Blizzard Suing StarCraft 2 Hackers
Blizzard is suing StarCraft 2 hackers for illegal
Blizzard is very protective of its games, to the point that it's taking legal action against StarCraft II hackers.
According to Blizzard's complaint, the hackers are being sued for finding a way to circumvent Warden, which is software that Blizzard uses to ensure no unauthorized software to cheat is being used. "Warden enforces Blizzard's rights by running targeted scans of the user's environment for the presence and/or use of "signatures" of known unauthorized third party programs that facilitate cheating or allow the modification of the StarCraft II interface, environment, and/or experience..." states the complaint.
Any users that play Blizzard's games are required to abide by the Terms of Use and the End User License Agreement. According to Blizzard's ToU, the user consents to not using "cheats, automation software (bots), hacks, mods or any other unauthorized third-party software."
Blizzard alleges that the 10 hackers knowingly violated Blizzard's ToU and are infringing on Blizzard's copyright by creating unauthorized copies of the game.
Blizzard is demanding that defendants shut down their hacking software and provide Blizzard with all accounts of selling the illegal software, along with all lawyer fees and any assessed monetary damage.

Go blizz!
Go blizz!
My only question is are these people online hackers or playing offline mode and using cheats? If it is the latter then it is just a case of Blizzard being too controlling. If it is the former, then yea I agree.
Still this might be a step too far. Instead of suing why are they not instead finding the loophole and fixing it?
"By using this software you agree..." Nope, never have, never will.
"By eating this pizza you agree to not throw it in the trashcan, to eat it fully and give a positive review". Good luck enforcing that...
"By using this software you agree..." Nope, never have, never will.
"By eating this pizza you agree to not throw it in the trashcan, to eat it fully and give a positive review". Good luck enforcing that...
I think clicking "Agree" or "Accept" counts as a signature.
Cheaters or people who play cracked versions on their games on LAN?
Because "illegal copies of the game" sounds like a copyright issue (so bullshit as usual in the corporate world) and "hackers" sounds more like cheaters.
Because seriously, suing cheaters is retarded and also has nothing to do with illegal copying.
But cheating shouldn't be a matter of law, FFS, even if pretty much everyone on the planet, myself included hates cheaters.
What's next? Suing our friends if they move our chess pieces around, thus cheating while we're at the bathroom?
God damn, have all the corporations went completely insane from their mountains of coke already?!
Cheaters or people who play cracked versions on their games on LAN?
Because "illegal copies of the game" sounds like a copyright issue (so bullshit as usual in the corporate world) and "hackers" sounds more like cheaters.
Because seriously, suing cheaters is retarded and also has nothing to do with illegal copying.
But cheating shouldn't be a matter of law, FFS, even if pretty much everyone on the planet, myself included hates cheaters.
What's next? Suing our friends if they move our chess pieces around, thus cheating while we're at the bathroom?
God damn, have all the corporations went completely insane from their mountains of coke already?!
Don't care if it's the cheaters that bought the hack tools, or the Tools that created them, I'm glad Blizzard went after them with full intentions of making them suffer.
Cheating is cheating! And anytime you engage in such activity, you should already know the consequences of your actions.
Their have been multiple games and online games that suffered heavy revenue loss over this crap.
~Paying Players Leaving that refuse to deal with or compete. <-More so an issue in mmo's
~Online competitive games with dead servers only weeks after release because some exploit was found and the company knew nothing about it over the fact it came on so fast. (80% of those players will not return. They moved on.)
~Server instability cause by the hacks or exploits. And most of the nasty one's are not stumbled upon. They'll spend hours reversing code to find an exploit.
~Stolen software that is still fully supported by a company.
(If they toss it on the vaporware shelf then have at it I say)
And what does all of the above plus many I did not list equate to?
Loss of revenue, Loss of player base, and in some cases a good IP gets considered as failed, and or the micro Dev team no longer has a job because the game and support was shut down years before projection of such actions.
Now what do you think a court would do to an every day avg Joe pulling this in their daily life on the street to a company?
