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Blizzard Sues Creator of WoW Bot
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically. Blizzard says the software bot infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game. 'Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time,' Blizzard wrote in its legal submission to the court. More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold while more than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft. Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyright because no 'copy' of the Warcraft game client software is ever made. The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgment in the case."
He agrees that their argument is weak, but he is a computer person. A judge's eyes might gloss over and take on a zombie-like nobody-is-home deadness, as you try to explain what the law says. Or maybe they'd just declare you a trouble-maker who doesn't do what the corporate overlords want you to do.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's another "let's sue" solution to a problem that plagues a lot of games... boredom. I've played a few games that require some kind of grind... A Tale in the Desert, Puzzle Pirates, etc. (yeah, I pick the obscure ones)... and I've written somewhat less sophisticated macroing tools like this Glider app for each of them. I've never felt bad about writing something to deal with the parts of a game that I don't like. I'm convinced it's the nature of all these types of games that eventually someone will get fed up and do the same thing.