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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.
Considering how difficult it is right now to find a new copy of WoW this could be a major issue.
For those not in the know, at least for a time, Blizzard pulled from the shelves new copies of WoW and stopped shipping due to server load issues.
I know of more than one person who was unable to get a copy for several weeks because of this.
#include sig.h
One thing left to do: Get your money back from the seller.
Maybe Blizzard just never expected anyone to RTFEULA.
:)
3B. You may permanently transfer ownership of the Game and all parts thereof, and all of your rights and obligations under the License Agreement, to another by physically transferring the CD-ROM, all original packaging, and all Manuals or other documentation associated with the Game, and by removing from all of your home or personal computers and destroying any remaining materials concerning the Game in your possession or control, provided the recipient agrees to the terms of this License Agreement. The transferor (i.e., you), and not the Licensor, agrees to be solely responsible for any taxes, fees, charges, duties, withholdings, assessments, and the like, together with any interest, penalties, and additions imposed in connection with such transfer.
It appears that you can indeed sell your game, provided you removed anything related to the game, which I think, includes the deactivation of the Authentication Key by the seller, maybe they haven't created the Deactivation Section yet
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I guess the new policy is:
The key IS the game.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Every MMO has CD keys that are forever associated with a given account. If you wanted to reuse a key you would have to be given the original account and change the bank information for billing purposes. This is no shocker to most people.
How do you expect them to actually release a CD key? 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?
The place you bought it from owes you a refund. Most stores I go to now won't buy back any game that has a CD key tied to online play/accounts.
$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.
As I understand it, Blizzard representatives cannot cancel any user's account even with their consent. However, it is possible to cancel one's account through the online account management site. Would cancelling your account in this way 'free up' the authentication key? If so, is it the previous owner's responsibility then to delete their account?
Assuming this is the case, then if the previous owner didn't delete their account, they have effectively ripped you off.
the answer is clear. sue them. you know that is what they would do to you if you violated the End User Agreement.
New copes of the game can be hard to find. I know that (as recently as last month) Blizzard wasn't moving any more retail copies because the game had become too popular and there were (are?) server issues.
I'm not sure if the poster was unable to find a new copy, or simply wanted to save a couple of bucks. Regardless, it seems like this kind of thing should be legal according to Blizzard's own EULA.
I guess I'm not surprised he's getting the run around from Customer Support, though. IMHO Blizzard has fallen a long way from it's lofty perch before the original owners were bought out..
"This is not stated anywhere in the EULA or Terms of Use"
It is, Usually, in the part that says that any situation not specified in the EULA, will be decided in an unilateral fashion by the Company in question. Usually, when you agree with this kind of "contracts", you are actually agreeing to pay an ammount, in orther to be able to do what the company eventually decides that you can do.
My recomendation?, learn to be happy with tuxrace.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
You're out of luck, because as we all know, EULAs are not legally binding. Thanks for playing! :)
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
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!
and, what pray tell, will be legislated? the issue here is an end user license agreement. and blizzard ain't no "end user."
the bottom line is this: a eula is designed to tell you, the end user, what you may do with the software. it is not a promise of performance or an obligation of service binding on the distributor. period.
2 1337 4 u!
Get a cow. It won't mind if you take an empty milk jug to it and demand more milk from it every day.
Your cow won't judge you.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
They aren't shipping new copies of the game until they've solved quite a few stability issues on the servers. If he didn't get an initial copy when the game was released, he has no other alternative.
I'm sorry if I'm asking the obvious here, but would you be willing to mail me a check for $20.00? I mean, you've got a lot of other monthly costs, so it's not like it's that much money.
=)
This whole post is utterly ridiculous. The whole point of the CD key is to enforce the fact that one retail copy of WoW is sold per online account. Each account needs its own unique CD key. If you can use that code more than once, then nobody needs to buy retail copies anymore since everyone can just pass around the same CD key. I really can't fathom how someone can not understand that.
You bought a used copy, therefore you are transferring ownership from one person or entity to another. This logic does not apply to a retail store, because the ownership is not being transferred as the auth key is unused.
A stupid analogy would be buying used milk. If you bought the milk used from someone other than grocery store and it expired prior to the "best before" date, it is not the groceries store or the milk producers responsibility for the bad milk.
The only thing I see here is that you are using biased reasoning to justify your disgust at a fundamentally flawed licensing scheme.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
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!"
So what happens if you install WoW, then your hard drive crashes, then you reinstall WoW? Since your authentication key's already been used?
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"
Yeah, you liberals and your software piracy sicken me. We need to make EULA's ligally binding and backed by criminal punishments to protect innovation. Anyone who is against it hates America.
Sorry, but you're completely missing the point of the author's article.
The intent was that whether or not he bought it used or new, he should have the right to play it.
There haven't been server queues for weeks. I'm on one of the more populated servers from release day, and I haven't noticed any problems in a long time.
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.
Yes.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I'm pretty sure thats the going rate for retail MMO games these days. TMO has been announced with a $49.99 price point at retail.
Pretty much the retail price is a deposit on your first month, plus the cost of CD manufacture, manual printing, and retail box manufacture.
Insert Sig Here
there is no reason they couldn't store the key in an account info, a simple query would tell them if somebody is blatenetly pirating... i really cant think of any reason to make it the primary key though(or at least unique).
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
There are clearly though many other options besides this. EverQuest, for example, doesn't even require you to buy the game in stores anymore. They'll let you purchase it at a reduced price and download the whole thing with a fresh key.
It's not quite the same thing, but there is no reason Blizzard (or EQ) in this situation shouldn't be able to generate a brand new key for him if the original key is truly defunct, which is something they can easily enforce on their end.
Never confuse volume with power.
You would think this fight would be over the digital "stuff" you own on the game (i.e. Swords, armor, charecter, etc...). I never thought of any company actually stopping you from selling a legal, physical copy of the game. It only works against them. Imagine what would happen if cars worked like this too...... Ossus
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.
It only makes sense that the key could be used once. I doubt Blizzard deletes old accounts, which means the key is still associated with an account, in use or not. If keys were transferrable, what would stop people from making 10 accounts on their own key? That gives you 10 accounts worth of bank space to store your junk, and with the mail system, moving the items is no problem. I mean, sure there is nothing stopping someone from buying 10 boxed editions of the game, but thats $400 in Blizzard's pocket, plus monthly fees. For anyone who plays MMO's, this shouldn't be any surprise at all. If you are coming from Halflife or some other online game, I could see how this could be confusing.
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
Actually, the initial cost isn't 100... There's a '10 day guest pass' included in the box, that can be upgraded to a full account without needing to purchase a second copy... Still a 50 dollar startup cost, but at least it's not 100.
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.
Ask the seller for his account. Delete the characters, change the Credit card number, and you're set.
God spoke to me.
Blizzard has already posted about this kind of issue:
n =b lizzard-archive&t=13&p=1&tmp=1#post13
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?f
You, sir, are SOL. Sorry.
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.
HAAAA haaaaa!
Another thing about WoW. I had a problem where they refused to cancel my account for a month after I cancelled it online. They basically said that cancelling it online isn't good enough to actually cancel the account. You need to call them and make sure they close it and it probably wouldnt be a bad idea to get some form of receipt.
that is by far the lamest post i've read all week
What does it matter to them where someone gets the game so long as they've slapped the money down to play it?
And since the beta was a .torrent, it's not like it would eat up their bandwidth either.
You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
you bought the media and you got the media. If you wanted to buy the account as well, you should contact the person who sold it to you and get the username and password.
If you expected to get both media and an account for your purchase, your beef is with the seller who misled you by only selling you the media, and not with blizzard.
The only comparable analogy i can use is a phone card, or pre paid cell phone. Just because you buy a phone that used to have minutes on it doesnt mean it still has minutes on it when it gets to you used. Your beef is with the seller, not blizzard, or AT&T wireless.
your assumption that you bought both the media and the account is just plain wrong.
Way back when EQ had first come out, I bought a retail version. After a while I got tired of it (I had beta tested the game, so my burnout factor was already up) and uninstalled the game. After about a year, a friend of mine got into EQ, so I decided I'd reinstall, create a new account and play. After installing came the CD Key registration. When I entered the CD Key, I was told the key was already used. Now I had to remember my login info for my old account. Fortunately I was able to and start playing, but jeez, what a pisser.
Neither you nor the guy who modded you up apparently bothered to even RTF/.post.
"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."
Ultima Online had the same problem. I bought a copy off of eBay many moons ago. I had to use the original owner's account and we transfered the billing information. Origin was pretty good about the whole situation. Once the billing transfer was done I changed the password and never looked back.
With all the network problems Blizzard has been having with WoW, I wouldn't expect them to get this resolved anytime soon. Their existing customers are going to come first on this one.
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
This key is bound to an existing (probably now suspended, due to quitting) account, with billing information and personal details attached. Of course you can't use that key again.
However, you now have a perfectly legal copy of the game (even according to their EULA, which must be a first for a MMO game), without a functioning key. The solution is obvious: Have them send you a replacement key.
They lose nothing, you don't have someone else's baggage, and it should be standard procedure for when a retail key is compromised by store clerks or a 'friend'.
A friend of mine encountered the exact same problem when attempting to play Ultima Online online a couple years ago. Apparantly, the manufacturer of that game didn't show any empathy for him either, and he eventually got refunded.
Also, theres little method in enforcing this law, as one person could simply install the game, sell it on ebay, and keep playing the game using their serial number's account forevermore. Seems the only option is getting a refund then, good luck with that.
Too late. Legislation has been out of hand for a LONG time.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
A treat to eat, in a puppet that's neat!
...a discussion about EULAs came up in the thread with the Microsoft guy. My contention then was some legal dept wrote it a decade ago and much of it is boilerplate the no one reads. You're just providing an example for my argument.
:-)
In this case, it wasn't YOU that didn't read it, it was the Blizzard guys. EULAs have gotten out of hand. Many of them have language in there that doesn't pertain to anything related with the product at all. It is in there because no one wants to pay the lawyer another couple hours of billing time to review any modifications.
You are SOL and your only real option is to get your money back from where you bought the game. If you do decide to hire a lawyer and go after Blizzard, expect to pay the lawyer 1000x the difference in the used/new prices of the box -- and probably not get anywhere.
It would be fun, though, if I won the lotto. Blizzard has proven themselves nothing but a bunch of dicks over their treatment of FreeCraft/Ale and the alternative server networks. I'd love to have the money to fuck them over with their own legalese.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
To not buy from the larger stupid corporations. I understand that pirates are damaging the industry, but is that any reason to _really_ annoy the people buying their games? Ah well, who needs anything other than Commander Keen, GTA 1 & C&C Tiberian Dawn anyway?
http://www.neobard.info - wacky world of me
Also, you get your first month free (so deduct that cost too.)
Share and Enjoy!
Doesn't this fill your heart with hate? Why don't we all call Blizzard and tell them how we feel about it?
Actually it can't, I just tried that. There's fine print that says you have to buy a new set of retail cds and enter that key.
That's not the same, i think it is legit to buy a copy of Windows (including license) off of someone if they are no longer using it. The point is that Blizzard aren't losing money neither are they gaining it. Because the game he bought was used (and probably cheaper than retail) he shouldn't be penalised. I would, however, agree with you if the seller had retained a copy, which in this situation appears not to be so.
Could now be the time that we finally get to test this idea in court? If a company must argue that they are not legally bound by the terms of their own EULA it could set a precedent allowing customers to argue the same thing.
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."
This is not true ... trust me as I've tried it.
Kleedrac
Sure we wang, can.
Read the post. Blizzard specifically admitted that at any time the original owner could re-take the account, and that there was no way to prevent this. If he bought from a store or e-bay, etc. where the original owner is anonymous, this certainly isn't an option.
Common sense is what tells us that the world is flat
Simple.
The distributor gets the cash out of the box sales.
If accounts were free, or available from online, there would be no distribution of the box version. No distributor wants to touch a game that is available online cheaper (or even at same price, but 'easier').
And stupid people won't consider games they can't buy as a box from a store. No store visibility = way less subscribers.
Only when the game is dead as a doorknob as 'store boxed version', the sale / giveaway of accounts beings.
Basically they are feeding Vivendi Universal or whoever handles the distribution. VU has to get mucho money, so VU can be bothered to put the game on shelves, on magazine pages etc.
Yes, the whole store/boxes/crap model is outdated. I'd happily pay real money for games if I could actually download them at launch day, instead of waiting for ages for the stupid boxes to ship and arrive to stores. I paid for HL2, mostly because they allowed this. Yeah, steam is 'bad' or 'crappy' or whatever, but at least it works. I got the game on launch day, not a week late (hint: I don't live in the US), and I got it at a same price as the US customers got (no extra taxes, duties, shipping costs and other crap).
I don't know that it was company policy, but it was certainly known by the store manager that they often bought and sold Phantasy Star Online, which was associated with the Dreamcast serial number and could NEVER be transferred.
Wasn't PSO for Dreamcast used to dump and play unlawful copies of commercial Dreamcast games before crackers found the MIL-CD selfboot exploit?
When you buy the box for an MMO, you're not really paying for some CDs and a crappy manual, you're paying an account creation fee. This has been the case with most MMO's for the lifetime of the genre (nearly a decade).
What makes him so damn special is that he is following the License Agreement to the letter. Blizzard fucking told him he could do this, and then when he tried to they ignored the issue and gave him a round about analogy that does not apply to his situation, much like your windows + cd key analogy.
Note to self: No more arguing with the faithful.
Your life and addiction to WoW are mutually exclusive. By not letting you play, they (Blizzard) are doing you a favor.
Blizzard owes you a refund of $49.99.
Blizzard grants the right of transfering ownership of the account including any keys. If Blizzard refuses to allow you to play then you cannot accept the EULA and byt those terms you get refunded.
In actuality Blizzard should just issue you a new key. If you feel strongly enough about this, you wil probably need to file a legal suit. You might want to contact the EFF as they might be interested because of some of the ramifications of a lawsuit over a EULA.
I doubt Blizzard would want to let this go to court as either judgement would be bad- ie either Blizzard violated thier own terms or the EULA is null and void.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Use the time honored and honed by my youth trick of just returning it to Wal-Mart and saying the disk will not load. They give you an exact copy, you keep it, or return the unopened copy at another store for money or credit. Ahhh fond memories of youthful schenanigans.
Home of the midwest loser - www.say-10.net
Games like Everquest, EQ2, WoW, Anarchy Online, etc do not require the CD to be in the drive during play.
What they do instead is use "one-time only" account keys. When you purchase a retail box (or an expansion) you are really buying the account key and thats it. The rest of the stuff in the box is fluff and unnecessary.
If I want to play EQ2, all I need is a copy of my buddie's EQ2 installation and an unused account key (say, one I copied down off the manual out of a box I opened in the store when no one was looking)
Thats the catch though. Account keys are only usable one time. You can create one, and only one, account with an account key. End of story.
SOE (Everquest, EQ2) at least makes this clear in their EULA and on the box.
This is the ultimate in copy protection, since they basically let you copy the game all you want. Want to install EQ on your dad's computer, your laptop, your work PC? Go right ahead. SOE won't care.
However, you can still only log in and use your account (linked to the account key) from one machine at any given time. Heck, SOE even takes advantage of this by encouraging people to install EQ2 on a friends PC, so they can use "Isle of Refuge" freebee demo account keys to gain trial access to the game (hopefully snaring such people into paying to upgrade to a full account later)
Account Keys are the only thing of actual value being sold when you purchase WoW, EQ2, EQ, etc.
These online games are worthless without an active account, and the gaming companies want to make sure they get their one-time purchase fee, plus recuring subscription charges, from everyone who plays the game. Subscription charges alone aren't good enough.
Really it's simply a service model with a sign-up fee in addition to the subscription fee. Heck, SOE has, in recent years, gone the route of entirely digital distribution of expansions (not sure why they didn't offer digital only versions of EQ2 itself, but they say that expansions for EQ2 will be available digital only, just like they have been for EQ1)
Don't pay for anything that doesn't include a "never before used" account key, otherwise, you aren't getting anything for your money.
There were server issues... It was due to player's crowding a select bunch of the servers and not moving to a different one once Blizzard significantly increased the number of servers out there.
At least that's what the word on the street was.
Insert Sig Here
I think what the EULA is covering here is if you bought a copy of the game and then you somehow destroyed your copy, you'd have a valid sign on, but no game. In this case you'd want to buy the game from another person. Notice that this is not the buying of an account, but it is the selling of the game and all game materials to another person.
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.
They are charging a monthly fee. They should be distributing the software (with regular updates) for free over the 'net! Let's face it... anybody that wants to play the game already has an internet connection! Why do they insist on treating a what should be a subscription service like it was still shrinkwrapped software?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Have you tried contacting the EFF? My hunch is they're looking for a test case.
Blizzard's customer service tends to be shaky at best, however you can get a new CD-key. Blizzard has a system in place to deal with stolen CD-keys. Treat this as a situation where you CD-key was stolen or non-functional. Do not tell them anything about wanting to transfer ownership of a CD-key. Keep it simple and tell them only what they need to know. Blizzard honestly doesn't care about what their EULA or packaging says. They do things their way and if the package promised something that wasn't in the game they will tell you tough luck.
l 0641p
#1) I recently purchased a copy of World of Warcraft
#2) When I try to sign up for an account the CD-key says it is already used
#3) I have the original CD-case with the CD-key sticker on it and read on your site I can mail them in to get a new CD-key
Remember the Diablo II players are famous for their acts of stupidity. They regularly get their CD-keys and accounts stolen. So if you just play the dumb "It says someone else has my CD-key and I don't know why" and then cite their CD-key replacement policy they should do it for you. If they tell you to return it to the store just tell them "the store doesn't take returns" and "it was the only copy I could find."
