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Blizzard Asserts Rights Over Independent Add-Ons
bugnuts writes "Blizzard has announced a policy change regarding add-ons for the popular game World of Warcraft which asserts requirements on UI programmers, such as disallowing charging for the program, obfuscation, or soliciting donations. Add-ons are voluntarily-installed UI programs that add functionality to the game, programmed in Lua, which can do various tasks that hook into the WoW engine. The new policy has some obvious requirements, such as not loading the servers or spamming users, and it looks like an attempt to make things more accessible and free for the end user. But unlike FOSS, it adds other requirements that assert control over these independently coded programs, such as distribution and fees. Blizzard can already control the ultimate functionality of add-ons by changing the hooks into the WoW engine. They have exercised this ability in the past, e.g. to disable add-ons that automate movement and facilitate 'one-button' combat. Should they be able to make demands on independent programmers' copyrighted works, such as forbidding download fees or advertising, when those programmers are not under contract to code for Blizzard? Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?"
When I used to play WoW, I used many addons that made up for Blizzard's shortcomings in the UI. If the authors want to charge for these addons Blizzard should have absolutely no say in the matter. The developers are improving Blizzard's product to a more playable state, Blizzard should be paying them.
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If you want to play with their code and platform, you need to follow their rules or not play at all.
Just as you can't close your code if it incorporates GPL code, Blizzard doesn't want you charging people for your add-ons if you code for their platform.
Just skimming through the changes, it doesn't look like they forbid advertising or donations: just in-game advertising or requests for donations. (i.e.: an add-on developer would still be perfectly free to solicit donations or include advertising on the site where they offer the add-on for download)
And you can develop your add-on for WoW and not follow Blizzard's rules as long as you never distribute it.
Your pedantry doesn't really prove anything, though.
I'll chime in here.
I'm the current sole author/maintainer of what I believe is the world's most popular World of Warcraft UI Mod, QuestHelper. About half a year ago I took it over from an abandoned/unmaintained and rapidly degrading state, and I've treated it like a full-time job since. I'm perhaps two or three weeks ago from releasing Version 1.0, which is a huge set of changes to dramatically reduce CPU and memory usage, as well as produce better output from the mod and be far, far easier to maintain and modify in the future.
I used to be fully donation-supported - that means my apartment in the Bay Area, food, gas, utilities, all of that, thanks to the generosity of users.
The funny thing about donations is that a lot of people will gladly donate, but you have to remind them. Depending on how you count it, adding a simple unobtrusive message on logon saying "hey we're donation-supported, if you really like QH please donate" increased income anywhere from five-fold to hundred-fold. That said, even with that message, my income was starting to drop below sustainability levels - I was hoping that v1.0 would fix that, as well as breaking some code in the Wowmatrix client that was actually disabling my donation request.
(Ironically, it seems like the message may not have been noticable enough, as a large number of people have told me that they never even saw it after using QH for months. So it goes.)
Now, I'm not donation-supported. I can't put that message up, and I know from experience that I won't get enough without it. I can keep up the donation box on the actual website, but the fact is that just won't provide enough for me to keep going - most people don't even look at the website. I should mention that I fully believe this is within Blizzard's rights to do - I don't have any grounds to sue or anything - but I do believe it sucks. So I'm going to be releasing version 1.0 (watch for it in 2 or 3 weeks, it'd be sooner but I'm going to GDC and that will eat a week), and then just putting it in a mothballed maintenance release, as the remaining donations I'll get anyway should be enough for that.
I think this is a mistake caused by Blizzard's overzealous legal team. I think, for some reason, Blizzard is terrified at the idea of anyone besides them making money on anything related to their game. I'm not sure why they're banning donation requests ingame but not out-of-game - I think they're just confused. However, they've killed off a good number of UI mods thanks to this, and I think ultimately this is going to hurt them quite a bit.
I'll field questions, as long as they're sanely-written.
If you'd like to donate, I'd love for a little bit extra to cover the 1.0 release - here's the link. Anything you can give is appreciated, of course, though not expected and not required.
Also, if there's any business managers out there who have a clever idea for how to still make a living off this, let me know. I'll pay you with a reasonable fraction of the results ;)
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
All this will do is reduce the number of addons available.
No it won't, it'll just reduce the number of addons spamming your message window with "OMG PLZ SEND MONEY". TFA specifically says you can solicit donations on your website for your work, you just can't charge for it or advertise in game.
It's just conjecture of course, but from poking around a couple wow-specific boards and discussions going on there, it looks like the only two well-used add-ons this will affect are Carbonite and QuestHelper. QH apparently had a minor request for donation in-game that they will likely just remove. Carbonite however has full-on subscription plans they require for their "full" version. I looked around their site and forums but couldn't find anything official as to what they're planning to do.
Possibly impacted by this also is the bejeweled add-on; I don't believe this was open source?
Nope, when you live under someones roof you play by their rules. It might be kindof a dick move, but it's their API and they have every right to control how it's used. And it's not like this stipulation is unheard of; Microsoft has similar rules surrounding use of their GamerTag API as well as Google Maps with their free API (this is an oversimplification, but in general you are not allowed to use GMap mashups in for-pay websites).
Not to belittle the work of modders, but the fact that they can write add-ons at all is due to the substantial amount of resources that Blizzard has invested not only in the development of the API, but also the game itself and the massive server infrastructure.
I may not like it (I haven't decide either way yet whether it's a good or bad move - I'm very wary of Blizzard ever since the bnetd fiasco). But they are absolutely within their rights to do this.
You don't need addons. You may like addons, but you sure as hell don't need them. WoW is perfectly playable without any addons. In fact, I know a number of people who play with a very minimal number of addons for the reason that addons usually break when a new version comes out. So they don't use man, and the ones they do use are non-critical. Personally I use a few, but none that are "I must have it or I can't play." I am perfectly capable of disabling all my addons and still doing just fine.
What's more, WoW has a very good UI built in. I've played more than a few MMORPGs (Everquest, DAoC, EvE, Starwars Galaxies, and Warhammer) and WoW has be far the best UI. It is easy to use, and includes a high degree of built-in customization. For that matter, the addon interface is just another level. The most basic is the point and click menus and such. If you need more complexity, there's macros which require some basic scripting but not much. Need more than that? No problem you can full out program the UI using XML and LUA. What's more, you can share it with the world.
Also, Blizzard DOES take popular addons and make something like them in the game. Biggest one I can think of is the raid frames. Back in the day, there was no display for the whole raid, and thus no easy way to heal a raid. CTRaid became popular for this reason. It was a pain in the ass to use, and kinda flaky at times, but useful to raiders. So what happened? Blizzard modified WoW to have it's own raid frames, and to give addons like CT easy means of communicating things.
Your post just sounds like whining about a game that won't do things "Your way." Well ok, but recognize you aren't the only player. Lots of people may not think that "your way" is right. So if you don't find it fun, go find another game to play. Seriously, WoW isn't the only game out there, not even the only MMO. Some people like other games, nothing wrong with that. However, if your bitch is with the UI, well I'd be prepared to be disappointed. WoW's UI is one of the very best. That was only of the biggest pains when I tries Warhammer. The UI in that game was so rouge as compared to what I was used to in WoW. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't near as good as what WoW had.