Blizzard Clobbers Bot Maker for $6 Million

Blizzard Entertainment has been awarded six million dollars from MDY Industries, makers of the World of Warcraft Glider software. After winning the first round in July, the monetary compensation was handed down today. Check out a teaser from the BBC article:

The Glider software is the creation of MDY founder Michael Donnelly who is thought to have sold more than 100,000 copies of the $25 (£14) program.

It proved popular with many WoW players as it helped them automate the many repetitive tasks, such as killing monsters and scavenging loot, required to turn low level characters into more powerful ones.

Although sizeable the damages award could have been bigger, say experts, if MDY had not won some of its arguments about damages in court.

It was also helped by an admission in court that it would be reasonable to pay some form of damages.

The damages award could be delayed if Blizzard appeals against the judgement which threw out its claim to double or triple the cash settlement.

The case is headed back to court in January for Round 3. Any bets on the winner?

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I say they take every last penny from him, strip him, and then flog him in the middle of Times Square.

guitar:
I say they take every last penny from him, strip him, and then flog him in the middle of Times Square.

ROFLOL! That was unexpected...you made me spew Dr. Pepper on my monitor. :P

Kalia:

ROFLOL! That was unexpected...you made me spew Dr. Pepper on my monitor. :P

Ouch, hope it wasn't an LCD.

guitar:
I say they take every last penny from him, strip him, and then flog him in the middle of Times Square.

Agreed X2. Botmakers should be sent to Iraq to handle convoy security and let my cousin stay home to play WoW.

YAY Finally I can sit in Nagrand and Ogrimmar without fear of gold spammmer bots and huntard bots!

Sigoya:
Sadly, this will only stifle one BOT provider, and leave those who bought the actual program unpunished. The ultimate form of punishment would be to get a list of all those who purchased and used Glider in WoW, then bill them a small-yet-sizeable bill.

This would send a stronger message to all cheaters than just cutting off the source. There will always be plenty of developers who will try and make similar programs, the trick is to cut off the end-user as well.

Nah, just delete the toons/accounts that used it.I mean permanantly delete em'. Nothing would hurt more than having your uber toon go up in smoke.

But, Blizzard wouldn't do THAT, those are paying accounts!

Furthermore that would be a breach of privacy on several levels. That wouldn't do Blizz's reputation any good.

BUT this is yet another step towards combating the cheaters. A long long time ago companies wouldn't do anything but ban a few accounts. Now more companies are getting serious with the bannings so much that they actually track player's in-game money transactions (CCP's Eve Online), and now Blizzard has shown that the creators of the bots are not invincible either, and can be held responsible for large sums of money. This will make others think twice before they go off on their wild get rich schemes of selling their bots.
And a couple of years ago we had NCSoft get FBI to raid some guy's basement that had setup his own illegal private server there, and was making hundreds of thousands in "donations" that would grant players special items and other advantages.

These are all steps towards having fair and level games, and no matter how cynical your views of this are, that day will come eventually.
(Or they could do what Korea did with L2 and have your account info tied to your SIN number :P)