You may not be too keen on deceit, but honestly this is the only way blizzard will do anything. While they are fine about jerking around people who buy used copies of the game they will be much less eager to screw over someone who they think bought a new copy of the game that doesn't work.
More information about the process:
http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=aal
"I'm sorry if I'm asking the obvious here, but why not buy a copy from a store instead of a used copy from someone? I mean it's a monthly charge and you're sneaking out of the $39.95 or whatever it is for the base version?"
That really isn't the point. It sounds like the EULA allows one to transfer ownership of the game, the same way you could transfer ownership of a CD, DVD, bike, or lawnmower. Now it seems like Blizzard is attempting to squash the rights of someone to participate in a secondary sale.
I don't see why this is an issue for Blizzard, where the other person paid for the merchandise, and no longer wants to pay the monthly subscription, yet this guy does want to send them money. If the original owner has stopped his monthly payment, that should be indication that he no longer wants to maintain an active account.
If they want to impose controls to protect against piracy, it should be Blizzards problem to implement a system that is flexible enough to not trample the consumers rights.
To address your point about "sneaking out" of the $39.95, Blizzard could always charge an account activation fee and give the disks away free. Instead, they chose the business model where money changes hand at the retail level. Once the item has been paid for, the consumer owns it and has a right to sell it. Under their licensing scheme, only one account can be active at a time per physical disk purchased anyways - since the other guy isn't using the software anymore, and the physical disk has been transferred, so should the rights to an account. No "sneaking" is going on. Blizzard just doesn't approve of a secondary market which may hurt additional retail sales they aren't entitled to.
Read the Terms of Use. The EULA allows the transfer of the GAME, but nowhere does it allow the transfer of the SERVICE.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=abl 01115p
I've heard the same thing happen with City of Heroes. They state explicitly that if the "scratch lottery cover" is in any way compromised over the secret key that you're screwed.
The thing that ticks me off is having to pay (monthly fee * 1.5 to 3) to buy the game up front. They should give you either the game for free or a discounted monthly fee for six months so that you recover the cost of the game.
Fortunately for me, Best Buy was running Deluxe DVD Collector's Edition Supper Spiff City of Heroes for $30, the day after I bought it Fry's put it on sale for $20, Best Buy gave me a rebate so I'm happy.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
I think anyone who tries to use a software product in a way that the publisher doesn't approve of (i.e. software pirates), should be classified as an "enemy combatant" and held in internment camps indefinitely without due process of law.
Anyone who disagrees just hates Americans because they envy our freedoms.
The EULA is not a contract. It's a license. It states the terms under which you may be allowed to use the copyrighted work.
The EULA does not prohibit the original purchaser from transferring the medium, registration key, etc. In fact, this is specifically allowed.
However, the EULA does not say that the key can be used more than once--by the original purchaser or by a secondary purchaser.
If the original purchaser were to sell the whole ball of wax prior to ever having used the key, then the secondary purchaser would find that he has exactly the same rights and priveledges as the original purchaser.
And, if the original purchaser were to sell the whole shootin' match after using the key, then the secondary purchaser would find that he has exactly the same rights and priveledges as the original purchaser. Namely, a key that cannot be used a second time.
At this point, the only way that the original purchaser can effectively exercise the right of first sale is by transferring the single account that is allowed to be created using the key.
And that's specifically disallowed in the EULA.
So, your legal rights are preserved. You just have no legal way to effectively exercise them.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
They probably AREN'T getting that money is the point.
If I understood correctly the account is not transferable according to the terms of use. Moreover according to the submitter Blizzard said there will be enough unchangeable traces of personal information left in connection with the account that the original buyer would be able to take over the account later on.
So best solution really is to cancel/suspend the old key and create a new one, even if that new key would require monthly charge right from the beginning.
I happen to read the EULA for Max Payne, and it said according to the agreement, the ONLY (the word they specifically used) thing I could use the physical CD for was as an archival backup of the software. Sadly, the game required me to have the CD in the drive while playing it, so essentially the only way to play the game is either to bread the EULA or to install a NOCD crack, which would of course be against the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision.
And the industry wonders why EULA's are ignored.
It is quite hillarious:
A. Rules Related to User Names. Each user will select a user name for his or her character, or allow the World of Warcraft software to select the name for him or her. Additionally, users may form "guilds" and such guilds will be required to choose a name for the guild. When you choose a user name, create a guild, or otherwise create a label that can be seen by other players of World of Warcraft, you must abide by the following guidelines as well as the rules of common decency. If Blizzard Entertainment, in its sole discretion, finds such a label to be offensive, it reserves the right to change the name, remove the label and corresponding chat room, and/or suspend your use of World of Warcraft.
In particular, you may not use:
1. Names of another person with the intent to impersonate that person;
2. Names which incorporate 'swear' words or which are otherwise offensive, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
3. Names subject to the rights of any other person without authorization;
4. Names of popular culture or media personalities;
5. Names that are trademarks, or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment or other companies);
6. Names of religious deities or figures;
7. Names of characters from Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft products, including character names from the Warcraft series of novels; or
8. Names related to drugs, narcotics, or criminal activity, including references to drug substances; or
9. Name comprised of partial or complete sentences (e.g., "Inyourface", "Welovebeef", etc);
10. Names comprised of pure gibberish (eg, "Asdfasdf", "Jjxccm", "Hvlldrm");
11. Names that refer to pop culture icons or personas (e.g. "Britneyspears", "Austinpowers", "Batman")
12. Names that utilize "Leet" or "Dudespeak" (e.g., "Roflcopter", "xxnewbxx", "Roxxoryou")
13. Name that incorporate titles. The term "Titles" as used herein shall include 'rank' titles (e.g. , "CorporalTed," or "GeneralVlad") and/or fantasy titles (e.g., "KingMike", "LordSanchez")
Additionally, you may not use a misspelling or an alternative spelling to circumvent the name restrictions listed above, nor can you have a "first" and "last" name that, when combined, violate the above name restrictions.
I especially like the dudespeak one and "lordsanchez"
My wife WILL be a lawyer very soon, and she knows this stuff. So we go to purchase a copy of TurboTax at BestBuy because they are advertising that you get Quicken 2005 and Quickbooks 2005 for free! Not seeing the fine print on the box, we didn't realize you had to first purchase those two software titles seperately, then get the rebates from within the TurboTax box and mail in all this shit to get your refunds for Quicken and Quickbooks. Being thoroughly frustrated and not wanting to go through the hassle of doing all this, we decided to return the software. After all, the back of the BestBuy receipt said no return of video game software, DEFECTIVE SOFTWARE, DVDs, etc etc could be made. Notice that we never even loaded TurboTax onto a computer, never opened the disk sleave even, so TurboTax was NOT defective software, nor did it fit any other categories on the back of the receipt for "things that can't be returned."
After a lengthy argument with the all-knowing college kids manning the Customer Service desk at our local Best Buy we gave up. Best Buy obviously wasn't going to do anything - it would be a waste of our time to even continue to pursue that avenue (even after calling the 1-800 Best Buy # like we did and got the same response), and small claims court - which is where we'd have to file our legal complaint - would cost $40+ just in filing fees, not to mention all the time wasted down that path. So basically, unless you can get your money back from the person you bought it from, you're probably fucked.
Companies knowingly write these EULA's and Terms of Sale for us individual consumers to intentionally protect themselves. If they're overeaching their bounds, they know that if you waste enough of your own time and money to raise such a stink about it, it's still cheaper to eventually pay you off. And if you think class action lawsuits are the way to go, think again. It takes a lawyer (or several) to organize that endeavor, and even then it's gotta be worth THEIR efforts to push the big companies for a big payout. So Best Buy and Blizzard are just protecting their interests as much as possible, knowing that if you really freak out about it they can just pay you off, keep their rules in place, and continue to screw the majority of their consumers in the interest of company profit margins. It makes sense, even if it's not at all fair. You would do the same if you ran those companies.
This looks to be the way of the future with multiplayer online gaming. I'll use this information as a warning. From now on, I will treat the physical media as only a convenience feature, and I would treat the item as such. What this means is that absent of a valid, unused registration code, the discs are only worth the cost of the printing, since you'll still have to go out and buy the license anyway.
Perhaps Blizzard is willing to sell you a new code at a discount, since you won't be needing the install media. But I doubt it, since we're talking about Blizzard here. This seems to me to be a stupid policy, since the game is a monthly service you pay for, no? Why don't they just raise the monthly fees and invest in some more infrastructure? Why would the reg codes even matter when you technically can't "pirate" the service?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
It's called greed. Unfortunately most companies these days have caught the bug.
Why charge a fee to purchase the game and then another to play it? Because they can.
People are still going to buy the game and pay a monthly fee. Sure, it would be nice to not have to invest all of that money as a sort of start-up cost, but hell, as long as people are doing it why not capitalize?
It is unfortunate that we have accepted this practice into our society. If people were not suckered into paying for the game itself and then again to play it, I can guarantee you companies would no longer charge for it.
It iss a good business move, though. I would do it, too.
If their EULA says this can happen, they are legally obligated to make it happen (they wrote the contract). Call them back, read the EULA to them. Then fax it if they don't believe you (or scan and e-mail). Then when all is said and done, if they cannot PHYSICALLY change the data (and that's bs, because all we are taking about is some data on some server) they can give you a free cd key. It has to be free so they honor their EULA.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I would look FTC for help. You obviously do not agree to the EULA because Blizzard will not honor your right to use the software.
.053 minutes of a good lawyers time :-)
FTC Complaint Form This may help you getting a legal investigation started.
I do not think that first sale doctrine applies because the software isn't purchased it is licensed. I do however think that you have a breach of contract claim. Reference the folliwing article Having said that first sale doesn't apply, I have not been able to find an example where this has been tried in a court.
IANAL. This is not legal advice. In face it isn't even supposed to look like legal advice or in any way seem like it might be seeming to be posing as legal advice. Heck for the price of a used video game you can purchase
This is definitely one of the stupidest posts Slashdot has ever seen....
;) By the way, you do not get free refills of the jug if you are the original owner. Not unless you pay for a lifetime of free re-fills. Again, the original poster is just for lack of a better word, insane.
If you check the terms of use page linked in the OP, you can plainly see near the top:
1. Establishment of Your World of Warcraft Account.
A. You may establish one (1) user account ("Account") with which to play World of Warcraft by accessing Blizzard Entertainment's proprietary on-line service ("Service"), pursuant to the terms, conditions and restrictions contained in this Agreement.
as well as section 1-E:
E. Blizzard Entertainment does not recognize the transfer of Accounts between individuals.
I don't see how this person has any right whatsoever to have a new account registered for a CD key that already has an account registered with it.... it just doesn't make ANY sense. By that train of thought, one person could buy the game then hand it along to every person he knows, letting each new person register a new account and bypassing the purchase price of the game itself.... no sense whatsoever.
I do think relating it to buying a milk jug and expecting free refills on an empty jug is pretty funny though.
Actually, *copyright* law is what does this. The EULA is what makes you buy a new version of windows every time you upgrade your computer. It's informative to note that this is not the standard in *any* industry except computing, and even there it's specific to a few players with the clout to get away with it. In any other industry, a company that tried to irrevocably bind a retail product like that would be laughed out of existence.
Let me clarify a bit...
Each key allows you to create 1 and only 1 account.
Each account allows you to create as many characters as you want on any server. (There may be a limit but I don't know it.)
So to answer your question, there is nothing to stop you from doing exactly what you've described. In fact, I have two characters on the same server and one on another. I can easily mail money/items back and forth between chars on the same server.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
...unless they were using the money spent for time played to keep it running smoothly and cheater-free; I'm not a big MMOG player these days so I'm not quite keen on if it has an effect versus games that don't charge you for time played, like Counter-Strike or SOCOM II. That said, SOCOM II is teh utter sux in reliability.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
First of all this post doesnt even deserve the merit of a response. No offense, but you NEVER EVER BUY AN MMORPG THAT IS USED. NEVER. Unless the person gives you a copy of his username and password. No one should even be selling it! I thought this would be common knowledge by now. This article should be more about the lesson this guy learned by doing that, than the EULA. Who cares about the EULA, this is how MMORPGS work, you are getting into some pretty vague specifics to justify an inane purchase/decision in the first place!
Okay, the clause in the EULA says that you CAN sell the game to another end user. The folks saying otherwise are apparently wearing blinders. The likelihood here is that Blizzard's legal department used their standard boilerplate for the EULA, and didn't realize some of the issues there were going to be with software keys vs. accounts. I would guess that the folks whom you have spoken to so far really dont *know* the terms in the EULA, just what they've been trained to dole out to users. The legal folks probably hope that this doesn't get back to the higher-ups, as I'd guess that some folks could be in for termination if the bosses realize the standard EULA was used. The bosses probably never intended for WoW to be transferred between end users. You'll be fighting an uphill battle to get to someone who actually is willing to go through the EULA, and chase this. A court case? You could, but seems like a lot of time and effort. I might try e-mailing someone known to be high up in the blizzard food-chain about this, first. Is it worth your effort to fight through this in order to have saved $5 or $10 on the retail box? Nope. Is it worth it to fight for the principal of holding a corporate entity accountable to the end users? Very well could be. --Ikarius
Economics.
MMOs like this do add a lot of content on a regular basis, as well as add the "content" of playing with others online. The result is one game can keep you entertained for quite a long time.
I can complete, replay and become bored with 2-4 single-player games in one month. (Approx $100-200 per month)
If I can find an MMO that holds my intrest for a month, then I've only paid about $20-25 per month. Usually, I can find an MMO that holds my intrest for several months.
Bingo. You get a license to do whatever you want with the coasters (within the limitations of the EULA). Sadly the content of the coasters does jack and shit without a personal account to the WoW gameservers (the service). Which you cannot transfer. Buying used MMOs is considered stupid due to this little fact, and known to all longtime players of the genre.
You just don't allow the game to be downloaded (not at first, anyway). Then the distributors get first sell profits like they normally do. Distributors never get money from sales of used games anyway. (It's why they keep trying to get it outlawed).
Although if you make the used game market viable by activating new accounts then you would potentially diminish new games sales. Though I couldn't say that would make THAT much of an impact if the game normally retails for $50, the used copy goes for $30 and you charge $20 to reactivate the key. Or even charge the guy $25 to reactivate the key so that you're still fulfilling your end of the bargain, but making a disincentive for buying used product.
The physical disks and documentation are owned by the person that bought it, and can be transferred. It's interesting that Blizzard agreed and put this in the actual EULA. It's forward-thinking, imho.
But the inability to transfer the account is conflicting.
The best thing to do is to get the original account information, and an agreement (contract) with the original seller that he won't try to commandeer the account or release the information about it, and that such an action would harm you.
Most people would have no problem with giving you the information and agreeing to do that, although they probably won't go through the trouble of sending you a notarized document after the fact. Just get it in an email with the agreement that they won't try to retract the account or give out info, and you won't run into any issues.
You should have called tech support and say, I bought the game and it won't let me log in. I can fax you a picture of the "key". I don't know what happened? Someone is using my key.
That or you should get the key/account from the seller or get your money back.
It's not even fine print, it is clearly stated when creating the account using the trial key that you will have to purchase the retail game in order to continue playing once the trial period is up.
I'd post a screenshot of the registration process if I actually felt refuting your fine print comment was worth the time....
You also bring up the EULA. EULAs (assuming they are valid at all) are contracts. The sale of your copy of the game was between you and the person who sold it to you, not between you and Blizzard, so I don't see how you would have a contract with Blizzard.
I stopped buying Blizzard games for this reason. I still like StarCraft though - but after they shutdown FreeCraft and/or the Battlenet server project, I made myself a promise to never give them another cent.
Slashdot is certainly a place to be heard - but sometimes you have to make a statement with your wallet.
I would FU*(#@$_ING love to see a boycott of Blizzard -
I don't believe that Blizzard doesn't have the ability to delete accounts, because accounts closed for reasons other than cancellation are (or should be) gone for good, or at least not re-activatable. Keep calling and asking to talk to supervisors, I guess. Make some threats. Small claims court may be your friend.
I was planning on installing WOW on my laptop so I could play away from home but now it sounds like I won't be able to activate that copy.
I can completely understand only allowing a key to be logged in once but only allowing a key to be activated once seems wrong.
Now maybe I'm misunderstanding because obviously there has to be some way to reactivate to handle drive crashes/new computers/etc. Maybe it only allows you to reactivate with the original registration info?
I logged into my account and I can change every piece of information except my name.
I can see blizzard's justification. If they allow the game to be transferred to a new owner and the old owner calls up and says hey my Key has been stolen and I can't play the game what is blizzard to do? They have no proof that the new seller purchased the copy from the old server so it could become a nightmare for them.
