual game being played on Blizzard's server. I don't know if that is possible in terms of maintaining a
Re: (Score:2)
If you want fair multi-play online, you can't let the participants host their own games. Because then, as you say, the host always knows what everyone is doing. What you need is an intermediate network to host the games, a neutral third party service to keep things fair. Something that never sends any information to the client it doesn't need. Of course, this then requires that the host be trusted by the players to do all the heavy lifting on it's side to validate all the inputs being received. Which,
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You're not.
Hackers in bnet totally ruin it. Now, they should have been more careful at separating SP hackers from MP hackers, especially since they never mentioned they would ban for SP hacks.
What I don't get are people who complain about not being able to smurf or make new accounts... this ruined the WC3 ladder, Blizz learned a lesson and fixed the issue. Don't like it? Go play another game, but it makes the serious gamers enjoy it more.
Re: (Score:2)
according to good WC3 players they were forced to smurf to get any games at all, after many changes to auto-matchmaking system specifically targeted at smurfing.
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/battle-net-2-0-the-antithesis-of-consumer-confidence [the-ghetto.org]
Next? Battle.net 2.0 limits you to a single CD-Key per person. That’s it. That’s your sixty-dollar purchase. According to the company, this is because you are an asshole.
“Really good players, they don’t necessarily want to play themselves. They want to go beat up on the noob because that’s really fun.” – Rob Pardo, Vice President of Game Design, Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment paints smurfing as an ego boost. That Blizzard gamers were beat up in school and need a trauma bandage. Forget that smurfing is a necessity for learning off-races and honing gimmick strategies. I played Warcraft III. We don’t smurf because we enjoy it. We smurf because in 2004, the company’s matchmaking changes were designed to eliminate smurfing. Search criteria is configured for 2004s player activity. 2004s crappy Warcraft III players are now 2010s crappy Defense of the Ancients players. Smurfing has evolved from a scapegoat to a necessity.
Consider Warcraft III Four vs. Four Random Team. “Top-level play” is dominated by posers, players who managed enough mediocrity to find games and max out their experience level. Elite players can’t find games. In my last season with substantial playing time, my Warcraft III record was 55-39. During the day? Hour search times. Night? Forget it. When all I want to do is play, it’s easier to make a new name and start over.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you somehow missed the singleplayer part in the first sentence of TFS?
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, I feel like I'm the only person here who is actually positively excited by this move by Blizzard to cut down on multiplayer cheating.
I don't think many people would disagree with you, if this were about multi-player cheating. This story is about single player cheating, though, and just reinforces the evil that has had a hold on Blizzard for several years now.
Frankly, I don't have a single bit of sympathy for the affected people. They knew (or should have known; it's common knowledge) that Blizzard is a sue-happy, highly evil company that regularly attacks its customers. As long as people keep giving this company money, the latter will
Re: (Score:2)
Are you kidding? For like the last 5 or 6 years the only thing theyve produced is WoW. Which strikes me as the bastard offspring of a RPG and facebook. Its a disgusting game designed to force players to pay them monthly to continue playing.
I agree with your sentiments. Its also possibly the best game in the mmo genre, which is designed to force players to pay the mmo owner monthly to continue playing. I don't really play lots of mmo's, and didn't play wow for very long (in comparison to others), but thought it was the funnest and most well polished mmo I have tried (there might be better, I dont know). So they did good for themselves in the mmo genre. That it is a shitty genre that consumes the lives of those that really get into it is not bl
Utter, witless MORONS. (Score:3, Insightful)
they ban players, players will use hacks/cracks to play the game they BOUGHT. they sue creators of hacks&cracks, and eventually they will hit a wall in china, or russia, while trying to sue creators of crack/hack # 1231285.
in the end, because of their MORON legal team, they will not only lose A LOT of publicity, and gain hostility from entire internet gaming community, but also will have accomplished making their position harder. i bet just because of this news, there are some people in russia or china already working on some stuff, just for the glory of it
Blizzard set this precedent... (Score:2)
If you'll notice the claim they're making, it is virtually word for word the claim they used and ultimately won with when suing the developer of the Glider World of Warcraft bot.
