EULAs in general tend to be unenforceable due to varying state laws, personal opinion and the fact they don't hold up real well in court cases and most in fact carry a clause which states that the agreement is (obviously) null and void on both parts of the parties involved if it isn't enforceable.
The wizards of the cost game scenario is way off though, because the cards are sold as is to customers and they are FREE to sell, trade or give away whatever cards they want to other people. This would be the case if Blizzard lost.
I won't get too far into the nitty gritty but I would like to say at the point they win it becames a huge case of semantics dealing with who "rents" what and how everything is leased, etc, etc.
Basically, it's not a case for slashdot to be arguing really but for the theologians at terranova.blogs:)
I do see where your argument is coming from though:)
You don't have to sugar coat anything to see the past actual legal cases have been LOST to the ebayers.
And it's still very debatable whether banning people who are using third parties to influence the game actually hurts the economy or hurts playerbase. So far, ZERO researchers on that one...be the first:p
Most sites out there barring eBay have already gone to court over such rulings and have won. What has actually come out over these cases is that it is ILLEGAL for certain companies, subsidiaries or third party employees to puruse or bid on these sites with the intent or interest of transmitting personal or non-personal (game character names) information to the said company.
Basically this means Blizzard and Sony would lose horribly if someone from these sites found out about a "spy" and they'd take a hit in the pocketbook that would make Bill Gates turn white.
Blizzard can't actually risk suing anyone, because there's a very good chance they'd lose (won't make any predictions for that except it's probably slightly in favor of the money sellers).
Think about it this way, if they sue someone, IGE (a multi-million dollar company) will back them with the BEST lawyers available. Past court cases including Blacksnow Inc., Playerauctions.com and others have gone in favor of third party sellers (but not directly toward the discussion of if it's legal to actually DO so).
Let's pretend they lose (in the first scenario).
Now, every gamer and his brother's brother can sell items, money etc, LEGALLY without ANY possible reprecussion to their account. They may do whatever the hell they please with their characters including macro, bott, exploit, WHATEVER because all content (if Blizzard lost the case) that the player had direct access to would generally be considered the players and Blizzard would have no control over it except for changes to the game itself which could still conceivably be considered their own code.
NOW let's say they win.
In this case, the prospects for court cases against THEM suddenly open wide up. Now since Blizzard is accountable for items, characters, etc, everything suddenly has a direct value to be determined by money sucking lawyers. That's right people, a nerf could be seen as an attack on character (amoungest MANY other possibilities) and Blizzard would then be legally liable for any and all injustices done in game.
SO barring the possible THREAT of legalese (maybe scrounge a few bucks from the wimps in out of court settlements) you most likely won't see a real court case come out of this unless Blizzard is out of their goddamn mind.
Are there other scenarios? Yes, and I would love to list all of them since I'm an avid researcher on this exact circumstance but I don't have the time right now...I'm checking on my macro bott:p
(j/k I'm at work:)
P.S. A court case...win or lose...would not only set these rules of play for WoW, but most likely for ALL other games in existance since most court cases use past history and precedant (sp) to argue their cases (and it usually works since a large portion of law is facts and research).
Even people like Blacksnow Inc were winning in a case against Mythic until someone found out they were setting up slave sweat shops where people played the game for money...under the law.
There is nothing mind boggling or new that he's stating here. In fact, most of what he's saying comes across far more as a whiner or an english prof. than an actual analysis of game reviewing.
I've found multiple instances where it seems he's either contradicting himself or carrying on some strange arguement inside his own head and translating the results onto paper. He also makes some GRAND assumptions that gamers rely off of reviews to buy games even though they already know about the game itself. Personally, I don't rely on a goddamn thing other than my own opinion for the basis of my like/dislike of a game. The only reason these days to read a review is to find out more about specific features not found on the side of the box or areas of the game that play poorly or I dislike, NOT that the reviewer likes or dislikes...ME.