That being said, it's a bummer that they didn't create a way to deactivate a key by the current owner so that the new owner could reactivate it. In that instance, being that the current owner needed a user/pass to deactivate it I believe it's a safe transaction and blizzard can start collecting another $14/month.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
It would be $100 if his wife wants her own copy, though.
Seems to be an issue of a terms of service. Registration and accounts relate to the service part of the game, specifily access to Blizzard's online game servers.
The normal EULA thing gets more confusing in the case of MMORPGs because there's the "good" component of it, the software you buy, and the "service" component, the game servers you play on. It's an online service like any other, and does require a monthly fee to use.
So while the EULA may not be enforcable, I don't see that it's really teh question here. The question is if the ToS is enforcable. Does Blizzard have the right to refuse you service, even if you own a copy of the software?
Is that you, Bill? Why don't you create an account instead of posting as an anonymous cowherd, Mr. Gates!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The right to transfer ownership of the tangible expression of a copyrighted work is fundamental to our system of intellectual property ownership: 17 U.S.C. sec. 109 (2000). I don't quote this provision to suggest that Blizzard is breaking the law, simply that the right to alienate (essentially a fancy legal term for "sell") your copy of a copyrighted work is enshrined in United States law (and in fact, is generally recognized throughout the world).
So what is Blizzard doing here? It is denying the initial purchaser of the game the right to sell his or her copy (who am I kidding? His) copy of the game in the open marketplace. The initial purchaser of the game agreed to Blizzard's End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) when he first started playing. (Of course, the legal enforceability of these EULAs is somewhat murky -- different states have different laws, although UCITA is the most common attempt to make EULAs enforceable.) Blizzard's argument is that it and its customer entered into an enforceable contract. Both sides gave consideration and both sides agreed to perform certain actions and to give the other side certain rights in exchange for either money or a service provided.
Now Blizzard (at least according to the poster) is attempting to renege on its side of the bargain, while still (presumably) insisting that the purchaser abide by all terms and conditions.
A couple of additional thoughts:
First, don't argue with front-line customer service. Get in touch with Blizzard corporate headquarters or other supervisory personnel. Recognize that, while you are probably correct, it's likely an issue of first impression under the new WoW system and as a pioneer, you're likely to get a slow response.
Second, make sure that the initial owner of the game took the proper steps to terminate his account before he sold it to you.
Third, recognize that Blizzard is perfectly correct to be suspicious of someone claiming that, simply because you have the key, it should terminate an existing account. Respect their view on this because it's a world of hurt for them if they wrongly start terminating accounts. I can easily foresee them asking someone five times "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PERMANENTLY DELETE THIS ACCOUNT? ARE YOUR SURE YOU'RE SURE?" and then getting a complaint the next day that their account isn't working. They really are in a no-win situation.
Fourth, while yes, I am a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer. Nothing in this post should be construed as providing legal advice.
Finally, Blizzard needs to get on the ball and recognize when they are wrong. This sounds like a cluck-up. (But then again, first line support people aren't supposed to be interpreting legal documents.) I'm guessing this is more a matter of getting this issue in front of someone with the authority to make it right.
I should be able to return software.
You can return software. If I told you that you had no right to express your opinions on George W. Bush in public, what would you say? Of course I do. The sad fact is that many, many people will try to tell you that you don't have rights that you do, in fact, have. Most people are sheep and just accept it. This is one of those cases. If you buy something from a retailer, then it doesn't work or you don't want to accept the license agreement, either the retailer or the publisher owes you a refund. Be vocal and get it.
The reason they don't allow this, of course, is that allowing the return of software would obliterate all profit in the retail arena. My girlfriend worked in clothing retail at a fairly upscale store, and the number of people that would buy something, wear it, and return it was staggering. With software, though, I could buy it, copy it, and return it, so I have my money AND the product. Allowing the return of copyable goods just doesn't make business sense.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
People should read the F* question. :-)
:-)
It seems to me that the majority of the replies have totally missed the point of the question. The question wasn't "would it be reasonable for Blizzard to prohibit reselling?" The question was whether they were in violation of the contract implied in their own EULA. The EULA specifically said that the game could be sold. Maybe that's not what it should have said, but that's what it said. Since they are the ones who wrote the EULA, my understanding is that any ambiguity gets interpreted in your favor, except that I don't even see any ambiguity here.
I think you have a small claims case.
Of course, if I were a lawyer, I wouldn't be posting free legal advice here. You've already paid me everything that my opinion on the matter is worth.
I haven't hit a limit at this point. I'm not sure what the official limit is but I have to assume unlimited for the time being so 1 or 10 accounts still gives you unlimited chars per server.
The issue here isn't creating a new account anyway, it's simply transfer of ownership of the single account.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
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?
So, according to this logic, if my computer dies and I buy a new one I should not be able to install my very expensive software on this new computer? That isn't a good idea. There is no way I will pay a few hundred dollars for software and not be able to install it if I ever get a new computer. The lifespan of modern computers isn't that high. People upgrade their computers way too much for a scheme like this to work.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein
Even before the server load issues and not releasing more copies to retail until it's fixed, I heard about the game being "it." and almost did buy it on more than one occassion. Then I remembered "It's still Blizzard; they make good games, but the people in charge of 'taking care of business' are still shysters and snakes to me."
No sig for you!!
You should have told them that you bought a new copy of WoW, and the key is used...goddamn pirates and their keygen programs....
And when you buy sheets for your bed, you shouldn't be able to put them on other beds, without going to jail.
And when you buy a suit with two pairs of pants, you should go to jail if you try to wear one of those pairs of pants with a different jacket.
And if you buy a book, it should explode and blind anyone else who reads it.
This seems like the perfect test case for the enforceability of a shrinkwrap EULA in the hands of an ordinary consumer.
Actually this could backfire, since the user is arguing that Blizzard is not supporting part of their EULA. If the court orders Blizzard is responsible for creating a system in which they are compliant with their EULA they give strength to the contractual nature of the EULA. (Blizzard is responsible for complying with the agreed upon terms in the EULA)
However, the user could argue that Blizzard is not supporting section 109 of copyright law, which allows the user to sell or transfer their license, and not worry about the whole EULA controversy.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
You don't need to have a cd to run the game. I could install via a friend and use my account- very useful. The reason blizzard is doing what you're complaining about is because this is creating an extra account, presumably leaving the other one active. If you want to sell and change the game, sell the game and the account that came with it- delete the characters, do whatever you want... but the account is bound to the game. The CDs aren't really needed anymore.
- dshaw
Right now, they're recouping their R&D costs. Eventually, much like NCSoft (City of Heroes) or Funcom (Anarchy Online) or even Sony Online Entertainment (EQ1) they will let you download the client and sign up via their website.
I would have assumed that there's no way to buy a used key and get it to work. Similarly, I would have suggested that you just get the account name and password from the person wanting to sell their copy, but if you can't change the basic user information (which seems strange as people have been known to change their address, telephone number and even name) I guess there's currently no way to get an account except to buy a new retail box.
I think part of the problem is that EULAs in general say that you simply do not own the software that you have purchased. You may own the physical medium the software exists upon, but not the software itself. So, though the WoW EULA says that the rights and so on may be transferred to another owner, you're not really being transferred anything anyway. :)
Basically, I'm seeing that you've found something that Blizzard didn't think of, and now you're getting the runaround from customer service while they either 1) figure out what to do, or 2) hope you'll go away. In the end, though, Blizzard will want you to buy a new copy of the game... which is dumb, because if you buy it from anywhere other than directly from Blizzard, they already have the money for their game when they sold it to a distributor.
With Final Fantasy XI, when I sold my copy I had to call in to customer service and have my billing info stripped from the account.
I had to leave the account active and send along my login and password with the used game. The person who bought the game had to login with my login and password and then enter thier billing info.
So maybe you can't use the code to create a new account, but you can log in to the existing account the seller had and then reactivate the subscription by setting up your billing info...
That post is irrelevant. It deals with KEYS bought online. The reason they don't want that is that people could just warez the game, then buy a used key. Which would cut their earnings, and they'd end up with a load of unsold boxes.
The poster *has* the original game, and he also has a *valid* CD-key that is *not* in use (It has been, but that is irrelevant).
Tell me *one* good reason Blizzard shouldn't unfuck this?
I'd bet that this all stems from a design flaw in their database. The CD key is almost certainly a Unique non-nullable value in their database. Their policy is not to remove users from the system and therfore it probably isn't designed in such a way to make that simple (i.e. no relational integrity with cascading deletes, etc). So if you try to register with the new key, they don't know what to do with the key for the previously existing and undeleteable account.
So what happened in the end is that their lawyers and their developers didn't actually talk about the EULA in any depth. The clause, while perfectly reasonable, doesn't seem to have any meand of implementation in their real world system.
I suspect if enough people complain they'll put some hack in place for customer service to resolve these problems. But they'll probably create a few cranky people in the mean time.
Seems to me that a good way to avoid this mess in the first place is to give away the software in stores, and then have an activation cost for the first month. Then who cares who has what CD. To create a new account, you still have to pay them for it when you activate the account.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
3B. You may permanently transfer ownership of the Game and all parts thereof, and all of your rights and obligations under the License Agreement, to another by physically transferring the CD-ROM, all original packaging, and all Manuals or other documentation associated with the Game, and by removing from all of your home or personal computers and destroying any remaining materials concerning the Game in your possession or control, provided the recipient agrees to the terms of this License Agreement. The transferor (i.e., you), and not the Licensor, agrees to be solely responsible for any taxes, fees, charges, duties, withholdings, assessments, and the like, together with any interest, penalties, and additions imposed in connection with such transfer.
It seems like the person you got it from did not destroy their account. Granted, Blizzard doesn't allow for this, but the EULA does state that this should have been done prior to tranferring ownership.
Pretty much the retail price is a deposit on your first month, plus the cost of CD manufacture, manual printing, and retail box manufacture.
That's total bull, since if that were the case there would be no reason for them to charge me for a second one when both my wife and myself wanted to play... I could just pay them a second monthly fee and install from the CDs I already had.
Not only that, but The manufacturing costs are signifigantly lower than $35 ($50 minus the first month).
'm pretty sure thats the going rate for retail MMO games these days.
Than that rate is too high, and I won't be playing any of those games.
we ordered two copies from blizzard's site. only 1 arrived in the package.
when we called, they hemmed and hawed and acted like they had proof there was two in the box "because the order said 2."
after much back and forth they agreed, in an email to us, to send another copy and some other assorted goodies, so we agreed by email.
now we get an email back asking us to explain what the problem was in the first place.
*sigh*
i haven't written them back yet; they are on the blacklist *stamps blizzard's forehead*
Really? Your average non-MMORPG probably costs about US $45. That cost is an attempt to recoup development costs, since clearly a company can't get money from the consumer first and then develop the game. Of course, no company makes a game simply for the purpose of making the game--they want to make money off of it, too. If you call that greed, then I think you're being pretty silly. It's called business.
Now look at your average MMORPG. It's got roughly the same initial cost for the consumer, which makes sense as it also must be developed. There's an argument that MMORPGs cost more to develop due to the fact that it's a networked game. Even if there weren't added complexities in dealing with the network code, you have to code the server in addition to the client, and generally the server code has to be highly scalable as one "server" in the game will probably span across many different machines. So assuming that the complexity of a MMORPG like this is greater than that of your average game (and thus the development costs are greater) isn't really stretching things. But for the sake of argument, let's ignore that point.
The fact that Blizzard has to maintain persistent servers in order for people to play this game means that they have an ongoing cost above the cost of developing the game. Now with the old battle.net, this wasn't a big deal. Although still an ongoing cost, the servers only had to dish out random numbers for monsters and store character files. Servers for an MMORPG have to pass much more traffic and store much more information, in addition to needing more processor power to maintain the game world. The monthly cost goes to keep the servers running and probably help defray the cost of updates/patches, etc.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect people to purchase the game (to cover the costs of development) as well as pay a monthly subscription (for the use of the servers). What is unreasonable is not allowing a transfer of the game media if the previous account is cancelled. For any other game (except maybe Half-life 2?) once I'm tired of it, I can sell it or give it to a friend. Why can't I with WoW?
IAAL, too. I hope you are lying about being a lawyer though, since your research skills are lacking. I'll leave it to you to find ProCD Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996), reversing 908 F.Supp. 640 (W.D. Wis. 1996). BTW, I'm guessing you're a law student, not a lawyer (yet). Am I right?
Also, considering that every non-Blizzard/LucasArts PC game out there right now is released at $35, I'd hardly call the first month "free".
You may permanently transfer ownership of the Game and all parts thereof
It seems pretty clear to my reading, there is one CD key, and one account and Blizzard gives you permission to sell that account along with everything else, but if you're not happy with that - too bad.
If you don't want someone else's stinky account or you don't trust them - too bad.
Ok, so it's not like some other games, and it would be preferable to have it like other games, but it's not that uncommon either...
---- I've fallen, and I can't get up.
Because you sometimes get a used copy when you supposedly buy a new one! Let me explain... I purchased a second copy for my wife from my local MalWart. I was in a hurry, and it wasn't till I got home that I noticed the seal on the box was busted. Hoping for the best, I opened the box to find that someone had ripped off the CD code, and stole the 10 day trial card. In exchange for their removal service, I recieved a popcorn stained crushed CD pack. Now all that aside, what does the EULA in the game say? I don't think you need to log in to see it, just install.
Does the purchase of WoW come with a month free of service? If so, then Blizzard might be right in denying the recipient from getting a new account from a used copy.
If not, I think it would be better if the game itself was free, where people could download it online and pay only the monthly fee, or buy it at the store and get one month free ( that would cost maybe another $5 for the fancy manual, etc. ) but would not have the account itself transferrable, so if you were to sell the game you'd just be selling the manuals and box.
The only problem I do see with this though is limiting stock, much like the problem they have now. If this was freely downloadable, it's harder to control the creation of accounts. Although you could prevent the creation of accounts after a threshold, people who bought the box from the store would be pissed because they paid for a month already and cannot get online.
I agree. I miss the old Blizzard that put their gaming experience ahead of everything else. Mind you, WOW is considered by some people to be the best game of 2004, but I really think that things such as their pay-to-play system and overall customer support is uncharacteristic of the Blizzard we all once knew. On top of that, it seems that most of the people that DON'T say that the game outright rules, go to the other extreme and say that the game outright sucks. It seems to me that their old games created either die hard fans, partial fans, or people that still couldn't stop playing the game, although once a new game came out, they'd try it, hate it, and then reinstall the Blizzard game 3 months later. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly guilty of taking a year or two off of games like Diablo II and Starcraft, and then suddenly reinstalling and playing again 24/7, something I don't do with very many games at all, mostly they become garbage in my desk. WoW doesn't seem to have that edge at all for me. But I guess it may be too early to tell.
"No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing." -Emperor Claudius 10 BC - AD 54
Man, I'm really glad this crap gets posted, and my (somewhat) interesting submissions get rejected.
i have a laptop & desktop computers
:
would this prevent me from installing wow on both computers ?
i dont want to play the 2 at the same time (wow would not authorize since i presume i can only log once on the server), that's just for convenience
the desktop for great video and laptop when im not at home
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
good point ... why on earth does the game cost anything when it is subscription based?
Initially, I asked the same question, but after I bought it, it makes more sense.
First off, you get basically 40 days free subscription with the box, so that's a little over $15 of the cost there. There's a reasonably thick manual in there, CDs, packaging, etc. The distributers are also going to cost something. There's no guarantee that you won't get bored after the first month, so they're not going to eat the cost of all of that. Yes, in a month you can get a reasonably strong character and explore a decent amount of area, so people who feel it's eating too much of their life or get fed up with the bugs may not renew after the initial free time.
Granted, they could probably offer a no-manual no-CD version and just charge the cost of bandwidth, especially since they have a large enough user base now that I would assume they've covered their initial costs. My guess would be that they made a deal with their distributor which won't let them do that. That would allow the distributer a better chance of recovering the costs of putting the game in the stores in the first place.
Why can you sell the box/disk/manual? Lets say you are tired of playing the game and want to liquidate it. Your friend down the street still enjoys the game but his CD was destroyed when his younger sister threw it out the window on the freeway. So he buys your CD. But he still owns his 'activated' account.
Truth is, if you want to buy the game, buy an account and borrow the install CD from a friend.
Blizzard did no wrong here. I was surprised when I read the post and did not see any one posting below indicating how stupid this was. Similar to buying MS Word - you aren't buying the program on the CD, you are buying a liscence and the CD facilitates your use of the liscence. It's really not hard to understand, unethical, illegal, or unusual.
If they're *that* concerned it will cut into sales they could charge a nominal $5 "new key" fee or for the downloaders. I bet after you deduct distribution costs, printing, returns and the middle man they're not making much more than $15 from the store copy anyway. So $5 plus $15 for a months sub makes a downloaded signup even more profitable than if they'd sold it off the shelves.
This is absolutely not a good test case for unenforceability. Unenforceability is a defense for a consumer who does not have the option to view a contract. It does not apply to the drafter of the contract. Generally, if you are the drafter of an agreement you can't go back and say that it is unfair. Dude, your a first year attorney, don't post on slashdot (or anywhere else) with your company bio unless you are dead sure of what you are talking about and you are authorized to do so.
He said he read the EULA. Be real, we all know that no one has ever read the EULA...
