Poll: It's really time to stop supporting Blizzard

[Danzaivar]

Stories like this make me wanna spend money on Blizzard products. Stupid cheating scumbags.

 

[Dogstile]

Edit:

I found nothing wrong with cheating that way to get achievements. It makes some people happy, it has no effect on multiplayer gameplay. Let them do it. It's like banning people for using a third party program to mess around in saints row.

I disagree. The Achievements in SC2, and the rewards, represent the hard work and effort that people have put in to getting them. For example, I am currently using the Sarah Kerrigan portrait for my SC2 character, which I got for completing the single player campaign on the hardest difficulty. This portrait is not just some picture. It is a representation of my triumph over the game, and the fact I set it as my portrait shows people that I am damned proud of it. For some dude to get the same reward because he cheated with some trainer would undermine my accomplishment, as well as those of the other people who have gotten the achievements the hard way. I'll reiterate that their are cheats built into the game, and that anyone who found the game too hard or whatever could have used them, though naturally this prevents them from getting achievements. Since they did not do so, I assume they were deliberately cheating the system and trying to get the achievements with earning them. And that upsets me.

You've got to be kidding me. A cheater can have the same portrait as you, so you're upset? Do you have any idea how childish that sounds. Be proud of your achievement, you've done it, well done. Just because a cheater could have the same portrait as you doesn't make your achievement any less noteworthy.

That's like crying over saving up for a toy for 3 months then crying because another kids dad brought it for him instead of that kid saving up too.

 

[Mistermixmaster]

Wait, let me see if I got this straight.

You want us to join your casue in boycotting Blizzard because they're doing the right thing and permanently banning cheaters? What? Did I miss the revolution where cheating has become an accepted method of playing the game?

To answer your question OP, I will NOT be joining you in a Blizzard boycott, because I think that Blizzard is doing the right thing with permanently banning the cheaters.

 

[PurePareidolia]

If I could boycott any harder than "never been interested in a Blizzard product and not about to start now" I surely would.

But I'm not sure I'm any more of a lost sale now than five minutes ago...

 

[Acidwell]

For a start as much as i hate activision i think getting pissed of cos you used 3rd party cheats when there are already perfectly usable cheats in the game is just stupid. Anyway last time gamers boycotted anything was mw2 and look how that turned out, and it wasnt half the game diablo 3 will be or starcraft 2 is.

 

[Reveras]

Fail. Massive fail. If u find it fair to use 3rd party programms to get achievements that others played straight for, then you shouldn't play any pc game at all.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

I disagree. The Achievements in SC2, and the rewards, represent the hard work and effort that people have put in to getting them. For example, I am currently using the Sarah Kerrigan portrait for my SC2 character, which I got for completing the single player campaign on the hardest difficulty. This portrait is not just some picture. It is a representation of my triumph over the game, and the fact I set it as my portrait shows people that I am damned proud of it. For some dude to get the same reward because he cheated with some trainer would undermine my accomplishment, as well as those of the other people who have gotten the achievements the hard way. I'll reiterate that their are cheats built into the game, and that anyone who found the game too hard or whatever could have used them, though naturally this prevents them from getting achievements. Since they did not do so, I assume they were deliberately cheating the system and trying to get the achievements with earning them. And that upsets me.

It's quite sad that in todays gaming world, the experience is less important than the rewards. It's even more sad that once you buy the game you still have to conform to the developers (or in this case publishers) will. Who gives a fuck that you completed the game on hard and got a portray? Does it really matter in the end? Is it justified to create such a closed environment like Bnet 2.0 "just" so that some arbitrary things like achievements can be put in?

Yes, cheats exist in the game but maybe that's not what I'm looking for. Maybe I need more out of the game than just simple cheats. It's MY game, MY single player experience and I want to play it how I want to play it and not how the developer tells me to. Achievements are a lame excuse for a ban. They're useless scores that you gain nothing from. Wait, sorry. You get some useless portray because as we all know, that's what's important about a game, the achievements and rewards.

This isn't even about cheating anymore. This is about doing what I want with my single player game. This is about playing how I want and not how someone else tells me. This is even more proof that Activision meddled where it shouldn't have meddled. Instead of say, rolling back the achievements Blizzard chooses to ban the account entirely. The ban was NOT justified.

