Blizzard Awarded 88M From WoW Private Server Lawsuit

Tweet Private game servers are a thorny, often hushed topic within gaming circles. Some gamers appreciate the cost-free nature of private servers and others make use of these forbidden realms to play the MMO in a different way that the live game (for instance playing on a "classic" private server that doesn't permit expansion packs). Whatever the reason the game industry tends to disapprove of these types of activities. Grn online Last week, Blizzard frowned at a particular private server and was awarded $88,000,000 for the effort.

Blizzard filed suit against Alyson Rives, the owner of Scapegaming and a private World of Warcraft Server, in October 2009. Reeves was earning profits from the business through microtransactions that were made on the server. The judge ruled that this was indeed copyright infringement against Blizzard, and ordered Scapegaming to pay $85.5M in statutory damages as well as $3M in unjustified profits and $63,600 in legal costs. Reeves may appeal the suit at this stage.

As with the bnetd case, Blizzard is sending a clear message to people trying to modify their code Don't. Scapegaming's Facebook page isn't overflowing with support for the company, and we can imagine that a lot of private server operators are thinking long and hard about whether the risk is worth the risk this week.

Grn online