I had a feeling this was coming in some form. However banning users who cheat in single player from playing the game at all is ridiculous, Blizzard. I supported your crusade against people who impacted my game-play experience, but single player players? That's just silly, guys.
Re: (Score:2)
I have no idea what you're getting at, anonymous coward. Eh, who am I kidding. If you have to post as AC, I doubt you had a point to begin with.
Not surprised. (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Again, how is Blizzard's crappy client / server programming any concern of ours?
TOU is now de facto law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sucks, but.... (Score:4, Informative)
This sucks, but it doesn't affect me in the least. Blizzard went on my "evil company" blacklist the day they sued Bnetd.
Fuckin A (Score:2)
Fuckin A
lol (Score:2)
You guys are way slow on the uptake. I stopped supporting blizzard when they changed focus with Warcraft3 and decided to stick with the same old game mechanics as the previous games. Same bat games, same bat channel.
i dont get it... (Score:4, Insightful)
why buy their games?
hasn't blizzard done enough evil shit over the years to deserve a permanent boycott?
when someone shits in your face you don't beg for more (not unless you have the same fetish Hitler had, that is).
so why buy their stuff? doesn't matter how good (or bad) their games are, by buying their stuff you are contributing to the evil crap they do.
boycott them.
Re: (Score:2)
so why buy their stuff?
Because most of the people who buy their games don't know about any of those stories, and almost all of those people wouldn't care at all if they did.
The pro-software-freedom side of this debate lost it as far as the mass market is concerned a long time ago. The average gamer is much more interested in having the company that made a game they like try to keep people from cheating at it -- through whatever means -- than in their freedom to do what they want with software they bought. Something like this in
Legalese madness? (Score:2)
From now on I'm officially considering that lawyers are not intelligent life forms
Not buying it. (Score:2)
I purchased all the original Warcraft series - still have most of the disks.
I purchased the original Diablo several times. Still have two sets of disks.
I have multiple copies of Starcraft/Broodwar.
I have been an avid WoW player.
I will not be purchasing any more Blizzard games.
I will be telling all my friends to avoid Blizzard games.
This is the final straw, Blizzard.
If the draconian crap that goes on in the software industry nowadays was going on "back in the day", some truly awesome "hacks" would never have
Wow, really? (Score:2)
After 9 years and $100 million+ they're going after people for HACK PATCHES? You MUST be joking.
I think it's clear that both Sony and Blizzard are the new WORST gaming companies ever. I won't buy their shit, and now I don't even want to work for either of them anymore.
Hear me Actiblizzard? Go fuck yourselves.
Hmmm... (Score:2)
Blizzard Games:
RPM Racing 1991 Never heard of it.
Battle Chess 1992 Bought it. Twice I think.
Battle Chess II 1992 Bought it once as part of a deal. Never played it.
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I 1992 Never played it. Never bought it.
Castles (Amiga port) 1992 Bought it, played it, liked it.
MicroLeague Baseball (Amiga port) 1992 Never heard of it.
Lexie-Cross (Macintosh port) 1992 Never heard of it.
Dvorak on Typing (Macintosh port) 1992 Never heard of it.
The Lost Vik
I agree with Blizzard.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand where all the hate is coming from. I love Blizzard for doing this and hated them when they didn't do anything against hackers in Warcraft3 in the end.
Hackers destroyed WC3, a game I played for many years, but in the end every other online game I tried to play online, I got either map hacked, disconnect hacked or crash hacked. Blizzard released a patch, a week later there was a new hack
I still like the game, but it became unplayable, it ruined all the fun.
And now SC2 arrived.
And hacks soon after.
The hacking is not only in the single player game by the way.
I was very sad when I saw the first map hacks arrive in SC2 and encounter the first hackers on the ladder. It was so great to read when they banned a lot of players that used the hacks and even better, they are now targeting the hack developers.