I remember reading a couple of years ago about Windows activation codes. They were supposed to prevent piracy. But the problem is... what happens if someone GENERATES a "valid key" and the purchaser won't be able to registrate his copy?
And I think this is just what happened to you, my friend.
And yes, I think it sucks. You should ask for a refund.
You have enough sense of legal jargon to read between the lines, section this sub-section that, but you dont have the sense to not buy a used MMO without the account thats attached to the CD key?(Even though I think they dont allow selling accounts.)
You also actually Read the EULA!
Whats wrong with you; If you did this to prove a point kudos to you and good luck.
If anything you could sue them for not stating that by reselling the game and contents of the box the one time use CD-Key would loose it's value after being used.
(When you buy a car and register it; does your registration transfer over to the new owner when you sell the car?)[I Might be wrong, honestly I dont know; but I dont think it does.]
"Running a business requires you to adhere to certain legally mandated levels of customer service."
But there is no LEGAL requirement for a retailer to accept returns, except where the item is defective as sold. Any time a retailer DOES allow you to return something, it is out of the goodness of their heart, and the desire to maintain a good relationship with their customers.
But if they don't want to accept returns, they don't have to.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
When you go to the web page to create your accont, you spend one authentication key to create an account login.
: SuperDude P:sex
Example-
XXJP5-12345-OICUP0-NOTREAL-23492--->L
The account login name for your key was created by the person before you.
The account key on your box has already been converted into an account such as SuperDude. The login doesn't get undone just because someone handed you the box and CDs in the real world. Get that account name and password from the person who resold the box to you. It won't affect in-game character names. No matter what the EULA says, once you get the login and password you can login.
So you aren't the original owner of that key/login-password combo. How can Blizzard tell?They'll be none the wiser and even if they knew, they don't really care where the $14.95 a month is coming from, it beats losing a customer. Granted, this is gray ops- if they caught wind of it they'd be within their EULA to turn off the account altogether. Yeah, they could maybe track IPs but not reasonably give how much people move around etc. If no one makes a fuss, there won't be a problem.
I didn't notice in in the message if the original poster every tried to request or purchase a new Key from Blizzard. I am pretty sure that for a fee Blizzard would be happy to sell someone a new key. I would believe that, regardless of EULA, the buisness model in place here is one that charges the end user not only a monthly fee but also a set up fee, which is disguised as the cost for purchasing the game. This may very well be a violation of the EULA, but I can't really comment on that.
Selling of characters is a really annoying thing in MMO games
Read the original article. He's not trying to re-use the characters, he's trying to set up a new account.
He bought the game at full price from a friend
He hasn't explicitly said whether he bought it from a friend, or what he paid for it. I have no idea where you dragged this scenario from, or why you think it matters.
This guy bought the game used for a discount, because the full $50 was too steep.
Quite likely. $50 is pretty steep. You think he didn't "save enough" to make it worthwhile. That may be true, or it may be just your opinion based entirely on what you think happened (and you didn't read the original article, or you'd know that your other ideas were invalid), but if Blizzard says that you can re-sell the game they should make it possible. If they won't do that, then they need to put that in the license.
Either way, he's got a legit gripe. It's not a case of someone "exploiting the game": there's absolutely no evidence of that... AS you would know if you'd read the whole article. At least the OP read the whole EULA.
go into a store, box cutter concealed in hand, open WoW box, write down Auth-Key, go home, sign up.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Yes, but everyone here assumes that anyone besides Blizzards lawers know what the EULA says.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
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?
You can do that. I know based on experience. As you noted, the two computers wouldn't be able to play at the same time.
I mean, I'm completely against software piracy.. but this is simply crossing the line.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
when you install it ask if you already have an account. so you can install it on as many computers as you want, as long as you have an account to play. and you can only login from 1 computer per account.
Sec. 13 - "This License Agreement shall be deemed to have been made and executed in the State of California without regard to conflicts of law provisions, and any dispute arising hereunder shall be resolved in accordance with the law of California. You agree that any claim asserted in any legal proceeding by one of the parties against the other shall be commenced and maintained in any state or federal court located in the State of California, County of Los Angeles, having subject matter jurisdiction with respect to the dispute between the parties."
Somebody really needs to teach you guys the BASICS of the US legal system...Surely they should be scrambling to get players any way they can.
They don't want more players right now, since the servers are overloaded. That's why they stopped selling it.
Nonsense. If that was what he were trying to do, he wouldn't be trying to set up a new account.
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.
A more apt analogy would be when an authentication key creates a login, it's like a block of wet clay being fired into a specific clay pot. They don't have a method for turning a fired pot back into wet clay and changing it into what you want.
But what's wrong with using their existing login name anyway? It might not be a name you like but it has no affect on in-game characters. Assuming the person you bought it is honest not to change anything right away, login with their login and password, change the password to something only you know, and the account is as good as yours.
Yes, the entire operation is shady and imperfect, which is partly why Blizzard prefers to completely wash their hands of the matter. Especially because money is changing hands between people they have no business relationship with.
...that you have to be a lawyer to actualy get to play this game. Blizzard seems to take matters a LOT too seriously, which consequently annoys players (their clients).
The game seems OK, but all the troubles associated to it turn me off. I would never feel I am part of that world, part of the story or part of anything associated to it, knowing the company is working against me to protect their IP rights and that my account is 100% under their control, with no regard for the fun I am supposed to have playing the game. Instead, they worry so much about piracy that they seem to forget it's supposed to be FUN.
Fuck that. I would never pay for this. I wouldn't give one cent to feel I'm a test dummy and that the hours I spend playing this game are Copyright Blizzard.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
There's an argument that MMORPGs cost more to develop due to the fact that it's a networked game.
You're forgetting that most games have 1 story, and maybe some deviations. An MMORPG has to have a shitload of intertwined stories.
Totally, completely, utterly wrong.
From the XP Pro EULA:
Transfer to Third Party. The initial user of the Product may make a one-time transfer of the Product to another end user. The transfer has to include all component parts, media, printed materials, this EULA, and if applicable, the Certificate of Authenticity. The transfer may not be an indirect transfer, such as a consignment. Prior to the transfer, the end user receiving the transferred Product must agree to all the EULA terms.
I'll pay full retail price. Should be worth a lot more than that in small claims court.
(j/k)
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I think there trying to keep retail space for the game for as long as they can. Which will get more people to sign up than would go to the website and download the game aka not everyone has high speed net access and some people buy the game for there kids ect.
At the point where the can't sell it in most stores for 40+$ they may decide to have fewer users and allow the download option which will remove some users who would get it from the store but make them more money from people who are getting there 2nd copy of the game / using a friends CD's or whatever.
You can use the software right out of the box.
... via the free month that the CD key buys you. After that month, you cough up $y/month to continue using it.
... from the store or second hand. If they bought a new box, it would come with a new CD-key, which should allow them to create a new account, or reactivate their old account, both with a 1-month credit. If they buy or otherwise acquire a used box, it would have a used CD key, which should be associated with a cancelled account, and could be reassociated with account being activated.
The CD key is -- among other things - typically a magic 1-month free code.
You bought a game for $x, and you can use it right out of the box
In this case, the used game was put back in the box and sold as a used game. The CD key has already been used, so it is not connected to a free month anymore. The price of the boxed used game should reflect this fact.
Viewed this way, the "box" value is just the value of the manual, maps, etc. The retail box price includes the first month usage as a CD key.
Could someone buy a game, install it, and immediately pass it to a friend, who installs it but doesn't get the first month free, since the original owner got that? Why not? The company still gets paid via the subscription for that month. The company actually may have a cost savings since they don't need to manufacture as many boxes. However, the distributors would suffer. The company may have signed an agreement with the distributors that prevents "buy one box, install 10 times, pay for 10 accounts online", so the distributors get the box sales.
What about buying the game, playing it for 6 months, getting bored with it, and selling it used to another person? The same CD-key would be entered, and no free month would exist. Assuming the first person cancelled their account, on the surface, this seems legitimate. A new "key' could be generated on the spot to be associated with the new account. Now what if the first person wants to re-activate their account? If the company allows this, then the Distributers can cry "foul" since one 'box' is now two 'games'. But the company wants to allow the original owner to come back to the game after a long absense, since that would mean more revenue for the company, and happy customers. How could we make that happen?
Theoretically, the original owner doesn't own the software anymore, so they can't return to it without reacquiring the software
The only real issue is ensuring that the account associated with a CD-key is deactivated in order for the game to be sold "used". Of course, I wouldn't want to have my credit card dinged every month for a game I've sold to someone else, so this shouldn't really be a problem.
If you read the rest of the submission, Blizzard said certain parts of the account can not be changed, and the original owner could log in through the account at a later time with no problems. I assume this means the username and password are the parts that simply cannot be changed.
on my server (frostwolf), at least, they tried to compensate for the bugginess and downtime by giving us a free week on top of what we've already paid for - doesn't totally make up for it, but at least they're trying...
Choose your future, choose life...
But why would I want to do a thing like that?
Sure, most games. But most nonlinear RPGs have this element anyway. Morrowind managed to do it without an ongoing fee and being within your average cost for a video game. Months into playing this one and my friends and I are still coming across new things to explore.
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!
Just a heads up, World of Warcraft works such that you don't need to have the CD in to open/play the game. All that the CD's are needed for is installing.
This is, of course, wrong. You *are* legally allowed to return items within - I believe - 30 days *without explanation*.
At least, in the UK. Discussions on law on Slashdot always devolve to the point where nobody states their premises and everyone argues conflicting but factually correct viewpoints. I speak, as I always do unless stated otherwise, from the point of view of a resident of the UK. I should maybe set myself a signature that states that (succinctly).
the layman's guide to computer science
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.
First off, to assume a MMORPG would have the same mechanisms involved as far as keys and such go is silly. They are NOT the same.
This person has obviously not played an MMORPG before. If I have a key, create an account and then, say, DEACTIVATE THE ACCOUNT... how could you expect to buy that box and use the same account KEY to create a new account? It's never worked that way in MMO's, and there's a reason for it. They keys are individual identifiers and they cannot be re-used. Sorry you're stupid and bought a used copy. Blizzard rocks and WoW is the best MMO I've played to date ( which is saying something, I've done most MMO's since EQ at least for a beta ).
...why didn't the seller give you the username and password for the account originally created with that CD key? Nevermind that the EULA specifically states that you aren't allowed to transfer accounts. Yes, I realise that there's a double standard there saying that the media can be sold, but the account can't be transferred. That's where the real ambiguity in the EULA is. It should be that both can be transferred, or neither. (Personally, I'm for neither, since level 60 noobs are no fun).
In any case, if you never got the username and password because the seller are still playing the game on that account then you have no leg to stand on, and you were pretty well ripped off. Blizzard has repeatedly stated they aren't going to sell CD keys alone. If they just forgot to give the username and password to you and they aren't playing anymore, you should be able to get the information from them and just use the existing account. This is a violation of the EULA, though. See previous comment about EULA ambiguity.
The EULA expressly gives permission to transfer all rights and priveleges. The service is a privilege or a right. Either one.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
1) This guy is trying to buy a character/account off someone...
...and you can only make one account per key.
No. He's trying to make a new account in place of an old one.
So, really there is a sliding scale between "not much money" and "you're a moron" that centers around $17.50.
I don't care if it's 35 cents, you don't screw your customers like that.
It has always been stated that accounts can't be transferred...
Yes.
And he only wants one account per key.
Blizzard even posted on their site that they will not be selling extra key's (probably because their publisher would have a fit.) It's this guys fault for not paying attention.
I put up a "caution: wet floor" sign in the DVD sales section at my store and some chump slipped in the puddle in the bathroom that it was warning him about. It's his own damn fault for not exhaustively checking every sign in the store.
In any case, so far Blizzard has taken a hard line against people exploiting the game...
Fantastic, but there is absolutely no exploit here. They made it clear you can sell the game. He sold the game. They're trying to screw him out of the ability to use the game. That's it.
And no, there were no characters or items on the account and I actually lost a couple of dollars doing it. I sold it to a guildmate so his wife could play, he couldn't track down any more copies in his area. I even have the original box and serial number.
Bleh!
Since the parent didn't provide proof, here's the relevant passage (it's the fourth paragraph):
"SOFTWARE Backup or Archiving. After You install the SOFTWARE into the permanent memory of a computer, You may keep and use the original disk(s) and/or CD-ROM (the "Storage Media") only for backup or archival purposes."
"At least, in the UK. Discussions on law on Slashdot always devolve to the point where nobody states their premises and everyone argues conflicting but factually correct viewpoints. I speak, as I always do unless stated otherwise, from the point of view of a resident of the UK. I should maybe set myself a signature that states that (succinctly)."
Point taken. In the U.S., there is no legal obligation to accept a return.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Yeah that's just not true. I was in Best Buy on Saturday and they had some 20-30 copies on the shelf.
The 89% figure is "gulf war ERA veterans," which as someone pointed out, includes troops who in 1990 got their elbow run over in Kansas by a humvee. It was my mistake. The 56% is confirmed by two sources. Check my recent postng history for more info.
...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.
I might suggest re-reading the original post, where the author says that he's not trying to buy the account, but to create a completely new account using the same authorization key.
Not A Sig
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.
If you want to sell/buy WoW the CD is trivial, you don't need the key. What you're buying/selling is the account. Just get rid of your personal info, CC information etc, and give the new owner your username/password for your WoW account. The new owner just installs WoW and logs in with your credentials. Once he's in, he changes the account password, billing info, etc and the deal is over. Now I don't know if this is against the EULA, but does it really matter? The transfer works, its actually less hassle to edit the account ifo then go through the account creation process, and you're in the game as soon as the install/patching finishes. I can't imagine any repercussions, EULA allowable transfer or not.
Having recently sold my own copy of World of Warcraft, I can say this is easily avoidable by getting the previous owners username and password. He's not using the service any more so he'll have no use for it, correct? -aunes
This is not just a WoW issue. Many MMORPGs are doing this. For example I bought a new copy of City of Heros for my fiance. The tape didn't look quite right on the box, but the guy at the register swore that it had not been returned and it was thier only copy so I bought it. When I opened it everything did look new so I didn't think anything more of it at first. When we tried to set up her account though we ran into the problem of the key having been used. Atleast with them though I quick fax of the key and my reciept and we had a new key e-mailed within a day.
Have you not been following well enough to know that it was pulled from stores and you CAN'T buy a new one?
Accounts being banned because of a 'mass protest"
I can't find the forum post but a guild that had names on multiple MMORPGs for the last 5 or 7 years I think it was banned with no reason given other than 'innapropriate name' I can't find it but it had 'drinking' or 'drunk' in the title and was toast, and they'd been allowed on the majors like EQ, DAOC, EQ2, and other.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I bought an MSDN license one year and the activation code that Microsoft sent me was already used. After paying for MSDN Universal, I had a lengthy (months-long) dialogue with them trying to get my subscription activated. Some time after I gave up being nice, and started being extremely harsh with the people at MSDN support, I was able to activate my account -- even then, I was treated as if I had done something wrong. I might have had a good legal case if they hand't provided me with the registration code, and it came a hair away from me deciding to sue.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
This is especially true in the EU where a contract is something that two 'people' have agreed.
There are cooling down periods, the contract must obey the law, so they can't get rid of your first sale right, and above all it is something 'agreed', if the signer of the contract didn't know what they were signing then it's isn't valid, if there's a dispute in the wording then it should be in favour of the signer.
Secondly, EULA's are lip service. I'm sure that who ever you purchased the game off of didn't read the EULA sign a contract when they purchased it.
If Blizzard are claiming that the 'activation' key is a good then showing them the sales receipt should be enough to transfer it into your name.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
You cannot say that there is no legal obligation to accept returns in the USA. This is a state-by-state issue, something that has nothing to do with the federal (formerly condfederal) government. In my state, retailers are required to accept returns if the item is defective. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that you don't even need a reason to return larger ticket items (such as appliances and cars).
Are more DRM hell.
What needs to happen is that you need to write to your local representative and tell them how DRM is removing your right to first sale.
This is a good example of how DRM is trashing your rights.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
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.
This is a bad idea. Section 5 talks about how to TERMINATE THE LICENSE AGREEMENT, not transfer the License Agreement, which is what's trying to be transferred here. In particular the Destroying of the game would not facilitate the other part of the EULA where it talks about fully transferring the property and terms relating to the License Agreement.
In Essence, he want to take the contract from the other guy, not the account. The account is not what the License Agreement is about, in all honesty. There's little mention of the account itself in the first place, and the places it does mention it, it is always the account attached to the Licensee, not the Agreement itself.
This forum Sig is licensed under the LGPL.
But there is no LEGAL requirement for a retailer to accept returns, except where the item is defective as sold. Any time a retailer DOES allow you to return something, it is out of the goodness of their heart, and the desire to maintain a good relationship with their customers.
Local variation in laws aside;
Show me a piece of software sold in a retail store that does not have an EULA hidden inside and I will accept your argument.
If you cannot do so, explain to me how they can sell me a product with a license controlling use that I have not been forced to agree to before purchasing the product and not be legally bound to return my money if I do not wish to agree to it.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I agree, however with rapant piracy, it's a valid reason not to accept returns. Most game companies allow you to send the box, game, and receipt to them for a refund.
How am I to know this? Oh, you said so....
And, I read the EULA; it allows transfer (under certain conditions).
So, you trump the EULA?
