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EULA Confusion w/ Used Copies of WoW?
They keep telling me they will not transfer an account. I keep telling them I do not want an account transferred, but want to create my own account. What appears to be the final answer is that 'an authentication key can only be used once, regardless of the number of owners.'
This is not stated anywhere in the EULA or Terms of Use. If it is, I have been unable to find it, and *Blizzard has repeatedly ignored my request that they identify where in the EULA or Terms of Use this is stated.*
I have the complete retail package, including the CD case with the Authentication Key. So what if it is has been used in the past? Whatever happened to the first-sale doctrine?
At one point, the Blizzard representative likened my request to buying an empty milk jug and returning to the store to demand more milk for free so I can use the jug. This is an incredibly inept analogy. What Blizzard is doing is allowing only the original purchaser of the jug to buy a refill; anyone else who happens to buy or be given the jug is prohibited from buying more milk to put in it.
Another item of interest is that the representative told me that they can not, for any reason, delete an account, not even at the account owner's request. The most they can do is to suspend the account. Unfortunately, that keeps a record of the Authentication Key in their system, preventing that key from ever being used again.
While the EULA expressly permits permanent transfer of ownership of the game to another person, nowhere does either the EULA or
the Terms of Use mention that such a transfer makes the game completely useless because Blizzard will not allow the new owner to use the game; the game cannot be played without an online account and a subscription to the service, and Blizzard
will not even allow the account to be created.
You might say the "easy" answer is to get the seller to give me the account info for the account he created. However, according to Blizzard's representative, not all of the original
account information can be modified. In fact, enough would be unchangable that the original owner of the account would be able to regain control of the account at any time, should he
desire to do so.
I had no expectation that a used copy of the game would be such a problem. After all, even all of Blizzard's previous games (Warcraft 2, Starcraft, BroodWar) had keys that could be used and passed on while maintaining the reasonable restriction that only one instance of the key could be used
at any one time. (I have never bought or played Warcraft 3, so I do not know about it.) In fact, I bought my copy of Starcraft used and never had any trouble with it.
I am not trying to cheat Blizzard out of anything. I *want* to pay them for a monthly subscription so I can play the game, but they will not allow it solely because at some point in the past someone else has used what is now my copy of the game.
So here's a warning to everyone out there; be very careful if you are thinking about buying a used copy of World of Warcraft. You may have a complete and legitimate set of all the game materials, but you will not be able to play it.
For all the lawyers, and the many IANALs, out there, what do you think of the chances of a lawsuit succeeding to change Blizzard's stance on this? Would anyone else be interested in taking this on with me?"
A question that comes to mind is whether the seller fulfilled all three parts of the Termination clause, section 5 of the EULA. If the seller failed to notify Blizzard of intention to terminate, it could be argued that the seller's licenses remain in effect and thus new license could not be given to the buyer of the used game. But one would hope Blizzard's customer service would at least make this clear to the buyer.
One thing left to do: Get your money back from the seller.
$49.99
Pretty steep for a game you have to pay monthly to play too.
My wife and I would be playing it if it weren't for the $100 initial cost.
Actually the Key IS the game -- or more specifically the ACCOUNT.
One key can ever create ONE account. If you get the account name and password to go along with that used CD key, you are in business.
First off, it's a $49.99 game. Secondly, the game is not available in stores due to Blizzard's cutting back on new users due to server issues. Considering the lack of availability of the game in stores, a used copy that someone doesn't want after having tried it should still have value.
I for one and sick and tired of software companies bullying their consumers around. I should be able to return software. I should be able to sell software I purchased to other people. I should be able to run games that already have cd-keys for online-only play without requiring that I keep the CD in the drive while playing!
How hard can it be? Okay you buy a "used" CD so they don't give you a month's free subscription but force you to pony up $19 immediately.
Even if you assume that this guy just pirated a copy of WOW that's pure revenue to them for each new user.
What's to gain by binding one key to one CD? You want to bind it to one PAYING USER.
Somebody hasn't thought this through and just threw the usual boiler plate out into the EULA and said "ship it!"
Saying, "just buy a new copy" is all well and nice in retrospect, but doesn't help this guy since he hass already bought a used copy. Also, the question, as posed, was not about how he could play the game but about whether Blizzard are ignoring/breaking the terms of their own EULA.
