Blizzards Lawsuit

Posted by Stropp on March 31, 2008

I’ve been following this Blizzard versus MDY/Glider lawsuit recently, and I’ve come to a somewhat unsettling conclusion.

Law is strange.

There are a couple of big issues at stake in this lawsuit. One of them is Blizzards contention that Glider allows bots that ruin World of Warcraft on several levels (that’s my non-lawyerly interpretation.) These bots essentially make hurt a players experience causing them to quit and thus damage Blizzards profits. Something like 20 million dollars worth of profit I understand.

The other is that Glider violates Blizzards EULA and Terms of Service (TOS).

Okay.

I think the contention that Glider is damaging Blizzards revenue is a novel approach. There are laws around that allow companies to sue based on interference with their business. If Glider does that, then Blizzard may have a case.

But didn’t Blizzard just reach ten million subscribers? Didn’t Blizzard make over a billion dollars in revenue last year, with a 500 million dollar profit?

It certainly doesn’t look like Glider has done any damage to Blizzards revenues. In fact it almost looks like Blizzard is making similar claims to the music industry about piracy. We’re making record profits, yet these bad guys are making us lose money. A 20 million dollar loss out of a 500 million dollar profit doesn’t seem to be a sustainable argument for damage to me.

I wonder how Blizzard can prove that players are leaving because of Glider. Is there a question on the unsubscribe form to ask players if they are quitting because of Glider?

The violation of the terms of service and the EULA is also interesting.

In essence, a EULA is a sort of contract. It’s an agreement. It’s my understanding that both parties have to agree to a contract before it becomes enforceable. Did MDY agree to Blizzards EULA and TOS?

Well. It’s pretty certain they did agree. After all, MDY would have to test their software. That requires a running copy of World of Warcraft, which requires the user to agree to the EULA and TOS before logging in. How enforceable this is, is another question.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not condoning the use or creation of the Glider program. MDYs claim that it is just for letting players avoid the level grind is somewhat bogus. There are plenty of players who want to do that, sure. But Glider has a lot more use with the gold selling industry, and that’s where it is hurting the community.

The thing is though, that using bots for gold farming is really at the lower end of the evil scale. Yes, it’s annoying to run into a bot that’s clearing an area that you need to work, but it’s much worse to be hacked with a keylogger, or to get your account stolen and characters cleaned out.

I’m sure that Blizzards lawyers believe that they have a case against MDY. It looks like MDYs lawyers believe the same thing since they are counter-suing Blizzard. It may be early, but it doesn’t look like there is a settlement is sight.

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