Also don't forget that SC2 is aiming to be more than a game. it's aiming to be the no1 e-sports game.
This week a game from old SC1 legend SlayersBoxer returning in a SC2 tournament, with 80k for the winner, was watched on a stream by more than 700,000 people. No joke.
Mostly Koreans, but more and more people outside Korea start liking E-sports as well. People who don't play the game at all watch the tournaments online and like it a lot. Some youtube commentators, who cast games with english commenting, have more than 100k subscribers.
There are even a few americans and europeans now living in Korea as professional gamers, people who earn their living by playing SC2.
It's becoming pretty big.
I would love it if E-sports got as big worldwide as it is in Korea.
But if that's your goal as a game developer you have to get rid of cheaters, like in any sports.
A football player who's caught on doping gets banned too and they will for sure try to find the provider of the doping and get him in a lawsuit as well.
Anyway, on SC2 fan sites almost everyone approves about Blizzard taking action:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=161168 [teamliquid.net]
Just thought it would be good to add this info to the discussion
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't agree with ActiBlizzendi. If they wanted to make a MMO out of it, they should have gone ahead and done so. Making it a SP game with "tight online bindings" for both SP and MP is an engineering choice. The fact that people can hack the game on their own systems is precisely why that kind of design DOES NOT WORK.
So, basically ActiBlizzendi substitutes having a legal team for not having a development team that knows wtf they are doing. They don't innovate any more, they litigate, like the worst of the
Re:I agree with Blizzard.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in the late 90s, around 2000, we played a lot of SC. We'd host big lan parties where we would play. One of the beautiful things was that we could do this in an old farmhouse out in the country, with only a dialup connection. The second beautiful thing was that we all didn't have to have the game! We could spawn a copy on one computer, use the same disk in another, and all enjoy the game. It was awesome. It lead to lots of us buying the game to play when we weren't together on a lan.
My friend on the really sweet cable connection could host a game, and we could all connect to him. VIA his IP address. It didn't matter if the servers were up or not, or if we had a connection to BattleNet.
Now, that's all gone with SC2. We can only play if we all have a $50 copy of the game, and we all have a good internet connection. We can't dump 8 computers in anyone's random house and expect to play - we've got to make sure they have the bandwidth to do so. That's crap. That's a major step backwards. That's greed over loving your customers.
Additionally, it's the job of the server to make sure that the clients aren't cheating. Not the job of the client. And hacks don't matter in single-player. To ban me for doing something on my computer with software that I own which affects nobody but me is madness.
That's the where the hate comes from. You don't get to charge people $50 for your game, then deny them the ability to play the single-player missions because you don't like how they're playing. It's none of Blizzard's business. Likewise, suing people who create cheats is also treading a very thin line. It's akin to suing gun manufacturers because someone else murdered someone you care about.
SC1 was big because of how open it was. When the first SC2 demo games started coming out, and they started having issues connecting, it was clear that SC2 would never be able to be as big as SC1. You just can't do competitive, E-Sport style play if you're relying on an internet connection and someone else's authentication server and game server.
For the money, we're getting a lot less game than SC1, with a lot of restrictions that never existed before. Yes, cheating is an issue. But you know what? Draconian measures to prevent cheating are also an issue. What you're seeing is the alienation because Blizzard went far too far to that side, after building a reputation for being open and accommodating.
Re:not really single-player (Score:5, Interesting)
I presume this factors into it, and it's exactly why I don't support their actions.
You see, once upon a time, in the mythic age of the mid-2000's, developers intentionally added cheat codes to their games. Yes, intentionally. No, I'm not pulling your leg, it's true! "But Keatonguy", you ask, befuddled, "Why would they intentionally give people ways to do things in the game without spending untold days of time to unlock it piecemeal?" Well, young poster, because it's fun as hell. Cheating and hacking the RAM of games is where half the replay value of the classics comes from. Tell me, would San Andreas be as fun without flying cars and rioting pedestrians? Have you ever played a PC FPS without using noclip even once? Would we have found all those unused rooms and learned the programming tricks used to make classics like Metroid and The Legend of Zelda work without an Action Replay or a Game Genie?