He also mentions that scores are a bad idea, but then goes back and says (in no certain terms) that we should all adopt a single system of rating, which is all fine and dandy but unfortunately, not realistic in the slightest, since some people want to split their games up like slices of pie (5 pieces) and others like pizza (10+ slices). Along with this he also mentions that for some reason, people seem to be CONFUSED about these different ratings (or at least he is). I could CARE LESS what numbering system people use, personally, I can count from 1 to 5 or 1 to 100 and I also know that 5 is a greater number than 1 and 100 is a greater number than 1. This to me, means that a higher score is better, despite minor differences, this is pretty clear, even between such devious numbers as 89 and 98 which seems to perplex him.
Despite all the stuff he's written, I believe he doesn't really take the gamer perspective into view at all. Which is that gamers KNOW what they like, reviews don't need to be scrutinized to the point of obscruity, because they may help or hinder, but only because they show DEFINITE SIGNS of what people ALREADY WANT. Let me show you an example...
World of Warcraft:
WoW did well, that's a no contest. Reviews were also good for WoW. Did this corelate?
WoW did not introduce anything extremely new or groundbreaking but followed the formulas of other RPGs and did everything RIGHT. Reviewers stated this, and that is pretty much all people need. If a reviewer stated horribly bad things about WoW, they'd probably be stating OPINION rather than fact, which is pretty much all reviewer readers look for. Therefore, if the viewer read a bad review, they could usually tell that the reviewer was using opinion and not fact.
In the end, reviews are simply not needed to undergo the reformat and scrutiny he desires because people simply DONT CARE how they're formated, as long as they get the facts across in a clear concise fashion. Possibly the only thing I would agree with, is that reviewers need to figure out a way to not rely on money from companies who make the same games they review, it obviously creates a flawed view on things.
Not only are MMORPGs not for you...it seems like RPGs in general are not even in your remote interest, even single players. You need to devote a certain amount of time into any game multiplayer (at least I do) in order to get some satisfaction out of it.
Even the normal RPG requires you to "level up" in certain spots to continue the storyline without replaying a battle 500 times because you keep dying.
Sounds to me like unless you have natural aim (which some players do) you may as well read a book, which personally I get as much enjoyment out of (although not as long lasting as a MMORPG) as a NORMAL RPG since they both put you in the place of a hero (I use my imagination).
You're an idiot if YOU missed the boat to gaming conventions which seemingly half of you forgot about.
You DO KNOW that things like Quakecon exist right? Where people hold contest to make an area more gaming centric and players come from everywhere to win all sorts of money from sponsers like AIT, nVidia, etc? Yeah, that's a pretty good reason to build one of these and it's quite a room packer if you've ever been to one.
The argument over arcade popularity is retarded, arcades aren't multi-million dollar warehouses set up for gaming, they cost 20-50K at the most and make that back slower than a snail compared to any reasonable gaming center. God why are people posting who know nothing about gaming (*cough* everyone has an alienware who would go to this? what crack are you on? they cost $5K for a good alienware*cough*) or gaming centers. Or those who want to bring up a debate on how popular arcades USED to be compared to gaming centers NOW?
You can't even use the same goddamn dollar table for crying out loud (inflation, different era, different games, different AUDIENCE).
The launch was as smooth as a babies bottom for me, good times people, good times:)
Loaded up good
Ran good
Didn't crash
No lag errors or server crashes (wow)
A+ launch in my book
Entertainment in theater (movies) or music has FAR less strain on a person basically trying to make a 1 million piece puzzle without knowing what puzzle pieces they have to use.
They work MUCH harder than say, Joe Schmoe painting the set or actor X saying a few lines with "emotion". In a work of 'art' of a video game, everyone is the artist honestly. The person who is getting paid the least does the most work where the person doing almost nothing gets paid the most. It may be art but it's FAR closer to a normal job in construction.
