Blizzard Prepares to Sue Over Illegal StarCraft TV Broadcasts

[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

Ok, so this is weird man. Why would you want to watch people play starcraft on tv???? I knew there was some crazy shit over there but jeez.

Watched a game of SC2 on youtube. It was actually pretty entertaining, with commentary and an honest to goodness "beginning, middle, end" narrative that came straight out of the gameplay. I mean, if TV can make Poker interesting to watch then it wouldn't be hard to make a game of SC into something TV-worthy.

 

[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

snip

A question: What wars had trade as a major reason?

Amusingly, the American Revolution for one. The "taxation without representation" issue wasn't quite as unfair as it sounds today since those taxes were levied specifically to pay for the French-Indian War--which was fought to protect the Colonies from invasion. Talk of revolution really only kicked off after the Boston Tea Party, an incident where colonists protested against import monopolies by the East India Company. Now, the tea--even though it was taxed by the Tea Act--was actually cheaper than the tea the colonists usually got from smugglers who, at the time, were viewed a bit like Robin Hoods in their way. The smugglers didn't like the unfair competition and their act of protest happened to be spun in a way that sparked a revolutionary fire.

You'd be surprised how many wars you thought were mostly ideological or territorial may have actually had relatively mundane and venal reasons behind them.

On another note, the reason the American Civil War started was the slavery issue. And the South felt that outlawing slavery would kill their ability to compete with other textile and agricultural exporters and they felt they had the state's right to decide what's best for their economy. While the conflict was moral at its center, the only reason the South even got the guns out was because money was involved.

EDIT: Er, sorry for the double post.

 

[Therumancer]

snip

A question: What wars had trade as a major reason?

I'd buy the argument that starcraft is akin to soccer, if it wasn't for the frequent patching, balancing, customer support and server hosting that starcraft entails.
Granted: they didn't have to remove lan from starcraft 2, in fact korea pro scene is probably as big a reason as piracy. Starcraft only became akin to soccer, because each time its fatal flaws were fixed.

The game received a patch 10 years after it was finished. To add replay functionality among other things. This was not a small update, it changed the pro-game scene as a whole.

Although I have to admit, it's because I know a pro-gamer personally and through him have met some of the higher-ups in blizzard. Maybe they just did really good pr when I talked with them. But I think, despite being a business that cares about being money, blizzard is made of people with a genuine heart for gaming and having fun with games.

Man! When even when I overheard them talking to each other, all they could talk about was their cool experience last night with this WoW quest or how they liked this new WC3 strategy that progamers were using.

Pretty much every war and conflict during "the Age Of Conquest" or between European powers from the 1400s on was largely about trade. Claiming the rights to specific trade routs, who had the right to tax whose goods, and of course foreign colonies in position to either trade with natives for profitable goods, or gather resources like gold and silver. Piracy and privateering existed as ways of attacking the trade of others nations. All the garbage through the Caribbean was european powers trying to take control of it both for the sake of trade routes, and access to things like Sugar. The so called "Opium Wars" which had the British Empire engaging in the Far East were largely fought to prevent drug cartels from taking over (despite what a lot of people might think). Addiction combined with foreign production is never a good thing (to keep it simple).

This is where cynical (but acurrate) quots like "Free Trade means he with the biggest guns trades freely". Something I always thought was kind of embodied by Commodore Perry who pretty much sailed a fleet up to Japan and forced them to end their isolationist policies and engage in trade. Not much of a "war" because it was so one sided, but it's a pretty solid illustration of trade and violence between nations.

In the end remember that money and resources are what makes nations powerful and gives them a high standard of living. Every nation wants to be powerful and live well, and that means people fight over resources and the best deals. As someone else pointed out idealogical reasons are oftentimes ascribed to what are wars fought over very basic reasons. It's easier to kill other human beings for a moral principle (because it's right) than simply because doing so gives you and your own people material benefits.

I will disagree with the respondant who talked about the American Civil War though, well in part. I think people tend to overlook the "without representation" part of the equasion. Nobody was disagreeing with paying taxes, or the need to pay for those armies defending them, the issue was that despite the money being paid The American Colonies were not allowed to have any kind of representation within the goverment. Something that was seen as unfair due to the amount of resources coming from America, as well as the population (the colonies were pretty bloody big). There are all kinds of reasons why it didn't happen, but the bottom line is that had the Americas been given representation in the English goverment and a say in policy like other regions of The Empire, then the Revolution probably never would have happened.

The bit about how fair it was for the colonies to pay taxes is a typical bit of British propaganda (I believe Yahtzee has gone on about it) and misses the entire point of the revolution. In simple terms the colonies were never given representation because the powers that be at the time felt that would reduce their abillity to exploit American resources, as well as the simple fact that adding more voices to the desician making processes, especially ones that represent that much material, would reduce the power of other people in the goverment. There were people that simply had a vested interest in being able to order the American colonies around and gather those resources at any level they wanted without any kind of official dissenting voice being raised in the actual goverment.

 

[znix]

Blizzard is off the deep end here. Once the game is in the wild, people are allowed to play and televise themselves playing it as much as they like, WITHOUT paying royalties. Just because StarCraft is very popular doesn't make it an exception.

 

[Callate]

I'm of mixed feelings. While there is money being made off of Starcraft matches, and others are selling the rights to same, there's a very real question of whether a valuable IP is being used illegitimately.

But on the other hand, the author's last comment doesn't ring true. The NFL, NBA, etc. protect the games they organize and broadcast and the teams' trademarks and so on. But it doesn't prevent anyone from filming their child's high school basketball game, and to the best of my knowledge no one pays a royalty to the estate of Dr. Naismith (creator of basketball) when a basketball game is broadcast.

 

[SadisticPretzel]

Good old ActiBlizz...Never letting potential money slip away!