Scalpers Auction StarCraft 2 Beta Keys

[Eclectic Dreck]

Scalpers take money from the people who deserve it; the people who actually worked to release the Beta.

how is that even possible?

The developers choose to give away those keys for free because they want beta testers, how can they lose money when a key changes its owner?

Blizzard WOULD be selling those if they thought they could get away with it, how does this influence them?

To get the key, someone would have had to go to BlizzCon. The scalpers are selling to people who, most likely, never went and never paid admission, etc. So, the scalpers are making the profit instead of Blizzard.

This is a profit they chose not to exploit. Beta testing may be seen as a privledge to some but the reality is simple - they let people do it for free rather than pay testers to do the same. Any game like SC2 that will undoubtedly see widescale play for years to come will inevitably run afoul of the "developer didn't see that one coming" bit. It happens all the time in games, espcecially strategy and MMO simply because the sheer numners of combinations that can be attempted make it impossible to forsee all eventualities. This is commonly where balance issues arise, where a player tries something that the developer never imagined. A few thousand beta testers ensure at least smoe of these will be caught before release.

These products are free simply because the player is providing a service. That people are willing to PAY to do a job others actually recieve a wage to do is a bit astounding however.

 

[Amnestic]

Actually, in many parts of the US, it is not. It may however be a violation of the terms of use of said product meaning possible civil repercussions.

Judging by this section of Battle.Net's TOS, I'd say Blizzard could quite easily justify shutting off Scalped keys.

2.2 exploit the Service, a Game or any part thereof for any commercial purpose, including without limitation (a) use at a cyber cafe, computer gaming center or any other commercial establishment without the express written consent of Blizzard; (b) to communicate or facilitate any commercial advertisement or solicitation; (c) for gathering in-game currency, items or resources for sale outside the Game without Blizzard?s authorization; (d) selling or trading Game characters or accounts for the Service and/or a Game or (e) performing in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling

Source [http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/about/termsofuse.html]

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Actually, in many parts of the US, it is not. It may however be a violation of the terms of use of said product meaning possible civil repercussions.

Judging by this section of Battle.Net's TOS, I'd say Blizzard could quite easily justify shutting off Scalped keys.

2.2 exploit the Service, a Game or any part thereof for any commercial purpose, including without limitation (a) use at a cyber cafe, computer gaming center or any other commercial establishment without the express written consent of Blizzard; (b) to communicate or facilitate any commercial advertisement or solicitation; (c) for gathering in-game currency, items or resources for sale outside the Game without Blizzard?s authorization; (d) selling or trading Game characters or accounts for the Service and/or a Game or (e) performing in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling

Source [http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/about/termsofuse.html]

I applaud the effort, but I would point out that the section posted does not explicity prohibit scalping of keys. That said, most TOS agreements have a catch all clause wherein the company is free to make judgements when a situation is similar to but not explicitly covered. While it is unlikely there would be any action beyond a ban on said account, if one just spent a couple hundred earth bux on the thing that would be a steep penalty indeed.

*edit* After checking the Terms of Use it appears there is no such elastic clause. In the explict case that would apply here:

"10. Game Transfers. The Authentication Key that accompanies most Game clients can only be used once, and will connect a Game license to the Account under which it is registered. The transferability of your license to a Game client is governed by the Game EULA; provided, however, that any transfer of the Game client shall have no impact on the Account registered to you, and that Account shall not transfer with the Game client. Purchasers of a license to a used Game client must follow the process detailed on the eu.blizzard.com website, which may include a payment of a fee to issue a new Authentication Key."

any such thing would be covered (if it all) in the SC2 EULA. They do allow for transfers of product, and the notably do not prohibit charging to do so. The catch of course is found here:

11.1 No Violation of Laws. You agree that you will not, in connection with your use of a Game client or the Service, violate any applicable law or regulation. Without limiting the foregoing, you agree that you will not make available through the Service any material or information that infringes any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other right of any party (including rights of privacy or publicity).

In general, the Battle.net Terms of Use do not deny the right to transfer a key nor is a restriction imposed on how such transfers may take place. The only prohibition would be one of local or national laws in the country in question, but as I pointed out these vary wildly and there is quite a bit of grey area. Even in places where scalping is prohibited, it generally explictly applies to tickets to a venue (baseball game, concert etc).

 

[Amnestic]

Actually, in many parts of the US, it is not. It may however be a violation of the terms of use of said product meaning possible civil repercussions.

Judging by this section of Battle.Net's TOS, I'd say Blizzard could quite easily justify shutting off Scalped keys.