Please don't bring up the subject of ebay sales, it's not a topic you want to start because it NEVER ends...
P.S. There's nothing wrong with selling Gil:P
Crazy as it might seem, maybe you could stop bitching about how you can't get immediate access to the betas because you signed up too late and just keep a regular subscription going there.
I'm not saying that you HAVE to pay $7 a month to get into betas but goddamn, don't get all noobish and whine EVERY SINGLE TIME you see something on fileplanet and sign up too late. Good god, learn from your mistakes and just get an account with early email notification or stop trying to say the world is against you, but pick one please.
Let's see, do I trust SOE, with a LONG history of bad customer service, poor implementation, last minute design work, and a penchant to destroy what players like most about their games in order to fit their widely known about yet unknown "visions" or do I trust the Themis group with a history of being able to clean up some asshats mistake with ungodly efficiency.
Themis group studies this shit for a LIVING, you think SOE knows more than the Themis group and I'll get the "SOE Fanboi" cattle prod out for you along with the pile of shit with a bow on it they want to shove in your face and tell you it's Cracker Jacks.
But seriously, why would you trust anything SOE says? Or anything one of the fanbois says about ANYTHING related to SOE, their games, or their customer service? I constantly hear the prattle of teen angst screaming in the background saying "but the game is ready, it's so awesome and WoW is already old and tired!". Give me a break, I hear that shit EVERY SINGLE TIME before a SOE release and for months afterword all I hear is "OMG Sony sucks so bad, they won't fix anything and their CS is crappy...blahblahblah".
The cycle happens everytime boys and girls, stop sticking your hand in the fire just because they tell you to and learn there are other things out there, like stoves and microwaves. (sorry if that went too deep for anyone:)
Check it out, it's already done for FREE in WoW by the most dedicated guild out there from EQ, Afterlife. Not only does Thot have a good system up and running with this program, he has WAY more stat tracking and creativity than SOE ever showed, and his dedication to games along with his technical skills outweighs anything they can throw his way (except maybe a couple million dollars:P).
That's right, ONE person outdid all that SOE is trying to do at the last minute (copycat of what he already did if you ask me).
If UO think they couldn't top itself, they've got problems. AC2 also had the problems of generic gameplay. UO2 may have suffered from the same problems, which is not to say it would've been bad intrinsically, they should've worked with the same freaking ideas and just upgraded it (engine and all) if they were worried about losing players (COUGH, COUGH).
And in an absolutely stunning (cough) media announcement, Sony, the company that runs games like Everquest and SWG, rules that hardware that helps you play games or perform multiple functions is against their EULA because it is considered macroing.
It's also reported by and large, the community decides they don't give a flaming fuck and people ignore EULAs because of the ridiculous shit like that, that gets put in them:)
P.S. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking in reference to, Sony had a spat over hardware that could macro without third party software. Hardware generally meant for handicap people.
This is hilarious, did this really come from the same country that did this shit? http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/08/10445 79987451.html?oneclick=true
Anyone remember Fatal1ty? Quake player from a long time ago? After winning all those tourney's and being declared Quake champ and all he started up his own little shop selling stuff with his name on it and the ever famous "fat pad" an extremely large mouse pad because of his ultra low mouse sensitivity.
Anyway, he comes by every now and then and hangs out with us and tells us what he does. He plays video games for 8 hours a day to practice and does endorsement deals. That's right, he plays video games for a living (and drives around in a painted alien vs. predator hummer he won).
That makes sense in some cases but what do you do about people who lose their copies due to viruses, reformats, stolen property, etc? Send them a new key? What about the people who do this repeatedly under different names, like their cat?
It may be all well and good in the future but I need to see a good security explanation and loophole blocking features.
Slashdot Mirror
EULAs in general tend to be unenforceable due to varying state laws, personal opinion and the fact they don't hold up real well in court cases and most in fact carry a clause which states that the agreement is (obviously) null and void on both parts of the parties involved if it isn't enforceable.
