Blizzard, the developer of extremely popular video games Overwatch and World of Warcraft just won $8.56 million in statutory damages in a Californa court. The company sued a German firm, Bossland, for 42,818 counts of copyright infringement. The video game developer needed to take these actions because the German firm developed and sold a great number of cheat tools regarding its popular titles, including Overwatch. In order to do this, Bossland had reverse-engineered and altered Blizzard’s most popular games.
The California court not only ordered Bossland to pay $8,563,600.00 statutory damages, it also forbade the German firm to operate, assist, or link to any website located in the US or directed to US residents that is designed to provide information to assist others in accessing, developing or obtaining any software whose use infringes any of Blizzard’s Intellectual Property . At the same time, the court also stopped Bossland from selling its products in the United States. Naturally, the German firm also needs to cover the costs of the suit and pay Blizzard’s attorneys’ fees. All these costs come up to a total of $8,740,235.41. The German firm chose not to represent itself in court. Whether it did this because it knows that selling cheats is not a cool thing to do, or not, is quite unclear.
One might wonder why selling cheats is such a bad thing. The fact is, even though for the ones using them, the game becomes easier, it could spoil the fun for other players. This way, gamers who prefer not to use cheats and bots get discouraged to further play the game. For Blizzard, this means fewer customers and bad publicity. Naturally, it also means that game developer’s income decreases significantly. For a company of Blizzard’s magnitude, both income and customer satisfaction is crucial. Not to mention that interfering with someone else’s product, no matter what it is, is illegal and rude.
Even though Blizzard won this battle, Bossland could continue the fight with an appeal. Even if it doesn’t, the judgment only solves the issue on US soil. The german firm’s cheats remain available outside the United States. This means that players will continue to cease playing due to cheaters. The war is far from being over. You can read the court’s order here.
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