Please Do Not Harass Blizzard

Saber Taylor writes "Loki President, Scott Draeker, issued a statement saying that e-mail floods to game companies asking for Linux ports may be counterproductive. Reasonable, although I think it's worthwhile to let vendors know I bought their product because they support Linux."

Comments

Having Dealt with some of these companies...

[Hemos]

...I can assure you that, yes, they do listen. However, they've gotten the impression that Linux users can't be pleased, don't want to pay for anything, and are self-righteous. I've tried to do advocacy at that level, which usually helps. But yes, petitions and unified, *polite* fronts are the best way to do it - individuals create too much of an impression of whining for whining's sake.

Re:Actually...

[Herbmaster]

In penance, let me offer the following: While I don't know if formal Mac versions were released for any of his previous Infocom/Activision games, free/shareware interpreters for many platforms are available

I played Douglas Adams's infocom games Bureaucracy and Hitchhikers' Guide on a Mac in the mid-1980s. I don't know how much of a lag this was behind other platforms, but it can't have been much, because the Mac was a pretty new platform at the time. There was surely no question of "bankrupting the company."

mailing porting companies is better

[bain]

I think rather then mailing blizzard .. mail companies like loki requesting. They can go to blizzard and using the feedback from linux users to our advantage rather then blizzard starting to delete messages coz they say "We want linux ports"

bain

Re:Better reason to flame Blizzard: Rev.Dom.Hijack

[Booker]

Now, Blizzard's case is slightly stronger (in my VERY nonexperienced eyes) because "Blizzard" isn't a typical last name,

No, it's not a last name... it's just an english word. God forbid that someone register a domain with a standard english word, eh? This is no different than veronica.com and ajax.org - if somebody takes your "word" first well - too bad. Register blizzardgames.net and get over it.

So there. :)
----

Even *polite* letters may be counterproductive!

[orpheus]

Face it, the commercial market for Linux versions is not at present anywhere near the market for MS OS versions. Next year or two years from now may be an entirely different story, but today -- nyet!

It could well be dnagerous to force this issue onto the developer's agenda prematurely. Yes, it's nice to keep it on the horizon, but if we pressure developers to do it *now* we're also forcing them to decide based on *current* market conditions. And frankly, in a highly competitive environment, the smart decision for most of them will be to dedicate their resources to improving their cash cow, or developing other, more lucrative projects. (Douglas Adams, the author and staunch Mactivist, never released a Mac version of his games because it would have bankrupted the company -- which would have benefited no one)

Once such an official policy is in place, it will probably delay introduction more than the current vague interest. An explicit policy is difficult to change, even if it is explicitly "Linux? Someday... but not now". The bar for the eventual entry into Linux may actually be raised by the policy

It might be safer if we maintain a steady gentle awareness of Linux in the marketplace, and wait until the hard financial facts support entry. Let's keep it as a 'concept that all the really cool companies are thinking about' instead of trying to pretend it's a commercial mandate.

Any /.er can name 20 things that should/would have succeeded except for an early failure (premature exposure/introduction) and even the corporate resources of an Edison, IBM, etc. couldn't keep them afloat until they were ready to swim.

what to do

[GC]

I don't think there is anything wrong with someone mailing a games developer asking for a Linux port and from what the Loki bloke said he actually said that "mailbombing" was a bad idea.
To my understanding mailbombing is the instance of a single user sending 100+ messages saying "Gimme Linux Port".
Sending a well thought out email message to a games developer is likely to get more attention and if you outline the rational reasons as to why they should port the game across then you might be heard. This type of behaviour cannot be considered counter-productive, at least us Linux users don't tend to call product support to ask how to install the game!!! Any company has to consider it's customers, even potential-customers.

Aside

I purchased Unreal Tournament and later downloaded the Linux install off the net. The 3D acceleration however is pretty slow under Linux mainly because the (glide) 3dfx drivers have not been optimised and won't be until XFree v4.0.0 is released, so I tend to play the game in Windows still.

Re:what to do

[Wellspring]

I don't think there is anything wrong with someone mailing a games developer asking for a Linux port and from what the Loki bloke said he actually said that "mailbombing" was a bad idea.

I think he means by mailbombing the tons of emails they are getting from linux people.

They have a certain number of people who they employ to process and answer mail. So if they get flooded it detracts from their other capabilities and costs them money-- the opposite of what we want for Loki.

A lesser problem is that we don't want to end up with the reputation of Amiga users. They were pushy, opinionated and loud. Businesses sometimes didn't support Amiga because they didn't want to deal with that kind of irate customer. So before you fire off an angry or critical email at a software company you overall like, try to remember a time when you might have been working behind a cash register, and how you felt dealing with irate or just loud customers.

The nice thing about Open Source for a business is that their customers happily improve their products for them, strengthening stability, improving the interface, and adding features. So we're the best customers in the industry, and should stay that way.

I do want (desperately) to run StarCraft on my Linux box, so I suggest heavy use of Web petitions to show them in a less bandwidth hungry manner our longing for combat.

Re:Commercial software on Linux

[Arandir]

"It boils down to 'Will the Linux community respect OTHER peoples' licenses and property rights as fervently as they expect theirs to be respected?'."