The wizards of the cost game scenario is way off though, because the cards are sold as is to customers and they are FREE to sell, trade or give away whatever cards they want to other people. This would be the case if Blizzard lost.
I won't get too far into the nitty gritty but I would like to say at the point they win it becames a huge case of semantics dealing with who "rents" what and how everything is leased, etc, etc.
:)
:)
Basically, it's not a case for slashdot to be arguing really but for the theologians at terranova.blogs
I do see where your argument is coming from though
You don't have to sugar coat anything to see the past actual legal cases have been LOST to the ebayers.
:p
And it's still very debatable whether banning people who are using third parties to influence the game actually hurts the economy or hurts playerbase. So far, ZERO researchers on that one...be the first
Most sites out there barring eBay have already gone to court over such rulings and have won. What has actually come out over these cases is that it is ILLEGAL for certain companies, subsidiaries or third party employees to puruse or bid on these sites with the intent or interest of transmitting personal or non-personal (game character names) information to the said company.
Basically this means Blizzard and Sony would lose horribly if someone from these sites found out about a "spy" and they'd take a hit in the pocketbook that would make Bill Gates turn white.
Blizzard can't actually risk suing anyone, because there's a very good chance they'd lose (won't make any predictions for that except it's probably slightly in favor of the money sellers).
:p
:)
Think about it this way, if they sue someone, IGE (a multi-million dollar company) will back them with the BEST lawyers available. Past court cases including Blacksnow Inc., Playerauctions.com and others have gone in favor of third party sellers (but not directly toward the discussion of if it's legal to actually DO so).
Let's pretend they lose (in the first scenario).
Now, every gamer and his brother's brother can sell items, money etc, LEGALLY without ANY possible reprecussion to their account. They may do whatever the hell they please with their characters including macro, bott, exploit, WHATEVER because all content (if Blizzard lost the case) that the player had direct access to would generally be considered the players and Blizzard would have no control over it except for changes to the game itself which could still conceivably be considered their own code.
NOW let's say they win.
In this case, the prospects for court cases against THEM suddenly open wide up. Now since Blizzard is accountable for items, characters, etc, everything suddenly has a direct value to be determined by money sucking lawyers. That's right people, a nerf could be seen as an attack on character (amoungest MANY other possibilities) and Blizzard would then be legally liable for any and all injustices done in game.
SO barring the possible THREAT of legalese (maybe scrounge a few bucks from the wimps in out of court settlements) you most likely won't see a real court case come out of this unless Blizzard is out of their goddamn mind.
Are there other scenarios? Yes, and I would love to list all of them since I'm an avid researcher on this exact circumstance but I don't have the time right now...I'm checking on my macro bott
(j/k I'm at work
P.S. A court case...win or lose...would not only set these rules of play for WoW, but most likely for ALL other games in existance since most court cases use past history and precedant (sp) to argue their cases (and it usually works since a large portion of law is facts and research).
Even people like Blacksnow Inc were winning in a case against Mythic until someone found out they were setting up slave sweat shops where people played the game for money...under the law.
There is nothing mind boggling or new that he's stating here. In fact, most of what he's saying comes across far more as a whiner or an english prof. than an actual analysis of game reviewing.
/end rant
I've found multiple instances where it seems he's either contradicting himself or carrying on some strange arguement inside his own head and translating the results onto paper. He also makes some GRAND assumptions that gamers rely off of reviews to buy games even though they already know about the game itself. Personally, I don't rely on a goddamn thing other than my own opinion for the basis of my like/dislike of a game. The only reason these days to read a review is to find out more about specific features not found on the side of the box or areas of the game that play poorly or I dislike, NOT that the reviewer likes or dislikes...ME.