It's a much bigger question than just "buy a new copy"
Can you march down to your local courthouse and file a small claims lawsuit? Your argument seems pretty solid. They would probably give in to avoid the lawsuit that might cost them thousands.
This seems like the perfect test case for the enforceability of a shrinkwrap EULA in the hands of an ordinary consumer. Previous cases have observed that, where portions of the game require additional "agreement" clicks, such licenses can be enforced, but I have not found any case yet which states that the individual purchasor is bound by a eula he is unable to read until after the sale.
There have been cases which indicate that software licenses in general are just fine, even if they limit rights granted under ordinary copyright law. What does not appear to have been examined is whether these license agreements fall into the realm of state contract law. If such were the case, then different states might have different consumer protection rules.
But then again, I am not your lawyer, and this is just an observation, not legal advice. If you like, feel free to contact me. You can find out how in my profile.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Blizzard should try to get this fixed fast. Unlike most other types of games, where all the money the developer will realize is paid up front, most of the money from MMORPGs is made over the long run. By making it harder to transfer CD-keys, Blizzard is depriving themselves of the monthly fees that the user would otherwise already be paying: $20-$50 up front vs. $10-$13 a month... after a little while, the price paid at retail starts to seem pretty small, especially since many players get hooked and have difficulty quitting.
Actually, you don't want free milk in the jug your friend gave you, you want to *pay* for the milk, you just don't want to pay for the jug.
I think the solution to all of this stupidity is for the bozon game companies to stop charging an up-front purchase price for games that require a subscription.
Why don't they also charge a "disposal fee" when you cancel for crying out loud.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
1. Between you and seller, the seller would be in breach of contract. [i.e. a total failure of consideration - that is you did not get what you paid for]
2. Blizzard may be in breach of their license with the seller. [i.e. by not allowing the seller to transfer the game according to clause 3B]
My advice to you. Just get a refund off the seller then go buy an original copy.
Hah.
Every MMO launched to date has a single-shot CD-key used to create an account. That means that the used game is worthless. The CD is unprotected and the contents are fairly easily obtainable. Only thing worth anything is the CD-Key, and that's good for only one use.
Yes, you could sell the game AND the account, but in WoW's case this is forbidden by EULA. You can whine all you want, but if they somehow allowed the re-use of the CD-Key, that would allow basically unlimited accounts out of one box. And whoever controls the account can play the game - box not required.
Don't buy used MMOs (returned/repackaged/'slightly used'). Any store with half a brain don't take returns of MMOs as once the key has been digged out of the box and copied down, the rest of the box/CD/Etc is quite worthless. CD-Key theft out of boxes in store shelves is a growing problem - many clueless salesdroids dont understand how the bunch of numbers on the paper is the only valuable bit of the game box, so if you buy an opened box, you risk getting a dud that may be painful to return. How do you prove you didn't use the key yourself?
Now is selling of such 'one-shot' products fine, trampling on the 'first sale' principle? That's whole another discussion. WoW is doing it just like every other game in the genre. And just about every single other game forbids sale of accounts. Others allow the sale of account + box together (only), but such trades are high-risk.
For example, in Dark Age of Camelot, whoever knows the 'secret word' inputted at character creation can at any time take ownership of the account (change PW, change any other details) by calling game billing support hotline. So even if you get the CDs, the box, the (worthless) CD-key, the user account and the password, if you don't know that you ALSO need a secret word (and you need to change it promptly by calling the company), your account can be taken back by the original owner, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Blizzard is just taking the easiest route - if you your account/password ends up in wrong hands, they wash their hands. Sale of accounts is not allowed, and basically whoever controls the username/PW 'owns' the account, and if you complain about account sale/trade issues, they just ban the account as account sales are not allowed. And yes, the box, the CD-Key and the media is totally useless and worthless once the account has been created.
If it only makes sense that the key can only be used once, why does blizzard go out of there way to explicitely state in the EULA that the physical media can be resold?
Doesn't this fill your heart with hate? Why don't we all call Blizzard and tell them how we feel about it?
Agreed, and what if the game is buggy and generally sucks like Star Wars Galaxies. Why can't I try I to get some of this money back. It's not like I could have tried a demo before.
1. Imagine this from Blizzard's point of view. Someone calls up with your story. What do you think their position will be? Software companies must defend their best interests, and willfully going along with any request and any likely story could open them up to all kinds of abuses.
2. I may be wrong, but I don't think the lack of mention of something in a EULA implies that the buyer has such a usage right.