Once the dude payed for the game Blizzard could give a flying shit about him and giving that the way StarCraft 2 works is like an MMO they can ban you from YOUR game entirely just because you modded it or used a trainer. It's insane. Is this how games will work from now on?

I made the mistake of buying StarCraft 2 and supporting this medieval system. I won't be doing the same mistake twice.

 

[HK_01]

Well, duh. Is anyone really surprised? I stopped liking them the moment they became part of Activision, and saw my opinion verified when they unvealed the new Battlenet.

I wonder if they'll start banning people who use single-player mods and the like...

(I'll assume multiplayer mods still have their own section on the BNet, so that shouldn't get you banned, right?)

PS: I'm not really sure whether this was justified or not. Seems a bit extreme to me, they could've just stripped them of all their achievements and other progress and tell them that if they're caught again they'll be banned.

 

[HellsingerAngel]

That all applies to the sale and distribution of the work, it doesn't say anything as to what happens once you own it and bring it home. I can edit the entire Harry Potter series in my own home, bring J.K. Rowling herself over here and show it to her face and there'd be nothing she could do. She can't sue me over anything, because I haven't attempted to distribute or sell those works. The same can be said of any product bought except software. Why is it altering the game at home isn't allowed? I can even tinker around with the Hardware till my heart's content, all it does is void the warranty, why is the software suddenly special? Maybe they should have warranty on games, you alter it, you don't get any tech support. I could live with that, and in fact I think some EULA's even have such a clause, but before the era of all games being connected to the internet never had a way of checking.

Software is covered in the Copywrite act because it's not a piece of silicon, it was actual text and images and everything nice like that. It's a form of media, not something you shove into a box and forget about it. Just goes to show how much you know about this stuff.

Your argument basically all rests on the EULA and their ToS, but as I've already stated that agreement is already on shaky ground.

Because it's a contract. C-O-N-T-R-A-C-T! Have you never had to sign a contract before? It's a legal obligation that you follow every single word upon that piece of paper or digital copy. You are legally bound to it. Just let me pull this up here:

6. Account Suspension/Cancelation.
BLIZZARD MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE ACCOUNTS AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU.

Speaking of hinging arguments on completely unfounded grounds, your entire argument is that the EULA means nothing because the law for second-hand distribution was ruled in favour of the owner of the disk. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Blizz ToS/EULA doesn't have anything in there stating redistribution. It's all done through B.Net, so it all falls under B.Net ToS. No where in the ToS does it state anything about second-hand distribution at all, much less it being illegal and thus false information. Laws get changed and so do EULAs and ToSs, but that is clearly reflected in this case.

But hopefully you're right and I'm just making a mountain out a zergling hive. Blizzard may be the only one to ever do this, and if so I'm glad, but it never hurts to raise awareness of an minor issue before it becomes a major one.

Raising awareness is different from debate. Debate on this stuff is bad because it just brings to the forefront a couple people who says something dumb (like Blizzard is out of line for banning people on using third-party software to cheat on achievement boosting and multiplayer matches) and then an entire shitstorm happens. Gamers, if anything, are terrible with taking things in stride.

Perhaps, if all sides find an equitable solution in the beginning we can avoid a lot of ugliness down the road. So better to open a debate about it now, and perhaps voice our concerns to the industry at large, than wait until it devolves into a massive fight between consumers and the industry. Perhaps Blizzard will acknowledge they went too far and limit the bans to multiplayer only, and if not well than at least they know we're concerned over this course of events. Keeping concerns quite doesn't do anything except delay the inevitable.

They didn't go too far. Boosting is wrong, cheating is wrong and those who do so need to be punished. Achievements affect the online game, whether people want to admit it or not. It's a trend that's been going strong on the 360 and it was just a matter of time before the PC world picked it up too. Welcome to the trials and tribulations of mixing online with offline play!

P.S. I didn't want to say anything before I knew it for sure, but Single Player is still playable. The B.Net account is locked, not the game. You can still sign-in as a Guest and it does indeed save your progress. Sorry I couldn't get that out sooner, but I wanted to be sure and I got caught up in posting stuff.

 

[Sven und EIN HUND]

Yeah no. Banning in this case is a little extreme, but just no.

 

[TriGGeR_HaPPy]

This is my post from the other thread on this:

For all of this I'm going to assume that multiplayer game play isn't ACTUALLY affected by achievements.