Anyway, I have NO idea what an "MMORPG" actually is (well, it's a game program or system of some kind). So, the only way I would ever be introduced to this is via the second-hand market.
So, in a sick, twisted, way, you are right.
I will never know, because I will not participate in "beta"s, and I won't buy a fresh one, if I don't know what it is.
Good job alienating the (rest of the) market, son.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Obviously you've never heard of "Free Speech Zones".
Don't play or buy any of Blizzard's products. It's not like they're the only video game vendor around. I personally dislike their use of the DMCA to bully developers, and wouldn't buy any of their games anyway. In the same way that a software feature that doesn't work really isn't a feature, a quality product that is backed by a set of lousy business ethics is not really a quality product, and should be treated as such. End of story.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The same thing happens wiith Everquest for the PS2. If you buy a used copy you are not able to re-use the cd key. IIRC there is a similar clause in the SOE/EQ EULA. This has been verified by Sony. Just wanted to point out that Blizzard/Vivendi-Universal is not the only company to not allow the re-use of CD keys.
That is all.
1) WoW is available in stores again. Amazon.com shipped mine out about a week and a half ago and their site still reads "ships in less than 24 hours."
2) In some states, you can't return software because of state law. For instance, Washington State. You can gripe about that all you want, but it's not the publisher's fault, and it's not the retailer's fault, it's a state law. Until the law changes, you can bet that retailers will follow it to the letter. (This used to be a fun one to explain to customers when I worked at OfficeMax. No, sir, you can't return that because I would be violating state law to take it back. You can imagine how well that went over.)
3) Most games that are online-only allow you to play with no CD in the drive. Others remove the copy protection when the first patch comes out (I believe Unreal Tourney 2004 did this). But I agree that all online-only games *should* allow you to play with no CD without exception.
Comment of the year
Actually, I take that back, you probably have heard of them. At least to a point where "Obviously" becomes a rude tool of condescension. My apologies.
:)
I was just trying to say that, while you can freely complain about Bush in public all you want, you can't do it within a few miles of his entourage or you'll be 'escorted' to a 'Free Speech Zone'. Personally, I think it's a constitutional violation for those zones to exist, but I'm not USian, so I can't really press the issue
Maybe Blizzard is violating their own ToS/EULA... but given that these agreements always state somewhere that they can change the terms of the agreement without notifice or your approval, where does that leave you, exactly? Nowhere.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
No, you wanted to pay for the jug too, just at a discount as it was 'used' and your friend no longer likes milk.
You wanting to pay for the monthly milk, yes that still stands..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I had to use the original owner's account... change his password, delete his characters. He gave me his security question/answer, which he can still use to regain access to the account, but then I can just do the same thing.
I think the problem is that Blizzard's tech support department is horribly over taxed. Not only have they greatly expanded their user base, but they are finding out the hard way that people whine a whole lot more when they are paying a monthy fee then a one time sum.
There is a good chance Blizzard's support staff is not part of the regular staff, meaning they don't really know a lot about the company.
Also, there is a good chance that they've been given a set of pre-built answers, and can't modify them... maybe try asking to speak to "someone higher up"... although, you'll probably get a decline...
OR... just tell them that the CD-key you bought didn't work (it's true) and it said it was already in use. If you say no more than that, you have a chance.
The Blizzard online store has copies avaliable again.
There are restrictions from buying from the store depending on where you live, however.
Also, they did note that they are slowly releasing copies again in this forum post.
"That's some catch, that Catch 22." "It's the best there is."
"My first thought was similar...
Well you should have just made sure you got the LOGIN and PASSWORD of the account. That's what I did when I bought my copy off of a friend of mine. You aren't paying for the key when you buy a used MMORPG you are paying for the account and who gives a @#$% if it violates Blizzard's EULA, because they are NOT going to care as long as they get their $20 a month somehow, from someone using that account! End of story.
My cousin sold his Ultima Online account over ebay without a hitch, so at first I thought this seemed kind of stupid. After reading the responses to the parent, though, I see that there is a problem with this system, at least from the purchaser of a used game.
Assuming this was purchased from an established store like Gamestop, it would be in the store's best interest to get this resolved; find the seller or refund the purchase. A permanent solution, however, will be difficult to find.
Unfortunately for would be used-WoW-buyers, nothing will change unless Blizzard decides to change the account system, which would be expensive. More importantly, should Blizzard want people to resell copies of games?
In the short run, no. Every copy of WoW resold represents a lost sale for Blizzard. Sounds familiar? It should. That's the mantra of record executives who blame file sharing for the drop in sales.
The record companies may be overzealous in their quest to purge the world of music piracy, but the concept applies much better to Mmorpg's.
What we need to remember is that Blizzard is counting on two types of revenue. The first is from people who buy the game. They're swept up by the women with big tits on the box cover, game magazine reviews, etc. The second type of revenue is the account revenue, which directly correlates to user satisfaction.
Bringing back the music industry analogy...there are two important counter-arguments to the music industry's claims.
1.) Filesharing helps increase sales of music by exposing listeners to more music.
2.) People wouldn't download the music they do if it weren't free, so the loss in sales is imaginary.
In the long run, reselling a game will increase revenue from accounts. If the used buyer likes the game, he may play it forever, bringing in more revenue than a player who buys the game and doesn't even get an account. This is like the "filesharing helps music sales" argument.
Also, people who would buy a used copy of the game wouldn't necessarily buy the game at retail price. But buying a game is a greater economic decision than buying a music cd, so we can assume that a few people would buy the game if used copies aren't available.
Ultimately, it all comes down to Blizzard's business model. How much of their revenue comes from sales of the game vs. account subscription? How many subscribers do they have and for how long do they expect to keep theses subscribers. What is the cost of making a retail copy vs. having a subscriber? We don't know, but how they handle this situation might be telling."
mod up interesting
Secondly, the game is not available in stores due to Blizzard's cutting back on new users due to server issues.
Slowing sales = Fewer new users joining
Refusing second hand sales (might) = no net users joining
Perhaps this is just a continuation of their server issues
I can't entirely remember the account creation phase.
Is it, install game, create account, account creation asks for Key?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Ok, so run me through this one:
Under section 3B, we have "You may permanently transfer ownership of the Game... by physically transferring the CD-ROM..." etcetera etcetera, as stated in the story.
Then in section 5 we have "You may terminate the License Agreement at any time by (i) destroying the Game; (ii) removing the Game Client from your hard drive; and (iii) notifying Licensor of your intention to terminate this License Agreement." I bolded the 'and' myself, since it kind of implies that all three of those actions must be carried out. If only one of those three is required, then the seller would not have to notify anybody since he would have carried out Part 2. And of course, most of us would find it tricky to destroy something before physically transferring it.
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
Man, I feel for you, but if I were you, I'd be STEAMed.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Actually, I get the idea this system of suspending accounts rather than deleting them is commonplace with these MMORPGs. This certainly isn't unique to Blizzard and WoW.
... but she simply had billing xferred to a new card and re-activated her game, and kept on playing.
I understand the reasoning behind it, but it can cause some irritating situations too.
EG. My ex-wife was a big Shadowbane addict for a few months preceding our divorce. She was using an account I created initially. (I'm the one who bought the game, played it for about 30 minutes, and decided I didn't like it after all. I let her try it, and she got hooked immediately - and begged me to buy her a 3 month subscription after that.) The interesting thing is, though, I couldn't seem to find any way to get Ubisoft to permanently erase her account after she moved out. I was able to sign on to the web site and deactivate the account, so she couldn't keep billing renewals to my credit card
Somehow, it doesn't seem right I wasn't even able to have her characters deleted on an account she effectively hijaacked from me - and now I still keep getting email notifications about her activities in the game (purchases of expansion sets, tech. support help, etc. etc.).
There IS a boycott of Blizzard-while I don't know of a coordinated one (although maybe that should be fixed), I've heard quite a few people express the same sentiments after the bnetd case. Those people most certainly include me, and a few others that I've convinced to do the same after describing Blizzard's bullying.
If one hundred people convince two people each to boycott, and those two convince two, and...well pretty soon, there IS a boycott, and one they're going to notice. If that's something you'd like to see, start now.
And don't forget to make your vote COUNTED-write to Blizzard and let them know that you would like to buy their games, but you will not, and why it is that you refuse to do so. Once they get enough of those, they might think long and hard about whether the public-relations problem is really worth it. If you just "don't buy", then they just "don't care"-millions of people in the world don't buy their stuff every day. Make sure they see their actions cost them people who WOULD have bought from them otherwise.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
It is up to the state to implement a consumer protection code. However, all states have one of some sort that general says no sales are final unless a sign is posted or it is placed on the receipt. Some states force returns no matter what, but most of the times you will see "All sales final." is when a company is liquidating(so it is unlikely you would have a recourse).
In the garment biz, you can refuse refunds usually if the item is soiled or the tags are cut. Outlet/overstock stores will usually cut the tags on checkout if they don't accept returns. I assume it is different on the highend as opposed to 'off the rack' clothing.
This whole concept of your problem makes no sense to me. What you are implying is that you should be able to just move the CDs wherever you want, hand them out to friends, etc. and each can create their own account and not sweat it. Now, perhaps you could make an argument that the old account is no longer active... but it could be reactivated at any time. Then who owns the CD key?
Every MMORPG out there does the same thing. Eventually, they start offering free sign ups and demos that let you get around it, but usually an update or two back from whatever happens to be current. Blizzard isn't gonna do that anytime real soon.
The game randomly chooses a server for you to play on.
Yeah, just like Quake, Doom, Warcraft, etc., right? You go online to play with a few friends, but you can't play together because you are assigned a random server. Wow, that would be fun, wouldn't it? correct answer:no
Duh.
Wow, can you even read? Do you often spend time typing something out that has no relevance to the question? Mebbe you should think about investing into an education.
I'm glad this was posted. I was going out to buy one of Blizzards games, since I've heard so much about it, but now I'll know to go to a reputiable company for my needs.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
All I had to do was allow the beta to automatically patch itself and I'm still running it fine.
A little bit more on topic: why on earth are people still paying for used boxes of this? I was reading reports about this exact complaint in early december when guys had tried the game for a day and hated the opening-day lag.
Blizzard isn't ripping you (OP) off, the guy that willingly sold you an unusable product key has; you're totally letting him get away with it by ignoring his role in the act!
::jafomatic
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
13. Name that incorporate titles. The term "Titles" as used herein shall include 'rank' titles (e.g. , "CorporalTed," or "GeneralVlad") and/or fantasy titles (e.g., "KingMike", "LordSanchez")
...You insensitive clod!
Umm.... since when have King and Lord become "fantasy" titles?!
I happen to be British, and we happen to have quite a lot of Lords, and when our Queen dies, we shall have a King too.
Subject to change.
"In my state, retailers are required to accept returns if the item is defective."
I pointed that out in my original post. That's true in all states.
"IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that you don't even need a reason to return larger ticket items (such as appliances and cars)."
Although these retail laws vary state to state, there are no states that require a retailer to accept a return for a non-defective item. Some states require a retailer to accept returns IF they have posted signs saying they accept returns, but there are no laws that say a retailer must accept a return absent a store policy to the contrary.
The one exception (in most states) is if a salesman comes to your home and sells you something, most states allow for a 72 hour right of recission in those cases.
If you know of a state law to the contrary, I'd be glad to admit that I am wrong.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
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.
Gamecards come with an authorization key for creating an account. You can use anyone's install media to put the game on your computer. Game cards are $30 for 60 days of play time and can be extended by adding the code from a new game card. --C
Boycott WoW? hahaha!!!
they don't call it warcrack for nothing you know?
Do you ever hear of junkies boycotting their fix due to price hikes?
In the end, it's a great game. Blizzard know they have a good game. Don't get me wrong here.. I'm not on their side, but I'll definitely pay whatever they ask for just to play the darned thing!
hooked
No-one I personally know would've purchased this game with that feature in place.
Further, the "server issues" are entirely avoidable. There are at least 4 areas that are appropriate for players of every level greater than five. I hear ("read") people complaining about "This stormrage server" or "this frostwolf server" and I laugh. Why? Because each of those named realms is a cluster of servers.
I've seen zero documentation, but at a guess I would say there is at least one server for:
- General authentication and login (prior to seeing your current realm's character list).
- Each realm's mail system, as the mail can be lagged when the gameplay is not.
- Each realm's auction system, for the same reason as the above.
- Each "territory" in the realm, i.e. "the barrens" or "hillsbrad foothills".
I believe that last to be true because I have been in voice-communication with guildmates and found that I have experienced very low latency and a very responsive game while fighting in, say, thousand needles, while my friends are lagged to shit-and-back at Tarren Mill. I would even go so far as to theorize that the contested" areas are generally going to be much more prone to lag and general latency.To summarize: when lagged, move to another territory (in the same realm) that is appropriate for your level.
::jafomatic
Obviously you haven't been through the small claims court process before.
Even if you win, the courts leave it up to you to enforce the claim. The cost of the lawyer is a lot more then buying a new copy...
"Jesus fucking Christ! You really are under the thumb of your corporate masters, aren't you?"
I guess if you say so. However, my corporate masters are paying me quite well, so it's pretty tolerable under this thumb here...
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
"used copies of world of warcraft are worthless".
Just transfer the account and move on. This is how any MMO does it. You can only register 1 account with the box-key, and if you want to transfer it they won't stop you.
It sounds like he bought his copy used from the store. There is no way for him to get the previous users info to attempt this, and they have already said that they will not transfer accounts.
Indeed. There are games that not only provide the client for free, but give you some free time to try it out before you buy. The only good reason I can think of for doing this myself is that Blizzard knows they have their customer base by the short hairs and that their particular market will bear this kind of fee structure.
And the brethren went away edified.
Considering all that, why the heck would Blizzard give it away?
Well because A lot of people will continue to pay for it but i'm just not sure i would. Thats a 50 dollar gamble right there. Its truly a crapshoot if you think about it (you can always sell the game later on if it was a single player and recoupe your losses)
I was just hooked up with a 15 day free pass for COH the ONLY MMORPG i've ever considered buying and its quite awsome. SO awsome that i will continue to be charged 14.95 for the privlage of playing it. I am not going to give them 50 dollars for a useless cd and booklet. I'm not going to give their distibutor any money when MMORPG are the type of games YOU SELL DIRECTLY TO PEOPLE. Downloading the game only took me 2hrs on my broadband connection. I would of payed for the bandwith as well...because its not 50 dollars worth of bandwith at the end of the day.
If you cannot create a MMORPG that is stupid easy to pickup and play your going to dig yourself a early grave.
The secret to getting modded up is to allways say i've got karma to burn in your sig..
Tried playing singleplayer without a network connection? Even after the initial activation? I thought not.
STEAM is the most dangerous implementation of rights-robbing "DRM" out in the wild to date. Even Microsoft's Windows XP allows you to activate the software via phone and (barring no hardware changes) never hassles you about connecting back to Microsoft to verify anything ever again (barring re-install).
(maybe)
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
They're launching legal attacks against their own customers in the cases grandparent listed. That is not a valid reason not to wish to become a customer?
Besides, I can choose not to buy something, for any reason I choose. I can choose not to buy a Honda because I like the shape of the Toyota bumpers better. You might think that's a dumbass reason, but it's me that's buying the item. Of course, if you like Hondas, you're still free to get one of those.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Yes. That is basically the point. You only have yourself to hodl responsible for buying into proprietary software. If you use free software you wouldn't have to worry that because free software allows you to install the software on as many machines as you want. Unless the commercial software vendors are put in a position where they are losing business, they will continue to restrict your freedom in this way. Out of all the commercial products I wasted money on early in my experience with the PC platform, only one had a license that said I could install it on more than one computer as long as only one copy was in use at a time. That was Syntrillium Cool Edit. Now that they have been bought by Adobe and it is now Adobe Audition, I don't think that license model applies anymore. We must force the vendors into ging us what we want and we must do it in a legitimate way. I argue that making the move to free software is the best way to do it.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
If my radio goes missing, and someone calls to tell me that they've just bought it "used," then I'm going to suggest that they have absolutely no right to the code and that they should be quite pissed off that someone has sold them an unusable radio.
While it's true this guy hasn't purchased a stolen good, he has purchased something that doesn't work. Blizzard isn't the (only?) reason that his purchase is faulty.
::jafomatic
You miss the point as did the moderators and pretty much every reply. I don't think it's a good idea to put those kinds of restrictions on software because I support the software business. I think it's a good idea because it will make idiots around the world more aware of just how much they don't understand about what the software business is doing to them. Once they realize that they will look for alternatives. I suggest that free software is a viable alternative to being put in prison for decades or fined a huge sum of money. Then and ONLY then will the software industry buckle under the pressure and give us what we want: inexpensive, good quality software that we can use in any way we please with no restrictions. Until that time, the softwre industry better put on the pressure...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Not with Asheron Call
Same thing there, single use Cd code.
There is a slightly cheaper online version/CD code available for multiple accounts.
The issue shouldnt be with blizzard how about the putz that sold it to you.
If the account wasnt activated you could have bought/sold the game under the eula it seems. I would imagine it tells you the number can't reused, the seller certainly knew.
If it was reuseable you don't think it would get passed around on the net or something. I doubt any company wants to sell 1 copy per 100 people using it.