Now these little things called achievement scores roll around, and if anyone dares to think of getting past a part of the game they don't feel like playing, it's something to be shunned and reviled. Damn kids these days, rabble rabble rabble...
Re:not really single-player (Score:5, Informative)
Starcraft II includes cheat codes. When the codes are in effect the ability to earn the achievements is disabled. The hack in question allows players to cheat and earn the achievements at the same time.
Re:not really single-player (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets not forget that these so called "achievements" are nothing more than little blurbs from your computer assuring you that you are not in fact wasting your time and are actually somehow being productive.
but your friends can see your achievement tooooooo...
And your friends can see your pacman high-score at the local arcade. So fucking what.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And everyone can see Carlos Slim and Bill Gate's "high scores" too: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html [forbes.com]
They are all just digits in a bunch of computers somewhere. If enough people decide it's real, it's real enough :). If for some reason everyone decides the US dollar is worth nothing, Bill Gates becomes worth a lot less.
Fact is most of what we do is a waste of time. Most of it does not really endure much longer than that Pacman high-score, nor means much
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A hundred thousand years from now, someone might rate the entire human race's "achievements" by 2010 as "so fucking what".
"Mostly harmless."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
but your friends can see your achievement tooooooo...
And your friends can see your pacman high-score at the local arcade. So fucking what.
The difference is the expectation of privacy. If someone sees that I have achieved a "badge" that requires at least 120 hours of play time in a week or requires you to initiate "sex" with both genders, it discloses personal information that one might not want publicized.
I can see the games companies being sued over something like that; perhaps if someone loses their job
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since you obviously didn't get it, I'll spell it out to you: I'm not defending "achievements", I think they are retarded. I think the only thing more retarded than "achievements" is getting huffy when other people get them by cheating. I think that if anyone actually places real value on them, to the point where it becomes necessary to sue people over obtaining them "unfairly", they need to get a fucking life.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And your friends can see your pacman high-score at the local arcade. So fucking what.
What's an ar-cad-e?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And your friends can see your pacman high-score at the local arcade. So fucking what.
When was the last time you cheated at Pac-Man at the local arcade?
Re:not really single-player (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
StarCraft 2 has cheat codes in it, their use just disables achievements until you start a new game or load an old one. Part of the issue is that this guy was using a program that let him cheat while still earning achievements and, according to the comments on the Rock Paper Shotgun article, cheat in the multiplayer too - both of which messes with the ranking system and in turn, causes all kinds of weirdness with their online matchmaking.
But of course news items wouldnt bring hits if they wrote it that way, so distorting the truth just enough to sound likely correct and spamming it around is the rule. Especially if it's bashing on a big company, since they're no angels, most of the people who notice the truth has been bended yet again most likely let it go.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I bought the game, I own my computer's ram - I can use the two in whatever way I see fit. If I want to tell my computer's ram to modify the game, then I'm allowed to do that. If Blizzard wants to ban me from using their servers because my computer's ram holds a modified copy of their game, they are allowed to do that.
But if Blizzard makes it so that I can't use the game I bought with the computer I own, then they have sold me a faulty product. If they intentionally make the game stop working, then th
Re:not really single-player (Score:5, Insightful)
Who really cares though?
It's a game.
I play games because they should be fun. I do not play games for profit, nor do I get upset if someone has more achievements, or a greater score than I.
Re:not really single-player (Score:5, Insightful)
People should cheat in their own time, heck I cheat games for fun too. But there something to be said when the results will carry over onto Battle.net
Re:not really single-player (Score:4, Insightful)
And that "n00b" will find that competing at that level will not be conducive to fun and will likely be eliminated from any waged competition early on.
I still fail to see the issue here besides that fact that you may have to play an easy game now and then.