I'm thinking that's still a wait-and-see issue. Closed source software and business in general have always gotten a bad rap from Linux users. Loki is tolerated because they share some code, but I don't know how they'll react to a company that offers binaries only for $69.

Better reason to flame Blizzard: Rev.Dom.Hijacking

[WilliamX]

Blizzard sent a letter this week demanding the owner of blizzard.net turn over the domain to them or face legal action.

Re:Better reason to flame Blizzard: Rev.Dom.Hijack

[Rone]

Blizzard sent a letter this week demanding the owner of blizzard.net turn over the domain to them or face legal action.

Disclaimer 1: I am NOT a lawyer. Don't even THINK about considering the following information as legal advice, as any lawyer worth his/her salt could probably find a way to weasel around what I'm about to say.

Disclaimer 2: I am, however, taking an Internet Law class this semester, and this is one of the topics we've examined.

That said, in the course of this class, we looked at a case VERY similiar to this one, which can be cited as (for you lawyer-types out there) 189 F.3d 868, or Avery Dennison Corporation v Jerry Sumpton (US Court of Appeals, 9th District).

The background of this case was as follows: Mr. Sumpton bought up a number of common surname domains (e.g. yourlastname.com) in order to resell vanity email addresses from them (e.g. jon@katz.com). Two of the last names he registered in this fashion were "Avery" and "Dennison", resulting in avery.com and dennison.com.

Anyhow, Avery Dennison (a supposedly very well-known office supply company) got pissy about it and sued to acquire the domain names from Mr. Sumpton.

The district court initially granted summary judgement in favor of Avery Dennison, and Mr. Sumpton appealed. The appelate court reversed the lower court's decision based on the fact that Avery Dennison, Inc.'s trademarked name didn't meet the "famousness" element required for trademark dilution protection (you basically have to be as well-known "Nike" or "Coke" to qualify), and also that because "Avery" and "Dennison" are common surnames and already registered by a number of non-office-supply companies.

Now, Blizzard's case is slightly stronger (in my VERY nonexperienced eyes) because "Blizzard" isn't a typical last name, and a "reasonable" person could possibly think that Blizzard the gaming company was offering this service, instead of some third party doing so.

That said, if Avery Dennison (which has been around since the 1800s) doesn't qualify as being "famous" enough to qualify for dilution protection, then I doubt a software company who's been around for far less time will either, unless a less-than-bright judge presides over the case.

Let me reiterate once again that I am not a lawyer. I'm merely posting this rather crude summary of the case because I happen to have a bit more exposure to this wrinkle of law than others might, and I wanted to give some measure of reassurance that if blizzard.net has adequate representation and a judge whose head isn't permanently buried within his/her rectum, they've got a reasonable chance of winning this one.

Why the hell Blizzard is wasting their time with this kind of crap instead of getting Diablo II finished, I'll never know...

Hmm...

[Nafai7]

maybe Loki doesn't want these companies to realize how profitable Linux ports are going to become. If companies like Blizzard start doing their OWN Linux ports, Loki will loose out.

I could be totally wrong, of course...

Junks Jerzey

[Junks Jerzey]

As someone who works at a game company and reads the incoming mail, I see this from the opposite side of most slashdotters. As soon as any game is announced, there's an inevitable group of mail that's always received:

A request to support the T&L of the GeForce.

A request to make sure the game properly supports the Athlon.

Fervent mail from Mac owners asking if there will be a Mac version.

Fervent mail from Linux users asking if there will be a Linux version.

Thing is, though, that this mail is predictable; we know what causes have their fans. It's also generally accepted that Linux freebies--like server ports--are a good thing, if only because they appease the natives. But we still all know that Linux is a totally different market than Windows, and that a Linux game would almost certainly sell 20x fewer copies. And realize that most PC games are far from selling 100,000 copies or more.

Re:Better reason to flame Blizzard: Rev.Dom.Hijack

[Col. Panic]

I disagree that blizzard.net is offering a service that interferes with blizzard.com. They provide email and web forwarding, which can never be confused with games.

Re:Better reason to flame Blizzard: Rev.Dom.Hijack

[Col. Panic]

I gotta get in on this.

In my opinion an unused domain should never be sold for more than 75$. If it is, then someone is ripping someone else off.

It is not ripping someone off; it is capitalism. It is smart business to look for potentially valuable assets on the web in the form of domain names. If I read the Wall Street Journal and notice that Company A and Company B are merging and I predict and register the resulting company's desired domain before they do, it is a legitimate move and I deserve to be paid a *lot* more than $75 for the insight.

(How's that for a run-on sentence?)

Blizzard.net was registered 14 months before this became an issue. Even if the website was unused it wouldn't matter. Maybe he just wants a cool domain name and that is fine until he starts trying to draw or drive business away from blizzard.com.

Re:Blizzard.

[348]

Agreed. Obviously they know we want the ports, hence the letter. But a better track I would think would be to "Be nice" and not flame your customers by insinuating that anyone who may have sent a letter was part of a "Mailbomb" campaign.

Reminds me a little of a site I go to from time to time. It's got good threads and gerneally good information, but from time to time the powers that be seem to get tired of the whining and flame a little.

Maybe thats whats happening here. Guess everyone is allowed a little leeway.