They say you can transfer the software, so yeah you can run it. But you must inform them and terminate your account... They didn't say that if terminating was impossibel the rest held true. They just made one side impossibly and made the implication false. Thus they havent' broke their eula although they did fuck up and reneged on something they implied they allowed. SO I'd hazzard a guess and say your lawsuit might have some merit, but it's too easy to fight and neither you nor blizzard wants to go there. I suspect if you called them and had a manager handle it They would have accepted an account to be made in yrou name, and let you play under a new cd-key (after-you bought 6 mo)... but that is only if it is at all possible. It may not be possible to create a account before having a cd-key and they will problbly not want to giev keys out freely under this circumstance so your SOL in that case because they'd be dumb to give you one and you were dumb to buy it used.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
...Don't buy things with restrictive licenses. If people don't rush in droves to buy the latest games/media with draconian copyright protection enforcement then the developers will learn a lesson to simply bite the bullet and produce DRM-less CDs and copy-protection-less games. If they lose some money from piracy they will gain more from satisfied customers. I won't buy another game from Valve after my disappointment with HL2 not running out of the box because of a poor Steam connection. Likewise I won't buy CDs or media in file formats that I know to have severe restrictions on them. I don't resort to piracy anymore either because I don't care to become an outlaw just for the sake of such meager offerings from the entertainment industry these days. Rather I'll save my money and buy the few things I find really worthy.
Oh, the piece of scrap paper that flutters to the floor and then finds its way into the garbage? That's the one you mean? ;-)
I love WoW but HL2 is definately the way to go for us minor overseas markets (and it was even partially translated! Amazing!).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Out of curiosity, are the dropped connections heralded by latency? That would be an indication, to me, that I should move to the other continent. If not, however, I'll fully agree that this sounds like more of a pain in the ass than I gave it credit for.
I wonder why I haven't seen this yet. Does it happen often?
::jafomatic
I think it should be well explained that the CD key is not transferrable in any way once it has been used on the box when you buy it or at least in the manual once you open the box. Then it would be clear to everyone that while you can sell the media and thats not an issue that you need to find a new valid cd key to be able to use it. It just seems like Blizzard didn't realize this when they went to press and maybe they just need to publically announce it somewhere so that its clear once and for all. Then to be kind to the original poster they could give him a new copy because he brought the shortsight to thier attention in a reasonable way.
Unfortunately corporations don't think this way and it won't happen. They will continue to deny that there is any shortsightedness and deal with the few unhappy people in the same way they dealt with the original poster. They are well within thier legal rights to operate like this, but it does suck. Eventually the government is going to need to legislate the rights you have to resell software which will eventually clear up the wierdness of disputes like this.
Ultimately I think it would be impossible to prove that there was a breach of contract here because the only right expressed in the EULA was transfer of media rights, not login rights.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Of course, you've kinda gotten off the point.
If we're talking about your generic MMORPG (all of which have an up front cost as well as a monthy cost--at least when they first come out they do) then everything you've said is tangential at best and off-topic for the sub-thread at worst.
If you want to talk about a specific MMORPG from a specific company that did something you don't like, sure, you can talk about how we shouldn't give them our money. But the grand-parent and parent were referring to MMORPGs/pay-to-play games in general.
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.
Hmmm. I bought a used copy and just logged in using the original purchaser's account info. It let me change everything, but the name on the account and the name of the account.
It is troubling to learn that the original owner could take back the account even though I changed the email address and password on the account. There must be a secret pass phrase or password to let them do this.
Anyway, hopefully the original owner does not realize that they can do this.
I would suggest using the original owner's info so that you can play.
Either that or get the original owner's info and resell the game yourself on eBay to somebody else and let them deal with this.
PACKAGING? Great! Now I get to pay for the privledge of filling the landfills with useless shit!
From http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmem
The Footnote (2) reads:
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
"if you are planning to pay the monthly subscription can you not just download the game installer for free?"
I imagine because a.) Demand is too high for their ability to supply. (i.e. They can only support so many users. b.) People are actually paying for it. In that case, it'd be stupid not to ask for it. c.) Maybe that's how they justify their current price of subscription. Sorta like how cell phones require a contract.
This is all academic, though. I don't know much about WoW.
"Derp de derp."
Nice logic. Wouldn't more users yield more money, which yields more resources for more servers, therefore reducing the overloaded server issue? Or did someone fuck up their budget?
Back to the original poster: The account transfer policy seems to be the same as other MMO's. You can only transfer ownership of the account if all physical materials (Including CD key) are transferred with it. You cannot create a new account with it, but the person you're getting the copy from should have given you the login and password.
First thing... We all know Blizzard are CD-Key Nazi's... While that's not necessarily a bad thing, they have their reasons (basically user tracking on their online systems... Which allows them to do nice things like ban a key so that anyone using it is banned from their networks, etc.) Which is the main reason why everyone has to buy a copy of the game.
;)
The only reason I can see the topic creator having an issue, is because someone didn't notify Blizzard in the first place that a CD-Key exchange was going to happen. To me that would make the most sense. Unless the CD-Key is kept a lot tighter to user names that it is in most Blizzard games (which is possible since I guess it is probably tied in with billing somehow).
As for the going rate of MMOs.... Most of the new games (TMO, WoW, Guild Wars) are asking for $49.99 as the off the shelf-price. Every thing else thats been around for at least a few months is a few bucks cheaper, and the initial price goes down the older the game. Most games are also hovering around $12 - 15 for the monthly connection fee as well.
P.S - You might want to change the URL in your profile... There's been a few changes in the lab lately
Insert Sig Here
not so, the guest account can be continued but requires you buy the game and enter a cd key to upgrade the guest account to full version.
from the registration page.
"# "Guest Pass" Customers - Click the button below to continue your existing account by entering a retail box authentication key. "
" but after they shutdown FreeCraft and/or the Battlenet server project, I made myself a promise to never give them another cent."
Well, to be fair, FreeCraft etc bypassed their protection mechanisms. There's no way Blizzard could have ignored that. It is not the least bit surprising that Blizzard reacted the way they did.
I admit that maybe I'm biased, but I just don't see what reason there is to be mad about it. If authetnication still happened with Blizzard's servers, that would be a different story altogether.
"Derp de derp."
I think he means the click-wrap agreement in the setup program that you can't get to without breaking the seal on the CD sleeve.
The EULA expressly gives permission to transfer all rights and priveleges. The service is a privilege or a right. Either one.
*All* rights and privileges? So I can transfer my right to vote in March to someone else, and cite the Blizzard EULA?
It specifically says "You may permanently transfer ownership of the Game and all parts thereof, and all of your rights and obligations under the License Agreement..." and the license agreement does not cover the account. Account creation is a totally separate entity from the software itself. You don't even use the software to create that account, just to access it.
So the service may be a privilege (which actually is *not* mentioned in the EULA), but it's not covered by the licensing agreement, since it's not actually part of the software in the box.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Anarchy Online was sold online only for quite a while.... and did quite well I think.
Which is more fun, the game of you versus -big evil game company-, or the game you wanted to play that they aren't letting you play? It doesn't have to cost $15/mo to fight -big evil game company-, although you could spend that much. But by all means, think of it as a game. Use your game skills. And if it stops being fun, go play something else.
A good deal of junkies have quit smoking largely because of price.
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.
Actually, the statement was that the original owner could retrieve the account at any time. While they did not explicitly say so, I got the impression that they were talking about the "secret question" to recover a lost password, implying that could not be changed. Probably the username, also. It would be a little ridiculous to prevent a change in password. Of course, I think being unable to change the secret question is also ridiculous. Once someone manages to guess that, you'd never be able to keep control of your account; you'd constantly be forced to take it back over and over again.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Are you reading the same article as the rest of us? Blizzard IS the ONLY reason his purchase is faulty. They're creating an artificial restriction that isn't listed on their EULA while breaking other terms of the EULA which claim the game can be transferred (which is apparently a lie).
All of the online subscription games I have played over the years have been this way. I don't think it's particularly fair myself. What if you decide that the game is not as fun as you initially thought it would be, and you decide to dump it? Well, if you make that decision, of course you can cancel your subscription like normal services, but in this case it also renders your initial investment of $40-$50 to no value. If game companies refuse to allow a middle market for their products, then perhaps they should offer a direct refund or at least a voucher for another product? Seems like the game industry sorely needs some Satisfaction Guaranteed policies rather than continually screwing over their customers with shovelware.
Except for the important difference that Guild Wars has no monthly fee.
If I wanted a copy, it'd be a lot less hassle to just download an ISO from any one of a dozen sources, or buy it on a street corner from my friendly warez vendor for $2.
Allowing the return of copyable goods just doesn't make business sense.
It makes business sense not to pay your staff, to lie in advertising, not to worry about pollution, etc... doesn't make it legal, let alone moral.
Exactly. Take that back with you, say you won't agree to it, ask for your money back. They have to give it to you.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
No, I am not trying to buy a character/account. I am trying to create my own account using the retail game and authentication key which I purchased from another person legally and in full compliance with the EULA. I do not want his account, and he obviously does not either. I want my own account.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
A large chunk of that income goes to the publisher.
Oh, you mean that obsolete middleman that skims some money off the top while adding the inconvienience of me having to go out to the store? That makes me feel better.
the person you're getting the copy from should have given you the login and password.
You didn't even read the article, did you... Wait, what am I thinking... Slashdot.... Right...
If there's no way to transfer the password and account in a way that prevents the original owner from regaining control of the account later, then that doesn't make that such a practical solution.
The fact that Blizzard has to maintain persistent servers in order for people to play this game means that they have an ongoing cost above the cost of developing the game. Now with the old battle.net, this wasn't a big deal. Although still an ongoing cost, the servers only had to dish out random numbers for monsters and store character files. Servers for an MMORPG have to pass much more traffic and store much more information, in addition to needing more processor power to maintain the game world. The monthly cost goes to keep the servers running and probably help defray the cost of updates/patches, etc.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect people to purchase the game (to cover the costs of development) as well as pay a monthly subscription (for the use of the servers).
No, the unreasonable part is that they are profiting at the front (box sales) and are PROFITING AGAIN at the back. I GUARANTEE YOU it does not cost $4.5 million (conservatively... 300,000 x $15) per month to maintain those servers.
If it was reuseable you don't think it would get passed around on the net or something. I doubt any company wants to sell 1 copy per 100 people using it.
Yeah but it's trivial to make sure that only 1 person can be using the key/account at a time... Hell, even Microsoft figured that out with their product activation.
1. sign up for freeipod/screen/whatever scam /.
2. make slashdot account
3. post link in sig on
4. Fire Rick Berman out of a cannon (sell tickets)
5. profit
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
I wouldn't be suprised if the distributor (Vivendi) has made sure contractually that Blizzard can't do this. Look at the legal fiasco when Valve offered direct sales of HL2. Direct distribution cuts into the distributors profits. They don't like it when you do that.
Yeah, but with Valve (same distributor) I can have my key transferred to another account for a $10 fee if I decide to sell the game. That method is not that unreasonable....this is.
Try this with City of Heroes; same thing. I didn't go so far as calling them, since I was using my bro's disks, and his account was inactive. I just called him and got his login info, then reactivated his account with my creditcard.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
While I don't play WoW, I've been looking at buying a used one. I figured that the key issue would come up, so I did a little research on the WoW website, and found an interesting little entry.
a bl 01115p
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=
I'm not sure if it's useful, but hopefully it might spark some ideas.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Who said anything about eBay? Or PayPal, for that matter?
TFA doesn't say by what means the used software title was aquired, nor how payment was tendered.
For all we know, he traded a twelve-pack of beer for it with his next-door neighbor.
Get some sunshine. Ebay is not the only venue via which used items change hands.
Kid-proof tablet..
I once had a copy of StarCraft bought for me for my birthday. I played it amongst friend for years but didn't hop online.
Once I finally *did* hop online, bnet told me that the CD Key was too old and had expired. Not that it was currently in use/ had been used: that it was too old.
I contacted their tech support but after receiving zip from them a friend of mine bought me the Battle Chest. I was slightly aannoyed that now this present had been bought for me twice but goddamn it I wasn't going to get any relief from Blizzard tech support: that's for sure. Want to play? You're going to have to buy the same product again.
I'm tired of the copy-protection shite that punishes legal users of the games while giving the crackers a 30 minute s/COPYPROTECTION/NOP/g hackfest. When it's more convenient to run cracked versions of games rather than the legal versions you know there's serious problems. Don't software makers realise that _uncobbled_ versions of their software are available on the internet before they're officially released?
Personally I don't think the games companies releasing cobbled software are going to effectively compete with pirates releasing uncobbled versions. I know I've got to a point where I'm thinking "Fuck it: they obviously don't want my money so I'll use the pirate version"
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
The same question keeps popping up about Half-Life 2 and Steam. By all rights, once we buy a game, we should be able to sell it to another person if we don't want the game. With Half-Life 2, anyone can buy the CD/DVD in the store and that same person can turn around and sell it to Joe Blow after they're done playing. Unfortunately, for Joe Blow, he's screwed, and the original person can keep on playing.
Valve tries to compensate by allowing you to send in $10 and some information. But, in the long run, you're boned either way.
This kind of thing is going to keep cropping up over and over as companies like Valve and Blizzard test just how far they can abuse consumers. With such a young, unknowledgeable and apathetic targetted market group, it's just going to get worse until someone looks over the EULA and finds some way to sue the companies.
Like someone once mentioned, companies simply don't like us selling our used games once we're done. I think there was even a lawsuit a long time ago about the used market for CD's. The premise was that since the CD's don't wear out like cartridges, that they are considered, "like-new," condition and the companies should receive their cut of the profits. That would mean that I would have to give a cut of the profits to American Greetings every time I purchased a MIB Strawberry Shortcake Doll from eBay. Damn flawed logic if you ask me.
...the servers are overloaded AS IT IS. Why let more people in to increase the lag, and ques (for those servers that are like that - not all are) to get more money when every one of them is going to complain and whine about it, and some of them will leave?
Better to keep same player count, and optimize/upgrade the server clusters (assuming here that each realm is on several servers) to handle the current load, and increase to allow for new players along with that.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I have bought a copy for my brother and a copy for myself, at two different locations, both of which were fully stocked with plenty of shiny new WoW boxes. At least in Dallas, the game is incredibly easy to find. This guy was just being a cheapskate, and deserves what he gets. I'm all for saving money but his little plan didnt work, he needs to get over it. Why shouldnt he have to pay 50$ like the rest of us did? If he would quit dicking around and actually buy a copy and PLAY the game he would realize Blizzard has released another masterpiece good for many, many, (as in multiple hundreds of) hours and is well worth the price of admission. Just my 2 cents, Ack (Ackerus on Illidan...)
Friend bought a copy of starcraft; logs onto b.net and gets a "CD Key in Use by..." message. Being a new purchase, he emailed Blizz, stating that he must be that rare instance where a legit CD Key was generated by one of those zillion keygens out there. They issued him a new key after some hmmmm- and hahhh-ing.
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
Since /. received some flak in the past for having AC posts of Church of Scientology material, I was wondering about posting large chunks of EULAs. If I was to take large portions of EULAs and posted them up here for discussion (as some posters have already done), would I be infringing on copyrighted material?
Linux at home
Gamedrive anyone?
"The reason they don't allow this, of course, is that allowing the return of software would obliterate all profit in the retail arena. My girlfriend worked in clothing retail at a fairly upscale store, and the number of people that would buy something, wear it, and return it was staggering. With software, though, I could buy it, copy it, and return it, so I have my money AND the product. Allowing the return of copyable goods just doesn't make business sense."
Quite frankly, I don't give a damn. If software and other content providers are going to insist on providing a legal contract (EULA) that a purchaser is unable to view before the sale takes place then they can damn well expect to wear the costs involved when people buy their products, read their EULAs, decline to accept said EULAs and then return their products.
If they don't like it, too bad, so sad.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=abl 01115p
This might fix your problems, however if I read correctly, if you dont have a receipt you pay an extra 10USD
I boycott blizzard. For the exact same reason.. Only problem is my brother and his gf and her brother canceled out my vote 3 fold :(
Don't ask me how they are so lame that all 3 of them have concurrent accounts and are paying monthly fees and up front cost of the game and can still justify their existance.. pretty lame if you ask me.. cos the game is not that good.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
If they just required a 2-3 month subscription from people who do this they would make more money than they would from a retail package on the monthly fees! All this does is guarantee they have one less customer!
They don't deserve to stay in business.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
...you need to be slapped.
I'm not flaming you here, and you may very well be new to MMORPG's, but here's a little tip.
Accounts have always been, and will always be keyed to one user account. once a CD key is used, that's it, that key is locked the that account.
This remains constant from UO, EQ, SWG, WOW, City of Heroes, Planetside etc. etc. ad infinitum.
The ONLY way you're going to get any satisfaction out of this is to either, contact the original owner and get his login and password. Then change it and the billing information. OR Buy a new copy.
Blizzard isn't doing anything wrong here, this is fairly common practice throughout all MMORPG's. WOW is a great game, and their Customer Service Dept, has been fairly helpful anytime I've had to deal with them. Blizzard has done a great job on the title and it just keeps getting better. However, don't go bashing Blizzard just because you didn't like the answer you received. I sympathize with your plight, but you're boned on this one.
Who cares about the ozone layer?...thanks to CFC's I can write my name......IN CHEESE!!!