2.2 exploit the Service, a Game or any part thereof for any commercial purpose, including without limitation (a) use at a cyber cafe, computer gaming center or any other commercial establishment without the express written consent of Blizzard; (b) to communicate or facilitate any commercial advertisement or solicitation; (c) for gathering in-game currency, items or resources for sale outside the Game without Blizzard?s authorization; (d) selling or trading Game characters or accounts for the Service and/or a Game or (e) performing in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling

Source [http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/about/termsofuse.html]

I applaud the effort, but I would point out that the section posted does not explicity prohibit scalping of keys. That said, most TOS agreements have a catch all clause wherein the company is free to make judgements when a situation is similar to but not explicitly covered. While it is unlikely there would be any action beyond a ban on said account, if one just spent a couple hundred earth bux on the thing that would be a steep penalty indeed.

It does say "without limitation" which implies they could pretty much extend it however they want to then fall under their Termination of Service section.

Hell, they have a "No violations of laws" section too, so depending on geographical location they could justify it without stretching their TOS to begin with.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Actually, in many parts of the US, it is not. It may however be a violation of the terms of use of said product meaning possible civil repercussions.

Judging by this section of Battle.Net's TOS, I'd say Blizzard could quite easily justify shutting off Scalped keys.

2.2 exploit the Service, a Game or any part thereof for any commercial purpose, including without limitation (a) use at a cyber cafe, computer gaming center or any other commercial establishment without the express written consent of Blizzard; (b) to communicate or facilitate any commercial advertisement or solicitation; (c) for gathering in-game currency, items or resources for sale outside the Game without Blizzard?s authorization; (d) selling or trading Game characters or accounts for the Service and/or a Game or (e) performing in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling

Source [http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/about/termsofuse.html]

I applaud the effort, but I would point out that the section posted does not explicity prohibit scalping of keys. That said, most TOS agreements have a catch all clause wherein the company is free to make judgements when a situation is similar to but not explicitly covered. While it is unlikely there would be any action beyond a ban on said account, if one just spent a couple hundred earth bux on the thing that would be a steep penalty indeed.

It does say "without limitation" which implies they could pretty much extend it however they want to then fall under their Termination of Service section.

Hell, they have a "No violations of laws" section too, so depending on geographical location they could justify it without stretching their TOS to begin with.

I did a ninja edit of the post. As I said, the TOU does not explicitly deny selling a beta key but the unlimited portion of your quoted clause does imply a degree of expandibility. In the end, they do hold all the rights and since they themselves did not charge for the product on offer they can essentially get away with a denial of service even on shaky ground such as this.

 

[WickedSkin]

So what about the LAN thingy? Will I ever be able to enjoy a good old fashioned Starcraft-LAN ever again?... But Starcraft 2 LAN of course.

 

[solidstatemind]

Wow. The logical fallacies are really on the loose today.

1) Blizzard has not taken any official stance on the auctioning of beta keys. Go look at the official forums if you don't believe me. In light of this, the TOS is not being violated currently by people auctioning off SC2 Beta keys.

2) Further evidence that ToS isn't being violated: If it were, I'm certain that the Blizz legal team would fire off a boilerplate request to EBay to remove the illegal auctions, as they did back when people were trying to sell WoW accounts for thousands of dollars.

3) I have a BlizzCon '08 gift card (has the code for the in-game Polar Bear mount and the Beta key) sitting right here. Nope: doesn't have NON-TRANSFERRABLE anywhere on it.

4)

To get the key, someone would have had to go to BlizzCon. The scalpers are selling to people who, most likely, never went and never paid admission, etc. So, the scalpers are making the profit instead of Blizzard.

This would only be true if there were more than one key given away per BlizzCon ticket. But that is not the case, so ONE BlizzCon ticket was bought, somebody paid Blizzard for it, and frankly, that is the only revenue that Blizzard can be completely assured of from the event. The goal is to sell a lot of concessions and souvenirs to the attendees, yes: but I know plenty of people who went to BlizzCon and never bought a thing. Ergo, regardless of who ends up using the key, the amount of money Blizzard makes is the same as if the original owner kept it.

Look: the truth is Blizzard is primarily looking for people to play the Beta, and they really don't care who they are. In fact, in many ways, it's better for Blizzard that a person who is so passionate about SC2 that they would pay money for a Beta key gets one over someone who doesn't really care about the game and probably wouldn't play it much-- the passionate person is going to generate far more usable data for Blizzard. In fact, I gave my Beta key away to a friend who really wanted to go to BlizzCon explicitly for SC2 but didn't manage to get tickets for either '08 or '09, while I've played SC all of maybe an hour tops, and probably would've just loaded the game to see the graphics and then played it seldom if at all. It's much better for Blizzard that my buddy use the key.