3. A lawsuit for such a small amount seems a little bit of an overreation. I would discuss it with the seller and see if he/she is willing to refund your money, and if not (and I would hardly expect it), just chalk it up as a lesson learned. I'm not sure how old you are, but I've lived long enough to know friends who have learned far more expensive lessons than this. I agree that it sucks, but consider yourself lucky to some extent.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
How do you expect them to actually release a CD key?
It's not for us to care how they do it, they are the ones responsible for figuring that part out. Beyond just the EULA, copyright law states that users have the right to transfer their license.
The way these games work is you can come back to it later and renew your account if you wish. How can they renew their account if the key has been released for reuse?
They can't renew their account, because they no longer have a legal copy of the game. Perhaps Blizzard could have a system where somebody enters in a new CD key to associate their account so they can reactivate.
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You must not have read the whole post. What is utterly ridiculous here is how Blizard is not abiding by their own EULA.
Say you bought WoW and decided you really didn't like it, so you sold it to your friend. Assume no copies made and everything is done according to the EULA. You have no intention of playing again, and your friend wants to use your old copy to play himself. When he activates his, your account should be disabled. Problem solved.
What is happening here is like the RIAA saying you can buy the CD from the store, when you are done with it you can sell it to a friend or a used CD store, but they still won't be able to listen to it.
Blizard is in the wrong here. If they did not want people selling/giving their old copies to others, they should not have allowed it according to the EULA. The OP is not asking to have a second account active on the same CD key, he is asking to have a single account active on the CD key, with the old one being disabled.
Jeremy
Get a cow. It won't mind if you take an empty milk jug to it and demand more milk from it every day.
According to this analogy, it's against the law to refill Blizzard's jugs from your own cow. Blizzard v. bnetd.
good point ... why on earth does the game cost anything when it is subscription based?
if you are planning to pay the monthly subscription can you not just download the game installer for free?
It's like having the ability to sell your Condo, however, the management refusing to give you a key to enter through the lobby.
The easier answer is that the game costs because people are willing to pay. Blizzard set the price at a point that they felt would maximize their profits. There was enough demand for the game that lots and lots of people were willing to shell out $50.00. People who already have 50 bucks invested in the game are more likely to keep their subscription going then those who have little or nothing invested. Considering all that, why the heck would Blizzard give it away?
Usually, the theory behind EULAs not being legally binding has a lot to do with the contract being non-negotiable, and that there is no guarantee that the receiving party actually ever even read (or even really agreed) to the contract.
This argument is one way. The author of the EULA can hardly argue that the contract was non-negotiable on their part -- they freaking wrote the thing. Nor can they argue that they never agreed to the contract, because they sell the product with the understanding that the EULA is in fact agreed to.
IANAL, but AFAIK, the arguments for EULAs being non-binding can only be a defense for the end user.
...and it doesn't hold water. The monthly fee is for maintenance of the systems and resources you continue to use and the base code still cost something to develop. I've seen places that give away the client code for free and wasn't that impressed (Lineage, Jumpgate) compared to something that cost money like EQ or Dark Age of Camelot.
That's like saying you should get a co-located computer for free because you're paying $49.95 a month for bandwidth. There is still an initial investment cost.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Interesting... you are correct that transfer of an authentication key is not expressly prohibited anywhere in the EULA or terms of use. Of course, it is not expressly allowed, either. In fact, searching the WoW support site, I find no mention anywhere of their position on transfer of ownership, except that they say you cannot sell an account to someone else. As you've pointed out, you only want to create a new account. I think the problem is that they don't explicitly point out anywhere that once an authentication key has been used to create an account, it is permanently associated with that account. Accounts are not deleted when a person cancels their subscription, at least not for a fairly long period of time. This way, if a person wants to come back later and play again, they can keep their characters. I suspect that whoever you bought the game from will need to go through some special process to get their account permanently deleted before you can create a new one with the auth key.
bring a copy of the small claims judgement against vivendi to a shareholders meeting. send copies to various journalists, magazines and newspapers.
be sure to forward the judgement to various credit tracking companies too.
such things are sufficiently embarassing that they would probably be forced to act. the cost of bad PR would be worse than just paying what they owe under the judgement.
No, of course not - because it's been proven that there are plenty of idiots that will pay it. And they'll even pay it to a bunch of litigious, greedy bastards like the ones at Blizzard.