Yeah, I had a similar problem. I bought Everquest a few years ago when all my friends were raving about it. I played for a while and didn't like it, so I sold it on Ebay. However when the person who bought the game tried to install it, we found that the CD key was already associated with my credit card, so even though I had canceled my account the buyer couldn't create a new account. I called Sony, thinking it would be no big deal to fix this, but after arguing with their helpdesk for more than an hour I gave up and just refunded my ebay buyer. It wasn't worth the effort.
The Sony people couldn't understand what I wanted. What they kept saying was what was the point of them selling me the disk if I could just turn around and sell it to someone else.
This statement alone tells me where they want to go with all sorts of content sales. We are already seeing this with DRM for music sales, the record companies have been trying to kill the used CD market for a long time.
Hey, you know what, this is what happens when you support closed source software. If you don't like it, just stop paying for it.
It really doesn't matter if they are violating their own EULA since they can always force down a patch with a new one.
Peace, or Not?
Ooops... Forgot to point that out. Well.. From what i've heard its not monthly... But if you want new content, you gotta pay for that...
Insert Sig Here
Can you imagine how much money your stock options would be worth today if you had started working at Microsoft in 1984?
I don't want to think about it.
My other first post is car post.
See the first paragraph of the Windows XP user license. I guess you must've missed that one.
"If you do not agree, do not install, copy, or use the software. You may return it to the place of purchase for a full refund." (from above, put into lowercase to avoid running afoul of lameness filter)
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
You can't change the "official" e-mail address where you receive communications from the game company?
I mean, what if there's an important announcement like a EULA or price change... Who gets the e-mail? If you get it, and you can't change the e-mail in the account management area, then this system is ridiculous!
"Its truly a crapshoot if you think about it"
Most of the time you can get a free trial.
You can always read reviews, talk to friends, check out screenshots.
Were there even any (legal) demos of Doom3 or HL2 when they were released?
The companies are going to make enough money off of MMOG addicts and people who have been following the release of the game and are genuinely interested in it (and all their friends). They don't really care about the people who have no idea what they are buying into and complain about the pricing.
"If you cannot create a MMORPG that is stupid easy to pickup and play your going to dig yourself a early grave."
Right, I guess you forget about the majority of big name MMOGs that have used the retail box+free month strategy since the late 90s.
I think that the grave an MMOG digs has less to do with how much the box+monthly subscription fee costs and more to do with the quality of the game implementation and management (Earth and Beyond anyone?).
Ultima Online, EverQuest/2, Anarchy Online, PlanetSide, FFXI (who's initial cost and monthly fee is even higher) have survived quite well the test of time. Ultima has even come out with something around 7 expansions all retailing at about $20 a piece.
I will admit though, AO has gone free for non-expansion accounts so they can get new players and bring back older ones that quit during the first rounds of crap when it went gold too early. They still charge for expansion pack holders, who are their real customers anyways.
Basically what they are telling you is "If you don't like it, shove it". Which is exactly what you can do, cause nobody cares about whining and complaining that things "cost too much". An earlier poster had it right, if everyone is already buying it at the current price, then they have set their price correctly. Losing out on a few cheapasses isn't going to do them much harm. Just get your mom or dad to pay for it if its too costly for you. Or hey, just don't play it. You obviously don't want to bad enough if you can't shell out the cash.
// Ziekke
Which part of 'a game' was too hard to understand?
Games are WAY diferent beasts that operating systems or applications. 90% of sales come from the first week, and if there is a downloadable option, it would SERIOUSLY eat on the sales of the boxed version.
IANAL, so I don't know any really good examples. But here's a couple so-so ones. Guy living in Virginia in the 1780s is owed money by a Revolutionary War vet. In lieu of repayment, he accepts the deed to a land grant in Western Pennsylvannia. Travel was really difficult in those days,so it's a really long time before he ever visits the land. But he has to make improvements to retain title. So he has somebody on the scene build a cabin. When he finally visits the site he discovers that somebody who thinks he owns the land has built a second cabin on the property. And they've sited it so there's no way to get into the first cabin!
(Why do I know such a strange story? Cause the guy from Virginia was George Washington. I just finished reading The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West.)
Another example that's kind of closer (because IP is involved) is the movie It's a Wonderful Life, which has been copyright-free since the early 50s, due to a screwup by a studio lawyer. That's why you used to see it over and over again every Christmas, because you could broadcast it or show it without paying royalties. Then Aaron Spelling's lawyers managed to secure the rights to a bunch of things relating to the movie: a song somebody sings in it, a story that the movie may have been based on (the paper trail's unclear), some other stuff. So now you can't show this movie without AS's permission -- even though he doesn't own it! Possibly a good lawyer could knock down his claim, but who's going to hire one just to show an old movie?
I'm guessing that Blizzard's lawyers simply decided that the best way to make the software non-transferrable was to not let people sell the registration numbers, and not bother putting anything in the EULA. From my own feeble knowledge of law, I know of no reason they can't do that. Maybe I'm wrong, but please don't waste your time telling me that -- unless you have more than an amateur's knowledge of the law yourself.
The original owner needs to transfer the account to you, then, once the terms that the actual purchaser of the CD agreed to have been fulfilled, you can call and make as big a stink as you want.
RTFA, you can't transfer accounts. Transfering accounts is a violation of Section 1E of their Terms of Use.
As the poster stated, however, you can't change all of the information in the account. You can replace their credit card information with your own, but you can't change everything. For instance, I don't believe you can change the First/Last name combo you give them, but I could be mistaken.
Why didn't you ask the previous owner to change the account details when you we're buying the game?
Change the previous owners account contacts details, email address and delete previous characters. Viola!
With the first month being free, it's like you're paying $35 for the game + $15 for the first month. I hope your used copy cost less than $35, or you weren't saving money anyway.
However I suspect you were rooked on purpose, because anyone who's played an MMO before and read their forums should know that no company has ever allowed you to sell your key for use by another person. It's simply not something they do, yet it keeps coming up, people keep complaining about it, etc.
If you bought it on ebay (or similar) I would complain and try to get your money back, since the person may have known they were selling you a useless product. They may even still be playing on their old account, since the CDs are not needed once the game is installed.
The reason they won't delete an old account is because they hope to eventually win that customer back with new expansions and don't want them to feel they have to start from scratch again. At the same time, they usually threaten that they can't guarantee your account will still be there if you leave. However, I played EQ for 4 months when it was still on the first expansion (many years ago) and recently they tried to get me to reactivate my account. My old character was still there after all these years.
Oh, you mean that obsolete middleman that skims some money off the top while adding the inconvienience of me having to go out to the store?
Yeah, stores are obsolete. Everyone would rather conveniently wait a day or two (or more) for the package to arrive in the mail. You're welcome to buy online if you'd like though (and pay the same price, of course).
The poor guy whining in the article is just plain ignorant.
Of course you can't re-use a CD key! Thats the whole point of having a CD key. Obviously so that you have to buy the game from blizzard. His excuse that he really does want to pay blizzard, through the subscription fees just doesnt cut it. Everyone else had to buy the game as well as subscribe, so should he. How can he really prove he didnt just pirate the game to avoid the initial cost?
I'll have to assume it's his first mmorpg.
Everquest is up to its 9th expansion pack. Each one has had a CD key that could only be used once. After every expansion I've seen BASTARD companies like Electronics Boutique selling used copies of the expansions, without giving a damn that the buyer would never be able to use the software. Well at least with those expansions, the outside of the box says its not for resale after used!
Wake up, buy the box new you cheapskate, then enjoy the game.
PS, I hope you like spiders. Mainly green ones. But for some variation, there's the odd spot in the game where the spiders are off - green. Nice looking spiders, but not much else.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
When are people going to learn? Blizzard demonstrated how much they despised their customers a long time ago. Stop buying their products and run them into the ground. Same goes for Electronic Arts.
Boycott, boycott, boycott. It is the only way they'll learn, or they'll go bankrupt.
so valve made no money selling HL2 in a box?
I'm surprised something like this hasn't come up much sooner. The author of the story makes it sound like it's just Blizzard at fault here, when I'm pretty sure that you'd encounter very similar problems if you tried to play any game requiring some form of online validation, that you bought second-hand. This is exactly the reason why I have avoided buying such games second-hand since CD-keys came about (several years now).
If there do exist mechanisms for restoring a CD-key to an unregistered state, for any game, I'm sure the hassle is not worth the pitiful amount retailers will pay for used games, and I can't expect retailers to check every used game they get for working CD-keys.
This is total rot - the UK law does NOT give you the right to a refund within 30 days with no reason! You only have a right to a refund IF:
The goods are NOT of merchantable quality.
The goods are 'sight unseen' - e.g. mail order.
There are plenty of places that will not give goodwill refunds.
No no no.
A buys a full jug of milk along with a milk card. for $15, and a milk card buying certificate. The card entitles him to free refills for $15 per month, the certificate allows him to buy milk cards.
B buys the jug off A but has no way to get milk card certificates. If A gives B the Milk card, B still can't be sure A can't take the card back.
The jug alone is just an empty sad jug. (retail box).
C, the company that made the system, said that anyone can sell their jug and card and certificate, but won't allow the new owner to use the certificate.
B can't get a new milk card, can't reasonably be expected to use the old milk card, and has a worthless jug.
That is the problem.
I have milk, and I don't need a milk card.
Not a sentence!
They sold you an used retail pack, so someone created an user with that key. That user is linked with the key.
The same one that sold you the used game has to give you the user name and its password.
That's all.
If you can't afford $100 for the initial cost, how the hell can you afford the system to play the damn game?
One month of play is included in the fee. Anyone who has ever purchased a game and never played it a month afterwards and complains about the "high cost" of WoW deserves a stab in the face. While I make no implication that you are such a person, it is shocking how many persons I have as friends complained similarly despite having purchased things like DooM3 and Half-Life 2 which, while fine games, they got perhaps two weeks of play out of, and they will never dust those games off again.
Also, a child (peer of this comment) makes the other anemic lament about "oh, give me the game free, I'm paying a subscription fee." Hello. The game was in development for four? five? years. Maybe they'd like to, I don't know, turn a profit (and judging from units moved, that's very likely a possibility). As heart breaking as that notion may be, I think most of us have gone on to realize that Blizzard is a corporation, one of those weird beasts associated with profits and margins and things.
The subscription fee is, presumably, to cover continuing costs of development. When I was a City of Heroes player, I had no use for other video games. Weirdly, the cost for a three month subscription is about on part with a new video game. Hmm... going with a known quantity for three months which will have new! fun! exciting patches! (sorry, I'm a patchaholic) over those three months... or picking some random thing off the shelves.
Now, if you (collective) are the sort of person who has purchased fewer than 4 video games in the course of a year, I tip my hat to you. You're absolutely right. A MMO is a waste of your money. But you (hopefully) can see how it is not a ridiculous fiscal notion on its face for many.
You can add Electronic Arts and Tecmo to that list. I'll never again buy products made by either.
You've ID'd the main problem with MMOG's today: having to pay upfront for a subscription based game. Basically what's happening is the same thing music fans are sick of -- having to pay the middle man. The game publishers put the money upfront for the development costs of the game which they recoup and hope to make a profit from the initial retail sale of the game. Blizzard in turn makes their money from the monthly subscription fee. This is why you can't transfer the game.
If accounts were free, or available from online, there would be no distribution of the box version. No distributor wants to touch a game that is available online cheaper (or even at same price, but 'easier').
Yet, you can buy City of Heroes in a box or just download it online.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There IS such thing as too expensive. If enough people feels like they are paying more than they should be paying for the game then Blizzard's image will probably be damaged, which is just another way to excercise your power as a consumer.
If I sold you a bottle of water in the middle of the desert for a thousand bucks would you feel like you're paying a fair price?
With Blizzard's game it's the same... people know it's one of a kind and paying an excess of 10 or 20 bucks is not going to stop them.
diegoT
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
I wouldn't refer to Steam as evil. Not by a long shot. It perhaps made the "everyone has internet access" assumption before it was strictly true, but it's not like "Internet Access" isn't listed on the system requirements. It's a fine system.
Um, Freecraft didn't have anything to do with Blizzard's authentication. It emulated non-Battle.net version of Warcraft II and (AFAIK) implemented its own network protocol. Heck, Warcraft II didn't even have CD keys or any other authentication stuff that plagues us today!
Still kind of understandable that Blizzard got mad about the name of the project. Though only kind of - I don't see exactly how this thing threatened them anyway. In any case, they haven't gone after Stratagus - same code, different name.
Plus, I was under the impression bnetd folks wanted to implement authentication, but Blizzard didn't want to do that...
The ugly truth is that Blizzard guy is right. The copy of WOW is not some kind of "account generator" that you can you repeatedly to create new accounts. They want the number of sold copies to be equal (or greater than) with number of accounts and I understand their reasoning!
With Blizzard's game it's the same... people know it's one of a kind and paying an excess of 10 or 20 bucks is not going to stop them.
I have never heard of anyone dying from a lack of gaming (or from music or movie withdrawal either for that matter). It's not at all like price gouging on food and water during some kind of natural disaster. If the market will bear the price and it isn't something that people need then although the price may be too high for some people there is nothing "unfair" about it.
It's a great system... until it breaks down and you cannot play your game anymore that really doesn't need any access except for authentication..
Search the Slashdot archive, or the Steam forums.. they fucked up in the past and it will happen again, and only the law-abiding consumer is left holding the bag.
*Plays his version of HL2 100% offline*
Compared to Steam profits, no.
Most of the money from a box sale goes to the retailer and distributor. Valve way less than half of the box price.
Out of steam purchases, they got 100%. Sure, they had to pay for some bandwidth and other costs, but I'm quite sure online sales were way better deal.
For MMOs, the distributor deal might be so silly that the developer gets less than 10$/box (40-50$ retail).
Yes, its an exception.
That's because NCSoft distributed it themselves.
Retailers were EXTREMELY pissed off at launch, and the online purchase option was carefully hidden few days after launch, and it stayed hidden for a long time afterwards.
Nowdays they again offer the option openly, but make no mistake - retailers were NOT amused of the move.
'Course, you may also find a binding arbitration clause in the contract, which would keep you from winning a court case, and probably a clause restricting the venue to a jurisdiction inconvenient to you. Then there's the question of whether you have standing, since the EULA was between the original purchaser and the software company, and it is his right to transfer everything guaranteed in the license that is impeded. As second-hand purchaser, your claim is against the person who sold it to you.
I think the best thing is to look up contact information for the company's officers and write them a civil, straightforward letter asking them to rectify the situation. Then, if you don't receive satisfaction, you can exact your pound of flash by noising it around on Slashdot and to reporters at your local newspaper/television station.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
WTF? How the fuck are my two posts trolling? I think some bnet-d fans are just ganging up on me.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I thought most /.ers believed that EULAs were not enforceable. Interesting to see them argue the other side of the issue.
I'm of course assuming it was one of the clickthru or break the seal type EULAs. Actually if it was a break the seal type EULA then the person who bought the used copy never really agreed to the EULA as he couldn't have broken the seal. He therefore can't expect the company to abide by it.
This could have a number of bad consequences if the court takes the view I just stated. We don't want these EULAs to become enforceable against us.
Think carefuly before taking any futher action.
The guy who marries the Queen doesn't become the king, even though a woman who marries a king becomes the queen (usually). Similarly Queen Victoria's husband was Prince Albert, not king anything. Something to do with queens being seen as inferior to kings (at least, 100 odd years ago), so if they were king and queen people would get confused as to who's in charge. See http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a970214a.html for some more terminology... :)
As an aside, the king's wife isn't always queen - e.g. when Charles marries Camilla and later (presumably) becomes King, she won't be queen. I think that's because she's a divorcee - we don't have a problem with kings getting divorceed (ref Henry VIII)...
I /did/ read the whole article. I can't figure out why he would buy a used MMO unless he was trying to buy a character - as I explained in my first post. The cost/benefit just isn't there unless you are taking the characters with you.
I think he's trying to buy a character, but is leaving that bit out in order to win sympathy.
Yeah, I've seen it, but their main problems have generally never lasted longer than a few hours (I think the largest problem was with the launch of HL2, but I did use Steam until a couple of months prior to that since I was behind a University proxy - and lack of proxy support is something I was upset about). It just seems to me that any online system is bound to have server issues from time to time.
The offline facility has served me well in the past, though. The only gotcha is the case where you are mid-update and lose connectivity with Steam (which, for the record, has never happened to me), where you cannot play again until you reconnect and get the update. I believe this is where the acronym YMMV comes in, though.
and he only wants one account per key.
No, see.. he wants to make a SECOND account on the same key. That key already has one account. It's just not his, and accounts can't be transferred.
Or maybe he wants a new key. Unfortunately, that's not a product he can purchase. Blizzard posted that publically on their site weeks ago. He should've researched it, since it was clear the included key had already been used to create the one non-transferrable account it's entitled to.
They aren't trying to screw him here. He screwed himself. He read the agreement for the software, sure. But he didn't read the agreement for the account. They made it clear you can sell the box, and it's contents. The software. Not the account or "game" - though "game" may be implied.
Bottom line: He wasn't paying attention. What he bought isn't what he thought he was buying. Tough shit. Return it to the seller if unsatisfied. Pay more attention next time. Blizzard has not been vague or obtuse about how it works.