He also mentions that scores are a bad idea, but then goes back and says (in no certain terms) that we should all adopt a single system of rating, which is all fine and dandy but unfortunately, not realistic in the slightest, since some people want to split their games up like slices of pie (5 pieces) and others like pizza (10+ slices). Along with this he also mentions that for some reason, people seem to be CONFUSED about these different ratings (or at least he is). I could CARE LESS what numbering system people use, personally, I can count from 1 to 5 or 1 to 100 and I also know that 5 is a greater number than 1 and 100 is a greater number than 1. This to me, means that a higher score is better, despite minor differences, this is pretty clear, even between such devious numbers as 89 and 98 which seems to perplex him.
Despite all the stuff he's written, I believe he doesn't really take the gamer perspective into view at all. Which is that gamers KNOW what they like, reviews don't need to be scrutinized to the point of obscruity, because they may help or hinder, but only because they show DEFINITE SIGNS of what people ALREADY WANT. Let me show you an example...
World of Warcraft:
WoW did well, that's a no contest. Reviews were also good for WoW. Did this corelate?
WoW did not introduce anything extremely new or groundbreaking but followed the formulas of other RPGs and did everything RIGHT. Reviewers stated this, and that is pretty much all people need. If a reviewer stated horribly bad things about WoW, they'd probably be stating OPINION rather than fact, which is pretty much all reviewer readers look for. Therefore, if the viewer read a bad review, they could usually tell that the reviewer was using opinion and not fact.
In the end, reviews are simply not needed to undergo the reformat and scrutiny he desires because people simply DONT CARE how they're formated, as long as they get the facts across in a clear concise fashion. Possibly the only thing I would agree with, is that reviewers need to figure out a way to not rely on money from companies who make the same games they review, it obviously creates a flawed view on things.
Not only are MMORPGs not for you...it seems like RPGs in general are not even in your remote interest, even single players. You need to devote a certain amount of time into any game multiplayer (at least I do) in order to get some satisfaction out of it.
Even the normal RPG requires you to "level up" in certain spots to continue the storyline without replaying a battle 500 times because you keep dying.
Sounds to me like unless you have natural aim (which some players do) you may as well read a book, which personally I get as much enjoyment out of (although not as long lasting as a MMORPG) as a NORMAL RPG since they both put you in the place of a hero (I use my imagination).
You're an idiot if YOU missed the boat to gaming conventions which seemingly half of you forgot about.
You DO KNOW that things like Quakecon exist right? Where people hold contest to make an area more gaming centric and players come from everywhere to win all sorts of money from sponsers like AIT, nVidia, etc? Yeah, that's a pretty good reason to build one of these and it's quite a room packer if you've ever been to one.
The argument over arcade popularity is retarded, arcades aren't multi-million dollar warehouses set up for gaming, they cost 20-50K at the most and make that back slower than a snail compared to any reasonable gaming center. God why are people posting who know nothing about gaming (*cough* everyone has an alienware who would go to this? what crack are you on? they cost $5K for a good alienware*cough*) or gaming centers. Or those who want to bring up a debate on how popular arcades USED to be compared to gaming centers NOW?
You can't even use the same goddamn dollar table for crying out loud (inflation, different era, different games, different AUDIENCE).
The launch was as smooth as a babies bottom for me, good times people, good times :)
Loaded up good
Ran good
Didn't crash
No lag errors or server crashes (wow)
A+ launch in my book
Entertainment in theater (movies) or music has FAR less strain on a person basically trying to make a 1 million piece puzzle without knowing what puzzle pieces they have to use.
They work MUCH harder than say, Joe Schmoe painting the set or actor X saying a few lines with "emotion". In a work of 'art' of a video game, everyone is the artist honestly. The person who is getting paid the least does the most work where the person doing almost nothing gets paid the most. It may be art but it's FAR closer to a normal job in construction.