However, in return, my friend volunteered to help me farm an in-game item in WoW, and I'm taking him up on his offer. Does that make me an 'evil scalper' as well (given that you can equate a person's time to an hourly wage scale if you really wanted to)? I mean, I am profiting from giving away my beta key, even if it isn't in real-world currency. Heck, I've seen plenty of people selling SC2 keys for WoW gold on my server, and they don't get in trouble.

So about the only relevant argument you could level would be that these 'scalpers' have somehow wrongly or illegally 'exploited' the 'system' to make money off of the 'true fans'... but as mentioned several times above, since no laws or contracts are being broken, that is not explotation so much as it is Capitalism. If Blizzard really wanted to monetize the beta process, they just would've put out an offer of Beta-key on preorder of the product, with a small, non-refundable deposit. They clearly chose not to.

Sorry to completely destroy the foundation of your outrage, but y'all screaming about scalpers making money (particularly those complaining that they're somehow 'stealing' money from Blizzard) are just wrong in virtually every aspect of your argument.

But go ahead and sputter and rant and rave anyway. It's pretty amusing.

 

[H0ncho]

*shrug*
I don't really see the problem in giving the keys to the people who value them the most. And that is what an auction is really, a way to distribute shit to the people who are willing to pay the most for it.

 

[sidereal_day]

I certainly concede what they are doing is illegal. But illegal hardly means wrong. Especially if the contracts are silly attempts by a company to try to limit what a customer can do with something that the customer legally owns.

The second sentance in the quote quickly shows me that your morals are either on vacation, or they moved out, and so does the fact that you seem to support scalping, which is also morally wrong. If something is illegal than 99.9% it's wrong. Blizzard is not limiting what a customer can do with something that they own because said "customers" do not actually own the keys. Blizzard is more or less lending them the keys to their program so they can get public opinion and testing on it. Blizzard has full ownership of the keys, which you can prove because they have the power to legally veto the keys from use. It is not a silly attempt by the company to limit what people can do with their property because it is, and will always be, Blizzards property and they can do whatever they please with it.

Here's what I get from your post: If something is illegal, it is wrong to do because it is illegal. Why is it illegal? Because its wrong. Because I support scalping, I am immoral. Why is scalping immoral? Because its immoral.

And: if someone says they are just lending something to you, they are lending something to you. Why? Because they said so.

In the second case, if you remove "beta keys" and add "computer game" you wouldn't be nearly as happy to side with Blizzard. It is exactly what DRM does -- its a bullshit attempt at companies to keep trying to control a product after its been sold, and DRM is mostly seen as bullshit around these parts. Why are beta keys any different? They aren't.

You haven't given me any argument to tell me why things are immoral if they are illegal, or why just because a company says they are lending something to you they are lending something to you.

But don't bother posting back; I am really tired of having to explain the same exact point to everyone, and having to keep giving people ECON 101 lessons.

 

[sidereal_day]

Wow. The logical fallacies are really on the loose today.

1) Blizzard has not taken any official stance on the auctioning of beta keys. Go look at the official forums if you don't believe me. In light of this, the TOS is not being violated currently by people auctioning off SC2 Beta keys.

2) Further evidence that ToS isn't being violated: If it were, I'm certain that the Blizz legal team would fire off a boilerplate request to EBay to remove the illegal auctions, as they did back when people were trying to sell WoW accounts for thousands of dollars.

3) I have a BlizzCon '08 gift card (has the code for the in-game Polar Bear mount and the Beta key) sitting right here. Nope: doesn't have NON-TRANSFERRABLE anywhere on it.

4)

To get the key, someone would have had to go to BlizzCon. The scalpers are selling to people who, most likely, never went and never paid admission, etc. So, the scalpers are making the profit instead of Blizzard.

This would only be true if there were more than one key given away per BlizzCon ticket. But that is not the case, so ONE BlizzCon ticket was bought, somebody paid Blizzard for it, and frankly, that is the only revenue that Blizzard can be completely assured of from the event. The goal is to sell a lot of concessions and souvenirs to the attendees, yes: but I know plenty of people who went to BlizzCon and never bought a thing. Ergo, regardless of who ends up using the key, the amount of money Blizzard makes is the same as if the original owner kept it.

Look: the truth is Blizzard is primarily looking for people to play the Beta, and they really don't care who they are. In fact, in many ways, it's better for Blizzard that a person who is so passionate about SC2 that they would pay money for a Beta key gets one over someone who doesn't really care about the game and probably wouldn't play it much-- the passionate person is going to generate far more usable data for Blizzard. In fact, I gave my Beta key away to a friend who really wanted to go to BlizzCon explicitly for SC2 but didn't manage to get tickets for either '08 or '09, while I've played SC all of maybe an hour tops, and probably would've just loaded the game to see the graphics and then played it seldom if at all. It's much better for Blizzard that my buddy use the key.