It is if Blizzard wants their presentation to have any integrity. If they want the special player icon that you get for doing every achievement on the hardest difficulty to be special, rare and unique, then that is their right. If they want to be able to say to the players who do it legitimately, "This is your reward for being super-awesome, you get to show it off to everyone," then they need to enforce that integrity.

Except it's not the same thing as steam. The major difference being that VAC can be enabled or disabled in games. (it gets trickier with games that they didn't make, but the principle is the same)The way Steam handles it is by disabling achievements when you cheat, which is much better than banning people for wanting a little "achieved" icon to show up on their profile that doesn't affecting game play whatsoever. It is also clear when VAC is enabled or disabled.

And when you activate the actual in-game cheats in SC2, it disables any achievements.

There's really no ambiguity here. As I understand it, the only difference between the third-party trainers they were actually using and Blizzard's built-in in-game cheats, is that the official cheats disable achievements and the trainers do not. They were only cheating to get the achievements/profile icons, which, as I've said before, Blizzard has a vested interest in preserving the integrity.

It's understandable that we aren't the only people on the planet. That's not the issue. The issue is that it's a decision between taking money from people who (knowing the evil Kotick) weren't informed that cheating to get achievements in single player would take their game from them.

There was a press release about a month or so back where Blizzard clearly warned people that cheating in any mode of the game would qualify you for a ban. Multiplayer and single player.

What more can they do other than issue a warning, and then follow through?

So Funk or anybody else, do you still think the problem is just snap solved by logging in as guest assuming that the banned persons weren't informed that using a 3rd party cheat in single player and only used it in single player, would ban their account? Let's now add the assumption that some of them were using the trainer not for achievements, but because the cheats that were built into the game didn't do something they wanted to be able to do (such as make your units go MUCH faster) just for laughs. Do these people also deserve to have their game removed?

Yes. That solves it completely. If you want to cheat/hack the game/do whatever, do it while you aren't logged in, and playing as Guest. But when you're logged in and playing under the Bnet system, Blizzard is well within its rights to preserve the integrity of its system and do whatever it wants.

As to the wide reaching implications of this see Gregori's posts, he's got it down, but just because people seem to read one thing and it goes in one eye and out the other here it is again. The fact that they CAN legally punish people for modding (in courts intent is often disregarded, particularly in cases like these) their product has horrible implications for modders. This means that if they so wanted Exort, they could come after you for making that mod because YOU TOO, by making that mod, violated their copy right. Or am I just wrong in assuming that you didn't get written permission from the developers AND Kotick himself before making that mod?

Are you ignoring the mod tools that Blizzard provides for both WoW and SC2? Modding the game is different from hacking it. Or would you like to refer to Blizzard's successful lawsuit against the WoW botting program?

This.
Just... This.

This single post sums up everything I think. Seriously.

(Also, if you're going to read it, read the whole thing. And thanks to John for the comprehensive response. )

 

[Lazy Kitty]

They should be banned for using third-party software to help them unlock the singeplayer achievements.

 

[LitleWaffle]

Huh...
So why exactly did they have cheat codes in the first place?

Do I care? No.
I've never cheated in that game.

Edit: Wait, they don't really say what kind of cheats...
Do they mean actual in game cheats? Or things like hacking and whatnot?

 

[Dogstile]

Firstly, oi! Hands off my thread! [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.237974-Blizzard-Banning-Single-Player-Cheaters]

I feel your pain dude. This threads more "TO ARMS, BRETHREN" though, so more attention will be given to it.

Silly controversy.

 

[RIOgreatescapist]

"stop supporting Blizzard"

I'm gonna pretend that has just never been said.

 

[Estarc]

Edit:

I found nothing wrong with cheating that way to get achievements. It makes some people happy, it has no effect on multiplayer gameplay. Let them do it. It's like banning people for using a third party program to mess around in saints row.

I disagree. The Achievements in SC2, and the rewards, represent the hard work and effort that people have put in to getting them. For example, I am currently using the Sarah Kerrigan portrait for my SC2 character, which I got for completing the single player campaign on the hardest difficulty. This portrait is not just some picture. It is a representation of my triumph over the game, and the fact I set it as my portrait shows people that I am damned proud of it. For some dude to get the same reward because he cheated with some trainer would undermine my accomplishment, as well as those of the other people who have gotten the achievements the hard way. I'll reiterate that their are cheats built into the game, and that anyone who found the game too hard or whatever could have used them, though naturally this prevents them from getting achievements. Since they did not do so, I assume they were deliberately cheating the system and trying to get the achievements with earning them. And that upsets me.