Oh that's right we're on the internet.
By the way. To the guy that made the comment of a middle man being accused.
A simple data log requested from the ISP will show this. Traffic data can tell more about a household then any recovered data from their hardware.
Yes even if it's the neighbor kid stealing next door granny's wifi.
Now before the rest overly jump to conclusions.
They will sue the living hell out of the creator, lifetime ban/delete the accounts that used it, and charge the creator for every person that used it. They will not slam every player/user in court.
Cheaters or people who play cracked versions on their games on LAN?
Because "illegal copies of the game" sounds like a copyright issue (so bullshit as usual in the corporate world) and "hackers" sounds more like cheaters.
Because seriously, suing cheaters is retarded and also has nothing to do with illegal copying.
But cheating shouldn't be a matter of law, FFS, even if pretty much everyone on the planet, myself included hates cheaters.
What's next? Suing our friends if they move our chess pieces around, thus cheating while we're at the bathroom?
God damn, have all the corporations went completely insane from their mountains of coke already?!
Don't care if it's the cheaters that bought the hack tools, or the Tools that created them, I'm glad Blizzard went after them with full intentions of making them suffer.
Cheating is cheating! And anytime you engage in such activity, you should already know the consequences of your actions.
The biggest cheaters are always the ones in power. It's how corporations and governments work. So if THEY aren't punished, why should poor people like us be?
Their have been multiple games and online games that suffered heavy revenue loss over this crap.
~Paying Players Leaving that refuse to deal with or compete. <-More so an issue in mmo's
~Online competitive games with dead servers only weeks after release because some exploit was found and the company knew nothing about it over the fact it came on so fast. (80% of those players will not return. They moved on.)
~Server instability cause by the hacks or exploits. And most of the nasty one's are not stumbled upon. They'll spend hours reversing code to find an exploit.
~Stolen software that is still fully supported by a company.
(If they toss it on the vaporware shelf then have at it I say)
And what does all of the above plus many I did not list equate to?
Loss of revenue, Loss of player base, and in some cases a good IP gets considered as failed, and or the micro Dev team no longer has a job because the game and support was shut down years before projection of such actions.
Now what do you think a court would do to an every day avg Joe pulling this in their daily life on the street to a company?
Oh that's right we're on the internet.
By the way. To the guy that made the comment of a middle man being accused.
A simple data log requested from the ISP will show this. Traffic data can tell more about a household then any recovered data from their hardware.
Yes even if it's the neighbor kid stealing next door granny's wifi.
Now before the rest overly jump to conclusions.
They will sue the living hell out of the creator, lifetime ban/delete the accounts that used it, and charge the creator for every person that used it. They will not slam every player/user in court.
Read what I responded to the other guy.
Also, that's all cool, but if Mods, Admins and GMs aren't there to handle cheaters, then what exactly are they there for?
That has always been an INTEGRAL PART of their job. Blizzard is shitting itself once more because their games are get this: LESS hacked than the rest.
They design better games than most people so they're harder to exploit. If they'd throw their cash and resources at making even less exploitable games instead of going ballistic with their lawyers, we'd have even less hackers (again, SC2 is seriously not that hacked, I play that shit 5 hours a day, minimum).
Besides, stop being so poor at math. An average person will never have millions to pay all those companies the outrageous sums they're asking for.
So all in all, their "million dollar lawsuits" are worth jack shit.
From an average salary, what will they get? 100/200$ a month, tops? What good will that bring them once they waste so much cash on their lawsuit?
Yeah, sure, the people found guilty are gonna have to pay that back, but who's paying in the meantime? The company? The government? They'll go out of business long before they get the money back. Maybe they'll be able to get the legals fees back, but all in all, it's making EVERYONE lose money AND time.
In short, lawsuits vs individuals are worth jack shit.
God damn, have all the corporations went completely insane from their mountains of coke already?! "
Yup, but most users seem to support this insanity. You can't argue logic with the equivalent of rabid sports fans who take the game way too seriously.