Re: (Score:2)
If cheaters can fraudulently devalue these achievements, why is this hard for so many here to grasp that some people might not be happy about that? Yes it may seem inane and pointless to you in much the same way that a local sports team comprised of people I have never me
Re: (Score:2)
Who really cares though?
It's a game.
Works both ways though.
Who really cares that these people are getting sued? They just make cheats for a game.
See how that works out? If the game is unimportant (and any game is intrinsically unimportant to people who don't play it), then it hardly matters to you what the developers are doing against the makers and users of cheats.
Re: (Score:2)
there are people who farmed all achievements already including ones like 1000 wins with a race (including random)
how is that possible? you need at least 3k wins to do that, 6k assuming matchmaking aiming for 50% win ratio?
1. join 4v4 game
2. leave as soon as it starts
3. ?
4. profit
wtf you ask? if your team wins you get a win, so why bother with playing at all. Join as many games as you can, your 50% will get you enough good teammates that you won't be needed and you get 10-20 wins/hr (reportedly they fixed it
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most cheating systems aren't actually intended for players. I mean, the developers usually leave them in for players in the end, but they're more generally used for testing.
Re: (Score:2)
Thats for most part a myth, while there are exceptions of course, most cheats in the past where intentionally put in by the developers for the player, as it allows them to get a little extra press a few weeks/month after the release when they announce the cheats. Today cheats are frequently a normal part of the game, properly integrated into the game menus and all, so basically just a tool to increase replay value, instead of a hidden secret.
Full debugging and testing functions hardly ever make it into the
Re: (Score:2)
You see, once upon a time, in the mythic age of the mid-2000's, developers intentionally added cheat codes to their games. Yes, intentionally. No, I'm not pulling your leg, it's true! "But Keatonguy", you ask, befuddled, "Why would they intentionally give people ways to do things in the game without spending untold days of time to unlock it piecemeal?" Well, young poster, because it's fun as hell. Cheating and hacking the RAM of games is where half the replay value of the classics comes from.
One word: Debugging.
Re:not really single-player (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the achievement system, they're not cheating only themselves.
Except the achievement system literally has no point, no benefit, and is the most blatant "e-peen" exhibitionism around. It's even less important than the 360 Achievements, which is saying something.
No, this is a rights grab. They're trying to convince a court that you have no right to do anything with the product you bought and paid for, whatsoever, because you're not buying it, you're borrowing it long term for a set fee. It's utter madness. If someone wanted to make the "Game Genie" nowadays, Nintendo would sue them into oblivion and prevent it from ever happening.
Copyrights (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately I think you're right.
while I wholeheartedly support multiplayer games being free of cheats, the suits brought seems on the surface to enable the companies to pretty much put "we own your a**" in their EULA and get it through court. I strongly oppose any such movement. Not because I feel everything should be open sourced to be toyed with as you like, but because when I buy a toaster, what I do with it after the time of purchase may or may not be legal, it may or may not invalidate my warranty, but it's not the MANUFACTURER who decides what I can and cannot use my toaster for, anything I do with MY property is MY responsibility, legally and morally. The same should hold true of immaterial products, like software. I suspect this is why they're trying to make this sound like a simple case of pirating.
Because in essence they're using copyright infringement as the sacrificial lamb, when in reality, no distribution is taking place, and as such cause the company no loss in sales. I dont see how this cannot be a case of simple fair-use. I hope this means that screwed up EULAs will finally die a slow and horrible death, because if they loose the case, that might set a presedence for EULAs being unreasonably strict.
Disclaimer: I have NOT read the indictment, only the article(s), which may or may not be portraying reality in a tinted light.
Re: (Score:2)
And people claim "slipery slope" arguments aren't valid.
This right here is a slippery slope in action.
Start with MMO's where it affects other people then gradually push it to single players where there's some kind of online ranking or achievement system "because E-Peens are important" and gradaully to any software at all.
Re: (Score:2)
...no distribution is taking place...
