Bot Maker Claims Blizzard ‘Stole’ Its Source Code

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Let me get this straight. A company that makes cheat bots for World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Heroes of Storm, is claiming that Blizzard stole their source code?

Blizzard Entertainment has obtained the source code of the popular Heroes of Storm cheating bot Stormbuddy. Facing a million dollar copyright infringement lawsuit, a freelance developer reportedly struck a deal with Blizzard. The German company behind the bot now accuses Blizzard of stealing its code and says it will stop all sales and development.
 
I hope the bot maker gets screwed. I hate cheaters. With any luck this lawsuit opens a can of worms for plantiff and it kills the company.
 
That is going to suck if blizzard was to lose. Although it does sound like they went the wrong path to get the code.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041981758 said:
Up next, Virus makers sue antivirus companies for reverse engineering their code... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That would be funny BUT Lord Dont give them any more ideas :D :D :D
 
Zarathustra[H];1041981758 said:
Up next, Virus makers sue antivirus companies for reverse engineering their code... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I mean ppl could do it all thay would have to do is Copy write there code once writen and set it free and then see if a company like nortan reverse enginered there code then thay would have a law suit and the right to sue them LOL it would be messed up and might be plossable if done right !
 
Exavior said:
That is going to suck if blizzard was to lose. Although it does sound like they went the wrong path to get the code.
Click to expand...


If blizzazrd did not pay the code's authors/owners for the code, they should lose. While it's cheating, and against the WOW license terms, it is not illegal to make such a thing. Their code should be just as protected as anyone else's code under the law.

And yes, that protection should extend to virus writers. I'd love to see a virus writer sue to protect their code under DMCA just as long as they show in person to the court long enough to get arrested and served with about a billion lawsuits.
 
raz-0 said:
If blizzazrd did not pay the code's authors/owners for the code, they should lose. While it's cheating, and against the WOW license terms, it is not illegal to make such a thing. Their code should be just as protected as anyone else's code under the law.

And yes, that protection should extend to virus writers. I'd love to see a virus writer sue to protect their code under DMCA just as long as they show in person to the court long enough to get arrested and served with about a billion lawsuits.
Click to expand...

No, just no.
 
Toothball said:
How is it infringement if they do not use the actual code in their products?
Click to expand...

My question as well. Same goes for the virus talk. The AV folks would just create a signature of the virus, they probably wouldn't use the code itself.
 
Sounds like the botmaker has a better case against Apoc than Activision.
 
raz-0 said:
If blizzazrd did not pay the code's authors/owners for the code, they should lose. While it's cheating, and against the WOW license terms, it is not illegal to make such a thing. Their code should be just as protected as anyone else's code under the law.

And yes, that protection should extend to virus writers. I'd love to see a virus writer sue to protect their code under DMCA just as long as they show in person to the court long enough to get arrested and served with about a billion lawsuits.
Click to expand...

Finally a rational, logical & lawful comment. If Blizzard has issue with the bot maker then take them to court for it and crush them if there is ground to do so.

If any of you RTFA, you'd understand what is going on here.
 
viscountalpha said:
I hope the bot maker gets screwed. I hate cheaters. With any luck this lawsuit opens a can of worms for plantiff and it kills the company.
Click to expand...

I hate cheaters as much as any honest gamer, but this really has nothing to do with cheaters.
 
I'd probably be writing bots if I didn't hate cheaters so much. It's such an interesting programming problem.
 
Blizzard might have a case for fair use of the intellectual property. I highly doubt they'll redistribute the source code. They're not making money off of the code. Blizzard would be using it for "research" purposes. Bossland would have to convince a judge otherwise.
 
If Blizzard is going to claim that bot makers break DMCA to create their bots, it only makes sense that Blizzard is breaking bot makers DMCA to detect them. Faulty logic goes both ways Blizzard.
 
The only reason bots exist in this capacity is because the games are terribly simple. If Blizzard wanted to solve the problem they only need to make better, more complicated games with actual risk vs. reward.

I've never heard of a bot in DayZ, and in fact if someone made a bot I don't think players would mind, if they had a problem with it they'd just kill it and take its stuff.

Don't hate the bot, hate the game.
 
Scizyr said:
The only reason bots exist in this capacity is because the games are terribly simple. If Blizzard wanted to solve the problem they only need to make better, more complicated games with actual risk vs. reward.

I've never heard of a bot in DayZ, and in fact if someone made a bot I don't think players would mind, if they had a problem with it they'd just kill it and take its stuff.

Don't hate the bot, hate the game.
Click to expand...

Yes, because the only logical way to to defeat cheaters is to make the system so complicated nobody can engineer something to cheat. :rolleyes:
 
Sovereign said:
Yes, because the only logical way to to defeat cheaters is to make the system so complicated nobody can engineer something to cheat. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
It's not the only logical way but it is the best way. It's not purely about making a system overly complex, developers of bots in these games have no deterrent and are very incentivized to continue. I've already given a wildly successful example of one system that works as a deterrent to bots and there are several more.

In Blizzard's case there's 2 main problems which causes proliferation of bots: first they just want to hold players' hands through all their content and control every aspect of the game, this type of game development makes automation easy. Secondly they don't provide any real risk for failing in a game, WoW's death penalty needs to have a much more drastic effect. If a bot were to get killed and drop all of its gold, for instance, a bot developer would lose the incentive to continue in that game.

Both of these issues would not only deter bots but also organically cause players to become more skilled and the community as a whole would benefit greatly.
 
You don't need farm bots in DayZ when you can teleport everyone's guns to your location in an instant.
 
Vladias said:
I mean ppl could do it all thay would have to do is Copy write there code once writen and set it free and then see if a company like nortan reverse enginered there code then thay would have a law suit and the right to sue them LOL it would be messed up and might be plossable if done right !
Click to expand...

I am sure it would be like any contract: If the outcome is illegal it isn't protected. Technically for the bot maker to be able to make the bot they had to agree to the EULA and therefore making the bot was an illegal act. Therefore it isn't protected. At least that is how I see it logically but the way these courts work nowadays, there is no telling.
 
Scizyr said:
I've never heard of a bot in DayZ, and in fact if someone made a bot I don't think players would mind, if they had a problem with it they'd just kill it and take its stuff.
Click to expand...

The reason bots don't exist for DayZ isn't because the game is "too complicated" to play, it's because there's no advantage to having a bot play for you when you're not around...or at least, not enough of an advantage to risk getting banned. In WoW you can accumulate XP, gold, Honor, gear, etc. In DayZ what are you going to do? Find some ammo? Big deal. Aimbots and other cheats exist for DayZ just fine (some of which make a farming bot completely pointless, as already pointed out) despite its "complexity".

Your "ideas" to disincentivize bots in WoW would maybe be "successful" but they'd also drive away the vast majority of the playerbase by completely changing the nature of the game. It wouldn't be anywhere close to the game it is now.
 
Scizyr said:
The only reason bots exist in this capacity is because the games are terribly simple. If Blizzard wanted to solve the problem they only need to make better, more complicated games with actual risk vs. reward.

I've never heard of a bot in DayZ, and in fact if someone made a bot I don't think players would mind, if they had a problem with it they'd just kill it and take its stuff.

Don't hate the bot, hate the game.
Click to expand...

I once watched a FFXIV stream where the streamer got in a 4 man dungeon with 3 bots. He was kind of pissed at first when they were all obviously /following him (and each other) but once he got to an encounter they all knew exactly what to do, and he commented that they were better than an average group of humans.

I bet making the game more challenging weeds out bad bots and bad players, but it would have to be an extremely (good/marketed/lucky) game to also be a blockbuster hit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top