Please don't bring up the subject of ebay sales, it's not a topic you want to start because it NEVER ends... P.S. There's nothing wrong with selling Gil :P
Nude hacks for horny teens in 3..2..1... :)
Crazy as it might seem, maybe you could stop bitching about how you can't get immediate access to the betas because you signed up too late and just keep a regular subscription going there.
I'm not saying that you HAVE to pay $7 a month to get into betas but goddamn, don't get all noobish and whine EVERY SINGLE TIME you see something on fileplanet and sign up too late. Good god, learn from your mistakes and just get an account with early email notification or stop trying to say the world is against you, but pick one please.
Let's see, do I trust SOE, with a LONG history of bad customer service, poor implementation, last minute design work, and a penchant to destroy what players like most about their games in order to fit their widely known about yet unknown "visions" or do I trust the Themis group with a history of being able to clean up some asshats mistake with ungodly efficiency.
:)
Themis group studies this shit for a LIVING, you think SOE knows more than the Themis group and I'll get the "SOE Fanboi" cattle prod out for you along with the pile of shit with a bow on it they want to shove in your face and tell you it's Cracker Jacks.
But seriously, why would you trust anything SOE says? Or anything one of the fanbois says about ANYTHING related to SOE, their games, or their customer service? I constantly hear the prattle of teen angst screaming in the background saying "but the game is ready, it's so awesome and WoW is already old and tired!". Give me a break, I hear that shit EVERY SINGLE TIME before a SOE release and for months afterword all I hear is "OMG Sony sucks so bad, they won't fix anything and their CS is crappy...blahblahblah".
The cycle happens everytime boys and girls, stop sticking your hand in the fire just because they tell you to and learn there are other things out there, like stoves and microwaves. (sorry if that went too deep for anyone
http://www.thottbot.com/
:P).
Check it out, it's already done for FREE in WoW by the most dedicated guild out there from EQ, Afterlife. Not only does Thot have a good system up and running with this program, he has WAY more stat tracking and creativity than SOE ever showed, and his dedication to games along with his technical skills outweighs anything they can throw his way (except maybe a couple million dollars
That's right, ONE person outdid all that SOE is trying to do at the last minute (copycat of what he already did if you ask me).
If UO think they couldn't top itself, they've got problems. AC2 also had the problems of generic gameplay. UO2 may have suffered from the same problems, which is not to say it would've been bad intrinsically, they should've worked with the same freaking ideas and just upgraded it (engine and all) if they were worried about losing players (COUGH, COUGH).
And in an absolutely stunning (cough) media announcement, Sony, the company that runs games like Everquest and SWG, rules that hardware that helps you play games or perform multiple functions is against their EULA because it is considered macroing. It's also reported by and large, the community decides they don't give a flaming fuck and people ignore EULAs because of the ridiculous shit like that, that gets put in them :)
P.S. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking in reference to, Sony had a spat over hardware that could macro without third party software. Hardware generally meant for handicap people.
Puny humans, taste defeat at the hands of our version of your Commodore 64!
I'd mod this funny but I think he was serious :)
This is hilarious, did this really come from the same country that did this shit? http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/08/10445 79987451.html?oneclick=true
Anyone remember Fatal1ty? Quake player from a long time ago? After winning all those tourney's and being declared Quake champ and all he started up his own little shop selling stuff with his name on it and the ever famous "fat pad" an extremely large mouse pad because of his ultra low mouse sensitivity.
:)
Anyway, he comes by every now and then and hangs out with us and tells us what he does. He plays video games for 8 hours a day to practice and does endorsement deals. That's right, he plays video games for a living (and drives around in a painted alien vs. predator hummer he won).
I only wish I was half that lucky
That makes sense in some cases but what do you do about people who lose their copies due to viruses, reformats, stolen property, etc? Send them a new key? What about the people who do this repeatedly under different names, like their cat?
It may be all well and good in the future but I need to see a good security explanation and loophole blocking features.
I wouldn't mind seeing a good card game come out of this deal either, Metroid or otherwise.