Emulation Community: The News Team wants your opinion

[Jeremiah]

Private server company forced to pay Blizzard $88 million

We want your opinion on this news item. Sound off, and let the News Team know what you think about the 88 million dollar settlement. Is it unfair that Blizzard won 88 million dollars for attorney fees and damages, or should the private servers who make money off of micro transactions learn a lesson? Give your opinion! We'd love to hear from you.

[stoneharry]

This is years old. If you want a copy of the lawsuit: http://arcemu.info/downloads/peyton/ReevesComplaint.pdf

And don't go QQ "OH NO ALL EMULATION IS GONNA DIEEEEE"... Blizzard took action to a few of the top servers as they were literally making mass money (wowscape = $100,000 a month from donations)... If blizzard wanted to destroy emulation they could do it with ease, the question is why do they let it continue?

^
Taken from the original random thread that popped up in wow general. There's no need to bring up old drama.

Oh and I know emulation can't be stopped - the point is they could bring it to such a slow rate of development that nobody would care to use it apart from a small minority.

[opticalza]

The suit was filed not even a year ago. The verdict was reached in the last week, this is valid and recent news.

It shows us where the law stands with regards to emulation, and this is obviously fairly huge news.

It should be noted that only ~$3,000,000 is payed for her profits. ~$85,000,000 is for damage caused by them running the server (lost revenue for blizzard) - Which means any even remotely big server could be nailed hard, even if they're not making profits or even taking donations.

[Ravenna]

Wow, $88m. Didn't see that coming.

Do I think she deserves it? To a point, yes. To this extent? Absolutely not.
Scapegaming became nothing but a community of greedy owners and staff members. Their server was a great server, wont say that it wasn't, but when your main focus shifts from running an excellent server where players can have a fun and smooth gaming experience, to focusing solely on making money - there's something wrong.
Emulations should never have been viewed as a "get rich" scheme. They took it too far and in turn should have to handle the consequences.
But $88 million? This also goes to show that Blizzard is a money-loving company. It didn't hurt them one bit to have those people playing on Scape. Most people who play emulations also play retail, and the others don't play retail at all. It wasn't as if they were losing $85 million because of scape gaming.
I say make her repay court costs, lawyer costs, and the PROFIT she made from Scape. But don't ruin her life over it.

[Namor]

Yeah. I do think this is a lesson to be learned. They're making money off of something that isn't even rightfully theirs.
I wouldn't sue for $88,000,000, it's way too much for just one average person. But I do believe that emulator servers need to stop making their servers just for a good profit.

[Mimic]

If anything Blizzard gets more subscribers due to Private emulation, because it can't be perfect, it could easily be an elaborate advertisement for their own game. However, if a server is being run to make profit, then it needs to be stopped.

[Jeremiah]

Thank you guys for all of your opinions. I enjoy reading them! Keep them coming!

[Namor]

Really I think you can read all of my opinions in the "Sick of Donation Servers" thread. XD
Plenty of raging from me in there.

[mager1794]

I don't think blizzard sued that much as a message toward emulation. In fact - I wouldn't be surprised if blizzard has employees with user names on these forums that help us out. Whether blizzard will ever admit it or not - private servers have gained them money, not cost them. 90% of the private server users have a subscription to blizzard already and will keep that subscription. And another 8% will play it because they don't have money at the time or they just wanna play the endgame. Once they realize how fun it is - they usually purchase a subscription. Blizzard will never shutdown emulation. In WoWScape's case it was a huge statement toward copyright laws. You cannot make a profit off of someone elses hard work which was exactly what they did. In the end they were sued big time. If blizzard feels you are a threat - they will research you and make sure your not taking any money. if not they will either a) leave you be or b) do what they did to the top 5 about 2 years ago and politely ask you to shutdown, at risk of copyright infringement. Blizzard likes emulation to an extent - everyone enjoys to see the creativity someone will have with what they've given. All that case was - was a matter of copyright infringement, a very severe law.

[Link_S]

I don't think blizzard sued that much as a message toward emulation. In fact - I wouldn't be surprised if blizzard has employees with user names on these forums that help us out. Whether blizzard will ever admit it or not - private servers have gained them money, not cost them. 90% of the private server users have a subscription to blizzard already and will keep that subscription. And another 8% will play it because they don't have money at the time or they just wanna play the endgame. Once they realize how fun it is - they usually purchase a subscription. Blizzard will never shutdown emulation. In WoWScape's case it was a huge statement toward copyright laws. You cannot make a profit off of someone elses hard work which was exactly what they did. In the end they were sued big time. If blizzard feels you are a threat - they will research you and make sure your not taking any money. if not they will either a) leave you be or b) do what they did to the top 5 about 2 years ago and politely ask you to shutdown, at risk of copyright infringement. Blizzard likes emulation to an extent - everyone enjoys to see the creativity someone will have with what they've given. All that case was - was a matter of copyright infringement, a very severe law.

^This.. (filler)

[Cowfrommars]

hahahahahahhah peyton got ****ing owned. awesome.

[mager1794]

anyone watch xplay yesterday and notice the fail?

Instead of 'scapegaming' they called it 'spacegaming'

I rofled

[2dgreengiant]

Yes, blizzard employess break their own TOS to help us emu fags, gg.

[mager1794]

True, meh. Twas just a thought.

[The-Eradicator]

$88 million is more than Peyton should be responsible for.

However, i'm happy about this development. I hate the people who turned emulation into a profiteering scheme, rather than what it was and should have remained: A creative community of developers.

Hopefully, this will send a message to the other servers that are only designed to turn a profit, and to the users who are willing to give their money away to someone who uses it on themselves and not the server they run.