However, in return, my friend volunteered to help me farm an in-game item in WoW, and I'm taking him up on his offer. Does that make me an 'evil scalper' as well (given that you can equate a person's time to an hourly wage scale if you really wanted to)? I mean, I am profiting from giving away my beta key, even if it isn't in real-world currency. Heck, I've seen plenty of people selling SC2 keys for WoW gold on my server, and they don't get in trouble.

So about the only relevant argument you could level would be that these 'scalpers' have somehow wrongly or illegally 'exploited' the 'system' to make money off of the 'true fans'... but as mentioned several times above, since no laws or contracts are being broken, that is not explotation so much as it is Capitalism. If Blizzard really wanted to monetize the beta process, they just would've put out an offer of Beta-key on preorder of the product, with a small, non-refundable deposit. They clearly chose not to.

Sorry to completely destroy the foundation of your outrage, but y'all screaming about scalpers making money (particularly those complaining that they're somehow 'stealing' money from Blizzard) are just wrong in virtually every aspect of your argument.

But go ahead and sputter and rant and rave anyway. It's pretty amusing.

I am very glad that someone other than me sees nothing wrong in making economic profit.

 

[sidereal_day]

I hope all these auctions get sabotaged with million dollor bids. Scalpers are the scum of the earth regardless of what their scalping.

For shame I say!

Why? Because they are selling things people have a demand for?

They are selling things that people have a demand for, sure, but it isn't really that simple.

Firstly, they had to buy a 2008 BlizzCon Ticket to get the beta code. Now, I don't know if you know how much demand there are for BlizzCon tickets, but as an example, BlizzCon '08 tickets were sold out within seconds of them going on sale. In fact, there was so much demand for tickets at BlizzCon '08 that the website servers crashed when they put the sales up. Multiple times.

Okay, so what's the big deal? They just wanted to goto BlizzCon, right? Wrong. They scalped the $100 BlizzCon tickets for $500 and up, and that was for ONLY the ticket, they kept the Beta keys and grab bags (they also sold the grab bags, though those didn't sell for quite as much). So right off the bat, these people are buying a high demand item FROM the people who are demanding it, then directly re-selling a fraction of that purchase back to the people who demanded it for 5x the cost. In effect, it's like they stole approximately $400 from these people and made-off with the goody bag, too.

So now these people are back, and they're making even MORE profit off of this high demand item which they only have in their hands in the first place because they effectively stole them from the very people who demanded them in the first place. I'm sure that there's a fraction of those auctions that are people who actually went to BlizzCon because they wanted to goto BlizzCon, but have little to no interest in Starcraft 2 so they're deciding to sell the beta key... but I can assure you it's a minority. Most of those auctions are scalpers who bought the BlizzCon ticket purely so they could mark it up and sell it for a gross profit.

Okay, you've convinced me that scalpers resold tickets to Blizzcon. What exactly is your argument? All of my other arguments can easily apply to resellers of beta keys to resellers of Blizzcon tickets.

 

[Levitas1234]

why would anyone that goes to blizzcon willfully give up sc2 beta and polar bear mount for a feeble $300?

 

[Zer_]

I hope all these auctions get sabotaged with million dollor bids. Scalpers are the scum of the earth regardless of what their scalping.

For shame I say!

Why? Because they are selling things people have a demand for?

No, because they are offering something that is meant to be both limited and free for a price. It's like offering a demo for 30 bucks. I even think this is illegal. I honestly hope Blizzard goes after these people.

 

[leumas222]

The cynic in me says that its in Blizzard/Activisions interest for Beta keys to be in such huge demand that people are actively selling them. So I dont really expect them to cancel the scalped ones anytime soon.

Wouldnt it be rather hard to find out which ones were being legitimately used and which ones werent?

 

[ShadowKirby]

WTS StarCraft 2 beta key !!!! plz, no kids and bullshit\

pm me with offer

msn:mikeru@live.com

I can't decide whether he is a bot or a very clever person.

 

[Moriarty]

To get the key, someone would have had to go to BlizzCon. The scalpers are selling to people who, most likely, never went and never paid admission, etc. So, the scalpers are making the profit instead of Blizzard.[/quote]

Blizzard wouldn't be making profit in the first place, because they voluntarily gave those keys away for free. And for everyone who buys those keys from ebay without paying admission there exists someone selling those keys who payed Blizzard.