You're correct here, but the net effect, at least when I survey my single test subject - myself - is that this type of thing encourages piracy. Case in point - these days almost every game I purchase (picked up Fallout Vegas last night) that is sold on Steam has to, at a bare minimum, connect to Steam to register the game, and launch Steam in order to play the game. This irks me, and due to this fact, even though I do buy (rent??) a legal copy, I still download a "cracked" copy to rid myself of disc and i
Re:not really single-player (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no point or benefit to playing a video game at all, other than for entertainment value. If the acheivement system increases a player's level of entertainment, then it is just as valid and the rest of the game.
If you don't find it entertaining, that's fair enough, but there are plenty of people that do.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no point or benefit in anything, other than potential enjoyment.
Seriously. It's not like staying alive itself (or earning a better afterlife, or whatever) has any benefit that doesn't ultimately reduce into "I might enjoy it".
The question is: does it? In my experience, most achieveme
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you're just a stick in the mud. Many people brag about "meaningless" things all the time. I mean, who cares who threw a touchdown pass in a football game? Honestly, it means nothing. Until people attach meaning to it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
> If someone wanted to make the "Game Genie" nowadays, Nintendo would sue them into oblivion and prevent it from ever happening.
Funny you say that.
Nintendo DID sue Galoob to try to stop them distributing the Game Genie.
Nintendo LOST.
Very similar "devalues our games" arguments; and Nintendo was the 800-pound legal gorilla back then too, with a 95%+ market share and who one 99%+ of copyright and similar legal cases.
Even so, I don't hold much hope for this case - not because any of the facts are materially
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who cares about "achievements" anyway?
That completly depends on the game, well done achievements give you a meta-game on top of the game itself, giving you a reason to try different tactics, use specific weapons, explore new areas, avoid to kill anybody and other things that you normally wouldn't do in normal gameplay. The bad achievements on the other side are the ones that just require you to waste tons of times in a game, without requiring changing the way you play at all. And of course there are the achievements that basically boil down to
Re:Achievement System (Score:5, Interesting)
No, because the achievement system isn't optional. If I bought Starcraft II (which I'm not going to, especially now), I'd probably not play it online at all, and if I did, it would just be with a few specific friends. I don't give a fuck about the achievements, I wanna play the game MY way. If I run in to a level that I find incredibly annoying, and I wanna skip it, or I wanna just stomp all over it with some invincible units, it's not any of Blizzard's fucking concern. It wouldn't have been their concern if my friends and I wanted to cheat with each other either, if we used LAN play. The only time it should matter is if we're actually, purposefully, and with intent accessing online multiplayer to play with people who couldn't know whether or not I'm cheating. If you're going to use achievements as a reason to stop people from doing what they want with their game, then that system needs to be optional.
Re:Achievement System (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm not sure a lawsuit is quite the answer, I do think Blizzard is right to make a big deal about this. A lot of people really like their achievements because... They're achievements! Some are rather hard to get. Blizzard is just making sure that the rewards someone earns aren't diluted by cheaters who make it impossible to determine who legitimately earned something and who just used a trainer.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I care about the achievement system.
Actually it would be more accurate to say that the achievement system seems designed for the way I play games that I truly love.
When a game becomes one of my favorites, I want to not just beat it, but master it. Dominate it. I'm not much of one for online multiplayer games, but I do like to find every item, kill every bad guy, beat every level without warps, rescue every hostage, collect every giant coin, and figure out where every secret room is.
The achievement system
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, so... you like achievements. Awesome. Why does it matter if I get those achievements in a different way than you?
I'd argue it's simply a personal rights issue. If I get a million dollars by working hard and saving my money and someone gets it by winning the lottery, why should I expect the law to fine the person that won the lottery for my personal ego?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What is the point to get achievement by cheating ? This is just worthless.
Yeah, but that is not the problem here. If Blizzard would just block or delete the achievements of cheaters, big deal, hardly anybody would care. What they are doing instead is suing the cheat tool builders via dubious EULA based restrictions.
Re:Achievement System (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What if I run it from a RAM disk? Am I breaking the ULA?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Turned evil? They've been evil in this way since bnetd.