You've got to be kidding me. A cheater can have the same portrait as you, so you're upset? Do you have any idea how childish that sounds. Be proud of your achievement, you've done it, well done. Just because a cheater could have the same portrait as you doesn't make your achievement any less noteworthy.

That's like crying over saving up for a toy for 3 months then crying because another kids dad brought it for him instead of that kid saving up too.

It may indeed be immature and childish. But, as I tried to say, though not very well, it seems, the portraits and other rewards are about more than the rewards themselves. They are representations of the accomplishments I, and others, have accomplished. While I do not advocate banning a person from their game solely for cheating to get achievements, and instead think their achievements should instead be wiped and the offender given a stern warning for the first offence, achievements are important. Not to you, maybe. Not to them, either, perhaps. But they are to me. That portrait isn't just a picture. It is the culmination of dozens of hours of effort.

 

[smeghead25]

I don't see why we should boycott the entire developer...

I've never been a Blizzard fan, and I typically dislike their fans. They're just a little obsessed... But I don't mind StarCraft and Diablo has me slightly intrigued. So sorry, no boycott here.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

It is if Blizzard wants their presentation to have any integrity. If they want the special player icon that you get for doing every achievement on the hardest difficulty to be special, rare and unique, then that is their right. If they want to be able to say to the players who do it legitimately, "This is your reward for being super-awesome, you get to show it off to everyone," then they need to enforce that integrity.

Sure, they can do that but not at the expense of liberty. I bought the game and I should be able to mod it so as every marine is a pink dildo. It's my right as a consumer to do what I want with my product.

And when you activate the actual in-game cheats in SC2, it disables any achievements.

There's really no ambiguity here. As I understand it, the only difference between the third-party trainers they were actually using and Blizzard's built-in in-game cheats, is that the official cheats disable achievements and the trainers do not. They were only cheating to get the achievements/profile icons, which, as I've said before, Blizzard has a vested interest in preserving the integrity.

Maybe the trainer contained something the cheats didn't. Maybe that player enjoyed using trainers instead of cheats. Either way, I should not have to conform to rules when I'm playing a single player game. It's supposed to be MY game. It's like buying a car but when attempting to change the radio with something not approved by the manufacturer you get locked out of your car. It's insane.

And fuck integrity. Some bullshit score and a few portrays shouldn't get in the way of my ability to do what the fuck I want with my single player game.

There was a press release about a month or so back where Blizzard clearly warned people that cheating in any mode of the game would qualify you for a ban. Multiplayer and single player.

What more can they do other than issue a warning, and then follow through?

It's extremely easy to miss a press release. A clearer warning wouldn't have hurt. Hell, why even force players to be online when playing Single Player? Why should I be forced to conform to Blizzards rules when playing a game I bought from them? Like I've said before, it's like buying a car but being locked out of it because you used a radio not approved by the manufacturer. It just makes no sense.

Yes. That solves it completely. If you want to cheat/hack the game/do whatever, do it while you aren't logged in, and playing as Guest. But when you're logged in and playing under the Bnet system, Blizzard is well within its rights to preserve the integrity of its system and do whatever it wants.

Then give players a way to not play as a guest and not be connected to Battle.net. I should not be forced to be connected to some arbitrary network just so that my game can be controlled by the developer/publisher. It's my game and I shouldn't be forced to connect to their network. If I want to mod my game then I should be able to do so without being considered a guest. I'm NOT a guest. I bought the game, I own that particular copy of the game(The EULA is not legally binding as it is only shown after buying the product).

Are you ignoring the mod tools that Blizzard provides for both WoW and SC2? Modding the game is different from hacking it. Or would you like to refer to Blizzard's successful lawsuit against the WoW botting program?

I don't care about the mod tools. I bought that particular copy of the game and with that particular copy of the game I can do w/e I want. I am not affecting any other player with my "hacking".

 

[minimacker]

Whatever I do in Singleplayer should be my own damned business.

 

[Arkham]

If you violate the Terms of Service and expect nothing will ever happen then you are an idiot. Regardless of whether or not the EULA is fair or not you must agree to it if you want to play these games, or use some software or whatever it may be.

I'll admit I've been feeling a little uneasy about Blizzard lately, but banning users who violate the ToS doesn't seem like an intelligent reason to start a boycott.