14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that developer and publisher Blizzard, the creator of the Diablo series and the World of Warcraft MMO, is not satisfied with banning cheats from Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, even those who only play the single player, and has now taken steps to sue those who have offered hacks and trainers for its real time strategy hit.
Blizzard has registered a suit against three persons that it identifies as being hackers in the United States District Court in Los Angeles saying that they have violated the end user license agreement for Starcraft 2, the terms of use for the Battle.net service and even general copyright law.
Blizzard says that creating hacks allows gamers to move copyrighted content into the RAM memory of a computer, actually creating derivative works which lead to the law being breached.
Blizzard is eager to seem tough on hackers and on cheaters in order to make sure that players stay interested in the multiplayer side of Starcraft 2 and make the game a success on the same level as the first one in the series.
Interestingly the law suit does not offer real names for the alleged hackers, but talks about “"Permaphrost” and “Cranix”, who resides in Canada, and “Linuxawesome”, who lives in Peru.
Other three hackers are mentioned but not accused, “Wiggley”, “Zynastor” and “Dark Mage”.
The law suit says that, “Just days after the release of Starcraft 2, Defendants already had developed, marketed, and distributed to the public a variety of hacks and cheats designed to modify (and in fact destroy) the Starcraft 2 online game experience. In fact, on the very day that Starcraft 2 was released, representatives of the hacks Web site advised members of the public that 'our staff is already planning new releases for this game.'”
More than 5,000 players have until now been banned from Battle.net for cheating.