I can't figure out why he would buy a used MMO unless he was trying to buy a character
I think "the startup package is exorbitantly priced" is more than enough to explain it, really.
If he got it for "half price", or $25, then he's still saving ten bucks. And ten bucks is ten bucks. That's two cups of coffee even at Starbucks.
Unfortunately for him, as is stated just about everywhere, an authorization key can only be used once. You are free to sell the key or the software, per the EULA. But if they key has been used, it's a used key. It doesn't become new again. Thats in the agreements too. He's ignoring that bit.
The "Account Key" is a ticket. It gets you an account in the game. If you want to sell the ticket before you use it, you can. But like any ticket, once it's used, it's gone. Even if you sell the little ticket sleeve and the cd-rom tour guide that came with it.
On a side note -- Don't lump Guild Wars in the same category. While it does cost $49.95, it is NOT pay-per-month. You pay for the game, and that's it. As it rightfully should be. I'm more than tired of the 'Pay-per-month' business model. I don't like weighing whether or not I used the game enough to merit the $14 bucks at the end of the month. Guild Wars will be the first MMORPG I have played, as it is the first to offer me a promising pricing schema. (AKA - the first MMORPG to not be pay-per-month.)
To the darkened skies once more, and ever onward.
Haven't we gone over this a billion times before? The 50 dollars is to pay off all the loans that the company had to take out to make sure that the developers were getting paychecks in the years before the game was acctually released. These games aren't created overnight. The 15 dollars a month is mainly for server management and development in game. If you figure 5 of the 15 goes to server management, then 10 of it is going to pay the devs to build things while the game is still being played. Most good MMO's will release big publishes that you don't need to pay for. I know Dark age of camelot releases every other expansion pack for free, Lineage 2 releases "Chronicles" or whatever they like to call them, and Star Wars Galaxies will often throw in new dungeons for people to go to (especially since they got more devs).
good point ... why on earth does the game cost anything when it is subscription based?
Because the game likely took 3-4 years to develop, and the company needs to recoup the cost of development. How much do you think it costs to employ all those Programmers, designers, DBA's, network admins, etc.
if you are planning to pay the monthly subscription can you not just download the game installer for free?
The subscription cost pays for the maintainence of servers and customer support after the game is released.
The game isn't free to buy because the game was not free to make. The game isn't free to play (ala a FPS) because major work has to be put into maintaining a massive network and catering to the whiny (imho) people that play MMO's.
I'm glad they didn't let you delete her account. That would have been so mean. How would you feel if she had destroyed your games when she moved out?
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Stores *are* obsolete for digital content. Who needs the mail? you can download a full CD image in less time than most people can drive to the local mall and back. For digital content you should be able to cut out the middleman and the extra fee... And you *can* with a lot of titles.
Blizzard has always been 'special' though. Their software always costs more than the other software on the shelf. As long as there are enough Blizzard fanboys and rich kids with mommy's credit card out there, I suppose they can keep doing that as long as they like.
I think he was referring more to a Lineage II model, where you download the game for free and then pay the monthly fee for it.
Seriously, 9 out of 10 people throw the box they bought the game in away anyway. And I'd much rather have the game for free download (especially on a Steam-like platform) than have to go to the store and get the thing in a box - as if that is somehow worth it.
Only its not, because according to the rules of the whole thing, it doesn't actually get him into the game.
$50 is the standard price for just about any game out there that's relatively new. Blizzard even includes a free month, so it's really only $35 for the package, which is a bargain.
This whole thing just seems silly to me. I still support blizzard's hardline stance. Maybe it inconveniences someone who is desparate to save $10 so they can afford two cups of coffee - but it also keeps the game from being exploited by those who would.
"The only reason I can see the topic creator having an issue, is because someone didn't notify Blizzard in the first place that a CD-Key exchange was going to happen."
;).
My account was suspended because I was trying to 'transfer' my account to someone else. I was selling my complete gamebox on ebay and said i'd give the account name and password.
First if your account was suspended, immediately call up your credit card company and do a 'chargeback' on your subscription. If they want to not give you full service then you do not give them payment. Tell the people at the credit card company that you did not get full service and other information.
Second, call blizzard's account and billing problem department at 1-800-59-blizzard. If they say this is only for 'billing' tell them it clearly states in the manual it is for ACCOUNT problems as well. Feel good in the idea that you are costing them money since its toll free, call as often as you'd like
Third, try contacting the EFF at information@eff.org. When I contacted them they said they were getting a lot of complaints on this issue. Make it a good letter with as much facts and dates as possible.
I'll reply to myself when i get more contact information and other tips here.
My apologies: I wasn't strictly speaking about goodwill refunds but about explanations for refunds.
If it doesn't work -- as in the case with a game which doesn't work despite your machine fitting all the requirements -- you shouldn't need to explain the details of *why* you think things are not working. The fact that it *doesn't* work is enough.
The fact that this man has had so much hassle attempting to get a *perfectly operable* game to work, because of the company that he is attempting to subscribe with, suggests there is a much deeper problem though. They're refusing money off him, after all! When you have you ever heard of a sensible company do that?
the layman's guide to computer science
Why not just call them and get them to reset the password on YOUR account? Then have some fun with your lovingly-crafted charaters. :)
$50 is the standard price for just about any game out there that's relatively new
$40 or less is more typical, at least it was last night when I was looking for a new game at CompUSA.
So $50 would normally be "a bit high", $35, if you were actually buying a game, would be OK... not a bargain, but reasonable.
But for an online game, where you're paying every month you want to keep playing it, charging more than a nominal fee for the install package (that you're going to overwrite completely with updates the first time you get on, if the game's been out any time at all) is outrageous.
I still support blizzard's hardline stance.
I might, if they didn't state in their EULA that the end-user has a right to transfer the game and all associated rights to a new user. If that's not true, then they're violating their own license agreement. If the EULA means anything (and it should), then it applies to Blizzard as well as their customers. If it doesn't apply to Blizzard, then they're basically saying it's OK to break the EULA, that there should be no consequences for pirating their games, reverse-engineering them, writing cheat modules, and so on. Which is of course silly... but that's what Blizzard's saying.
The message to Blizzard has to be: "Put the hardline stance in the contract, or stand by your mistakes."
I bought a software program that had an online Authentication Key scheme. The software company has since gone out of business. My hard drive crashed and now there is no way to reinstall the software. I'll never buy software with this kind installation requirement again. I have already returned software complaining loudly that the software is useless if the company goes out of business.
Once you "installed" it on your Dreamcast, that account was forever linked to that Dreamcast's serial number. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. That didn't stop me from buying, playing, and enjoying the game. Alot of people got duped into buying old copies. However, the game materials made it very clear from the get-go that this was the case, and you either had to sell your game/Dreamcast combo, or not sell the game.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
I call bullshit.
Find an alternative to Symantec, because with their recent addition of "phone home" activation, and refusing to honor subscription renewals without software upgrades, they have become the worst choice you can make in AV software.
Check out the issues with their latest policies on The Gripelog if you need details. A sample of thier treatment of customers:
You were saying?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
That's not cool. Unless she's a total bitch, why do that to someone?
At least as far back as UO, you could not create a new account with a used key. 1 key / account, to open a new account required an unused key.
So what's the big deal? We're not talking about thousand-dollar licenses of business software, we're talking about a $50 game. At the absolute worst case, Blizzard might have to refund the money the second-hand purchaser spent on the used copy. Small claims stuff, at worst. You still won't have a valid account key, so if you goal was to play the game, you failed anyway. If your goal *isn't* to play the game, why the hell are you doing this in the first place?
For Blizzard, it's a no-win situation. They either have to settle every second-hand sale like this (! - yeah, people won't abuse *that*), or come up with some way to handled it themselves (probably by hosting a transfer of account service) that's *cheaper* than settling with everyone.
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
I don't think retailers gave a shit. Nor do I believe the option was hidden, they would only hurt them selves.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The cost of the software is to pay for the initial development costs, which runs in the tens of millions of dollars. The subscription fee pays for... a) further development of content, which WoW users are DEMANDING. b) The millions in hardware costs and maintenance to run 75+ virtual worlds. c) The monthly bills to host the game... I suspect that these use at LEAST an OC3, maybe an OC12 to the Internet. Not Cheap. d) Profit... no point in doing it if they can't make a profit. e) Game specific staff, game masters, customer service, etc. Every MMORPG uses a code, and every code can only be used once. I also believe Blizzard has the right to refuse anybody as a customer.
When my father-in-law was having problems with a company regarding a warranty, (Best Buy wrote down the wrong warranty code), he told the customer service rep that he wasn't going to sue or anything, but he was going to forward his complaint to the Better Business Bureau with a recommendation to submit it to the State Attorney's office. The wrong warranty code was immediately overlooked and a repair shop called him within 5 minutes asking him what he had said to the company since they were all over him to set up a service call immediately.
Alternatively, if you send them an email, Cc it to your States Attorney's office and explicitly mention having done so in the email. If nothing else it will get their attention. Corporate lawyers may not be affraid of an individual's lawyer, but they don't like going up against the government.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Well then, your prayers have been answered - Tibia operates several servers where there are not only no rules against killing other players, but in fact you can get experience by doing so.
"Ebay is not the only venue via which used items change hands." Why is this post rated informative?
my capcha was condom
It's stupid really, this digital world. If I buy soemthing for $60 I can't re-sell it? This is why software and EULA's need to be rethinked (See: Lady who is suing software companies over the EULA / opening software etc). If I buy a $60 DVD player, I can re-sell it for $50 to someone, simple as that. I OWN the DVD player, I am not paying anyone for a license of the software. The only licensing that should go on in the industry is between the MLB and EA, or between some movie franchise, and a game developer - NEVER between users and the companies. The company's control over the software should end the moment I hand my money to the cashier at Best Buy. But no, sadly that's not where it ends and we are still controlled by EULAs and we let it happen because we don't care most of the time.
First off, it's a $49.99 game.
It's actually 35.99 when you factor in that you get the first month free.
Because you can do more than play games on a PC? Duh? :)
Macromedia is "working" on it? What do you call a company that puts out software that an industry uses heavily that is also riddled with bugs then to turn around and put out a new version next year before all of the bugs are squashed in the current version? I would say that Macromedia has been at that point for years. Adobe I feel is one company who has resisited that urge. Although they are getting to the point of having more upgrades more often, they seem to put out software mostly free of major bugs. Their big issue is the cost, although Elements makes an excellent introductory package that does 99% of what typical users need.
In several European countries many software publishers are in violation of the law as the publishers do not allow selling of the software key/disk. EULA are non-binding in countries such as Germany because by buying you are agreeing blindly to a contract and German courts among others have declared this an illegal practice and hence you OWN the game and disk since you can not view the EULA before hand, therefore you can sell or trade your disk and license as you see fit.
I'm eager to see how this all plays out. I think these publishers are overstepping their bounds trying to change physical property of disks to ethereal ones of buying a service. Since most MMO make you BUY the game and license and then charge you monthly for the service, it stands to reason that they SHOULD let you sell it, but they just want another retail disk sale instead. I'm hoping the US courts put a stop to this ASAP, though I currently do not know of any lawsuits pending...
My take is that the high initial cost of the game is somewhat based on the desire to quickly recoup development costs, but I think there is a second reason, as well.
I think a significant factor in charging $50 or so for a game with a subscription fee is that they expect that many users will purchase the game, play it for a month or two, and quit, thereby depriving them of future income. These users (I've done this with 2 MMORPGs: UO and FFXI) do not have the time or patience to stick with a game as labor-intensive as an MMORPG, and without a high initial investment, would cost the game companies more than they were worth.
It probably also helps to offset the costs associated with power gamers, who play for 12 hours or more per day, and use more resources than their subscription fee can offset.
Basically, the companies want everyone to pay $50 up-front, $13-15/month, and play for 2-3 hours per day - in other words, just enough to make adequate progress to justify paying the fee for another month, but not really any more than that.
A word from the wise(guy):
Avoid Blizzard games. They are the digital equivalent of crack. Once you get hooked on your habit, you'll end up spending hundreds of hours online each month, and of course you'll keep paying for the privilege. I should know, I had several 90+ characters (including a 99 lvl 'zon) in Diablo II.
I finally wised up, went cold turkey, and got a life. Went to the gym, started lifting weights, cardio, and basically spending quality time with the people I love.
I predict that games like WoW will become even more immersive, especially when being used on 42 inch Plasma displays, with Dolby 5.1 surround sound... damn, I think I'm recidivising..... and as a result, will become even more addictive. In future, AlAnon and NarcAnon will be joined by MMRPGAnon.
Hi, my name is Hruk the 45 lvl Barbarian, and I'm a Gaming addict.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
I bought a used copy of Final Fantasy XI Online from a software seller on eBay and had this exact same thing happen. I made multiple calls to support lines at Square/Enix and basically came to the conclusion that the only thing you pay $50 for is your activation key. The rest is garbage. You can always get CDs shipped to you if you trash them. They even offered to send me a new instruction book (which contained the activation key), if I had an original receipt and the box. One of which I obviously didn't have.
So, its not just Blizzard. Square/Enix pulled the same crap. Now, I didn't RTFEULA for Final Fantasy, so I can't comment on whether Squar/Enix are violating their own EULA or not. I believe it said plainly on the box "Not for resale". Still, it sucks because at the time, I couldn't get a copy of FF anywhere! Luckily a friend found a store that had a single copy and snarfed it for me immediately.
The seller on eBay, after weeks of pressure and threatening to go through eBay arbitration, refunded my money.
if i buy a chair, then sell it in a yard sale, do i (or, in this case, the buyer) owe the maker of the chair a fee? or the owner of the store from which i purchased it? or the lumber yard that provided the wood?*
blizzard has made their money off of the physical copy of the software. and, in your example, microsoft has made their money off of the sale of their product. it's not even vaguely piracy.
perhaps you were under the impression that the software was still being used by the original purchaser? i can think of few other reasons for you to have made this post.
*the answer is no.
If I fail to provide the anti-theft code, would you place your complaint call to Volvo or would you call me?
::jafomatic
Well, considering when she left, she did so while I was at work and cleaned out practically my entire house in the process... AND considering she took my sports car (heavily modded, even) and *sold* it, forging my signature on the title to do so (since it was purchased before I was married and was never in her name), AND considering she even came back a second time, broke in a basement window, and took some of the replacement items (cordless phone, answering machine, etc.) that I bought from her first escapade - YES, I'd be MORE than happy to trash her account.
for buying anything with these kinds of restrictions. I don't care how good it is. Don't accept this crap. To me, you're a fool for buying into it, and you only make it harder for the rest of us to get less restrictive stuff that could be just as good. Don't buy software that has a license big enough to require another whole CD. It doesn't matter if they or anybody else violated their EULA. I don't believe in their validity anyway. If it's not a valid contract that I would have to abide by, then I can't expect them to abide by it either. Stop buying software with such nonsense, and the problem will go away.
What?
Eve-Online. Gank anyone you want... but with consequences. And death is really expensive in eve, you can basically lose everything.
Of course water in the desert is far more importan than a game can be. My point is simply that people sometimes will pay more than they consider a fair price because they can afford to pay for something they consider important (almost necessary). You're not going to die if you don't play games, but are teenagers willing to excercise their power as consumers because of an excess of $20?
diegoT
1) IIRC, that obsolete middle man sets retail prices, not Blizzard. Bitch at them. 2) I couldn't read the article at the time, firewall at work prevented.
When Lineage II was released in the US, you had to buy a boxed copy. Even if that is no longer the case, it still is a bad comparison. Many MMO's go to online sales after the initial release. Usually because box sales start dropping off.
You can still use the existing account, so when you buy a used copy you must/should warn the seller that he/she must write down his account information (user and pass). When you got tha game you just change (manage account) the pass (and other information) with your own.
No, see.. he wants to make a SECOND account on the same key. That key already has one account. It's just not his, and accounts can't be transferred.
He wants to create an account in place of another. At no time is there any reason for there to be two accounts. If you're really going to be annoying about it, they can just clear the data out of the old account and re-use it, removing the semantic "second account" problem.
Blizzard posted that publically on their site weeks ago. He should've researched it, since it was clear the included key had already been used to create the one non-transferrable account it's entitled to.
Again, the license said he could buy the game. He assumed he could use it once he did. The crazy fuck.
Blizzard has not been vague or obtuse about how it works.
YES, THEY HAVE! The game is entirely pointless without the account! How is this hard to understand? A website is non-binding. A license agreement is binding.
He WAS paying attention, and that's what got him into trouble. Normally, you'd assume you couldn't transfer it, but it said you could, so he did.
This is the kind of thing that makes people despise lawyers.
Well, ok then. You didn't say that the first time.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
I'd say that the parent just got ripped off. He took a chance and bought a used copy of the game without checking whether or not it would work.
Personally, I get a lot of games from Ebay. I generally prefer the "New and Unopened" ones myself. I think I'll stay away from WoW in light of this new information, although frankly I just don't like Blizzard games that much. Warcraft II was ok, but I don't like Starcraft, and Diablo II is juvenile to the point of being absurd.
I've heard good things about WoW, but I truly hate having to subscribe for things. Thats what kills it for me. I want less fixed monthly expenses, not more.
Clickety Click
This is slashdot, not Gamefaqs.Abusive language is more or less the norm.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."