They made an example. You screw with Blizzard and they will fuck you up. As understandable as it is horrific.
Blizzard Squeezes $88 Million From Private Server Owner
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
Recommended Videos
The only money Blizz lost was in the server, World of Warcraft has no micro-transactions, so that part was all on her own.SlainPwner666 said:
What boggles my mind is how many people are sticking up for Blizzard on this. Think about it, they just completely fucked some ones life over pocket change (in Blizzard terms). Why can't they ever just ask for the estimated amount of money they lost and legal fees and go on with their lives?
It's what you call a Slap Suit, its a fear tactic employed by companies to try and scare people into not doing something against the company's best interest. The American Beef (or cattle, can't remember exactly the name) Association tried to do the same to Oprah when she spoke out against hamburger. Of course when the person is rich and powerful they don't normally work out that well for the companyKlagermeister said:
. Other companies do the same thing, Walmart, Exxon-Mobile, etc. The idea is that other people will see that and be too afraid to risk a lawsuit against a multinational giant. It seems blizzard isn't above such tactics. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Blizzard is evil or anything, this is a pretty common business tactic.
Still, they'll never see any of that money, but of course they never expected to. The whole idea behind the lawsuit was to scare other illegal hosters into stopping their services for fear of an equally horrendous number of dollars. And it'll probably work, at least in the short term.
Depends on the type of bankruptcy. In certain circumstances the court can garnish wages, sell assets and other things to try and cover as much of the debt as possible. But that's usually for the really rich people or for large companies. The average joe mostly signs a bunch of papers, pays legal fees, and then is off the hook (since you can't get blood from a stone). Although it'll be years before anyone will give them a line of credit and possibly decades before a loan is even considered.Enigmers said:
I hope Blizzard at least forgives the mass majority of the debt, they are already making money hand over fist. I don't think that bullying private server owners are necessarily the best way to go about this. It certainly does nothing for a positive image.
Blizzard created a product.Agayek said:
Scapegaming was profiting from Blizzard's product.
Blizz was not receiving compensation or a slice of this profit.
This is ILLEGAL. Irrelevant? I think not. I applaud Blizzard for protecting their product, and am appalled that anyone on the Escapist would think that she was in the right. (not implying that you are one of those, mind you.)
Because that is not what this woman deserves. She broke the law, and infringed on someone else's intellectual property. That is the most horrendous crime someone can commit, barring rape, murder, and cannabalism.The Lost Big Boss said:
Do they really need more money? A warning and a large fine would of done it, they didn't have to ruin someone's life financially to prove a point. Oh well, I hope they like fast-food because that is all they can afford now...if they can still afford food.
For god's sake, what Wardnath said. People are a little too quick to jump on the anti-corporation bandwagon. Coming from a community that prides itself on being above that, it's more than a little surprising.Wardnath said:
You people honestly think they expect to get even a huge chunk of that money? They follow through on EVERY server, so this is a massive warning for everyone else to either back off THEIR property or get crushed. This wasn't for money at all.
Seriously. "Oh sure, she was using Blizzard's property for free and in fact making a profit off of it, but the big corporation was sooooo mean to her." This is beyond regular theft.
$88Mil?
HORSEFECALMATTER!
I used to play on WoW private servers when I wanted to take a break from WoW logic.
I know it was a bad idea to own one of those, but i thought the charges would be less.
and why does Blizzard have to charge $88million?
They already have 10million players paying $15 a month. Do the math. They don't need another $88mil to perfect Cataclysm.
HORSEFECALMATTER!
I used to play on WoW private servers when I wanted to take a break from WoW logic.
I know it was a bad idea to own one of those, but i thought the charges would be less.
and why does Blizzard have to charge $88million?
They already have 10million players paying $15 a month. Do the math. They don't need another $88mil to perfect Cataclysm.
I don't feel sorry for her because this was the risk she assumed when she made the choice to start the server. It wasn't as though she didn't have plenty of opportunities to rethink her plan as she put the system in place.Darktau said:
I seriously doubt they will get the 88 million from her, they probably will only get a very small fraction of it.
Because they want to discourage people from doing such a thing in the first place. That is generally the reason crippling debts are handed out in cases like these: so you don't have to pursue people as often. If nothing else, the cost will make people think twice before they do something similar.S29 Afterlife said:
While I have some sympathy for people who see this as corporate greed, and can agree to an extent, this is a person who made money by illegally charging people for playing on an illegal-to-begin-with server. What did she expect? An example had to be made and its been made in spades. A private server for WoW is essentially a derivative work so if they're not under license to Blizzard, they either should run it for free and try to find refuge in Fair Use laws, or cease and desist. Making money off of other peoples creative endeavours is not cool.