I wish people would pay attention and stop supporting companies when they turn into fucktards like Blizzard seems to have done. It seems there is a pattern that a many software companies tend to follow, wherein they build up a certain number of loyal customers or market share, and then they start doing everything they can to gouge their customers and treat them like dogshit. Lawsuits against fans, bloggers, and others are common. And they tend to get away with it more often than not, when they should be bleeding customers left and right. I think Microsoft pretty much led this trend.
I'll give you a few examples. Companies that created excellent product, took good care of their customers, then turned evil when they got to the top of the heap:
Symantec (Norton)
Valve (steam???)
Intuit (check out Ed Foster's Blog)
Blizzard (case in point)
Macromedia (They're working on it)
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Subject to change.
Actually, in the city in which I live, retailers are required to accept a return, provided that:
1. The item is defective for reasons not caused by the customer, or the item is in new condition, or the item did not perform as expected. This is so vague that really, in any case short of the customer buying something and taking a sledgehammer to it, they have to take it back.
2. The retailer may set a "reasonable time frame" after which returns will not be accepted. Such time period must be communicated clearly to the customer and may be no less then two weeks unless the item is perishable and has a shorter shelf life then that.
3. The retailer must give the customer money back if the return is within these terms. While they can offer the OPTION of store credit/identical replacement, they may not state that this is all that they'll do.
In contrast (I found this out the hard way), a neighboring city only offers those remedies if the item is defective, and allows the store to stipulate identical-replacement only even in that case. I can certainly tell you which city I buy in now. So you can't say "In the US..." in this case, at all, because those matters are covered by state and local law, not in most cases federal.
That aside, however, the EULA in that box (all of them I've ever seen) SPECIFICALLY states that if you do not wish to accept it, you may return the software to the place of purchase for a full refund. The stores cannot claim to be ignorant of this fact, so, while IANAL, I should think that if the EULA is enforceable on the user, it is also enforceable on the selling store, who is aware of this obligation. And if it's unenforceable altogether...well, then we're all going to be happy, aren't we? But it's either a binding contract, and enforceable on all parties concerned, or a worthless piece of garbage with no enforceable value at all. But it is not worth something only when it is to the consumer's detriment, while being worthless when he wishes to invoke a clause that works to his advantage.
So, in response to your post, there are indeed LEGALLY MANDATED LEVELS of customer service. (See related topics of restaurant health and sanitation codes, false advertising regulations, laws against predatory sales tactics such as bait-and-switch, disclosure requirements of all kinds in countless situations, anti-discrimination laws, I could go on all day...)
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
"used copies of world of warcraft are worthless".
From what I understand, the majority of those BBB complaints are from disgruntled players who had their Diablo II, Warcraft III, and StarCraft II keys blocked from online play due to user violations.
Cool thanks, but I think the point was that at some time in the past Blizzard had stopped shipping copies of the game in order to deal with their server load problems. This caused a shortage in some areas. If they did this once it is possible that they will do it again.
The difference between one week after release and now is that in the days after release there were no used copies laying around like their will be now. If a shortage happens again a market for all these used games will spring up. Too bad the buyers of these used games will be out of luck.
There are only a few major game developers out there. How long until they do this for every new game? Want to bring your old PC games back to the store to trade them in for credit towards a new game. Too bad. The used PC game market is extinct.
This is not about theft, but about the legal transfer of ownership expressly following the terms of the EULA.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
The problem is that a download-only game doesn't look as legitimate. When you buy something in the store, most people view that as more legitimate. They're more willing to give credit card information to that company instead of giving it to some company where you just downloaded a client.
The second issue is one of investment. Let's say someone buys a $50 box and take it home. If that person finds the game to be confusing at first, they are generally going to stick with it. They don't want to believe that their $50 is wasted. On the other hand, if you pay $10.95 for the same thing, you're usually much more willing to set it aside of it's a bit confusing at first.
My own game, Meridian 59 allows you to download the client for free and just pay a fairly low monthly subscription. We run into these two issues all the time since we're a small, relatively unknown company. People are (rightfully) scared to give out CC information, and this works against us. Plus, our game isn't a cookie-cutter D&D clone where you can just pick a race and class and go. It requires a bit of thought and is complex, which doesn't make for an easy newbie experience. Not significantly worse than other games, but the other games have the $50 investment to rely on.
Some information for you.
Have fun,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog