PC

Blizzard Sues Warcraft Bot Creator

Glide is frustrating, according to the game developers

By Calin Ciabai, Games Editor

27th of March 2008, 22:06 GMT

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Usually, big companies are the ones getting sued for various (and generally stupid) reasons, but this time things are different: World of Warcraft creators, Blizzard, are suing Michael Donnely,

a guy that created the so-called MMO Glider program that automatically performs different in-game tasks (fighting, for example).

According to BBC, both sides have submitted legal summaries to a court in Arizona: Blizzard claims that the Glide software bot infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game, while Mr. Donnely says he was offended by the company's "audacious threats". What is this bot about?

Well, its main purpose is, as we said earlier, to perform different tasks in the game automatically. According to Blizzard, the software infringes copyright because it copies the game into RAM in order to avoid detection by WoW's anticheat software. Also, a company rep said that "Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time."

Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to test Mr. Donnelly's bot (and I doubt I will ever do it), but from what it seems, it really is something that completely ruins the gameplay experience. If things are done automatically and you just sit and watch, you can't really call it game playing, can you? Still, it is very possible I have missed something and my first impression is wrong.

Anyway, one thing is clear: 100,000 of the 10 million World of Warcraft players have bought the Glider software and Blizzard wants this to stop. Even more, the company wants Mr. Donnelly to return all the profits made from the sale of the bot. And I really doubt they're out of money.

The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgment and we'll keep you updated on the matter.

TAGS:

WoW | World of Warcraft | bots | Glide | MMO Glide

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