If and when beta resumes I can honestly say that it will not be a paid for beta, the reasons for this is when you pay for something you expect something in return.
Beta is just the opposite of stable product, the servers will and maybe only operational at certain times, and the people paying would expect that they are listened to, and anything they say should be heard.
Imagine you pay for beta, but the server times are not ideal for you, do you really think they would give you your money back. The test servers go down for 2 weeks, do you demand the servers are made available to you because you paid for them.
In short its a concept that if it was even considered I would have serious doubts about that company... very serious doubts, as you are literally paying for a service that could be down 99-99.99999% of the time.
If and when beta resumes I can honestly say that it will not be a paid for beta... Beta is just the opposite of stable product, the servers will and maybe only operational at certain times, and the people paying would expect that they are listened to, and anything they say should be heard.
While its true that paid betas are bad things and they tend to piss off the people who paid for them only to discover they got a broken and worthless product, that doesn't mean it can't happen.
Plenty of the other games have done paid betas. Mortal Online is doing some kind of paid beta thing right now. Dark and Light also had a paid beta test but attempted to disguise it by calling it a "pre-release" of the actual game, however it was undeniably a beta test since only about 10% of the game was open, most of the content was unfinished and it was buggy as hell. I still have doubts that Shaowbane ever left beta testing, despite being on the market for something like six years (and being in development for nearly ten years before that). More and more companies are also doing those deals where you have to pre-order the game from Gamestop and/or sign up for some other crazy online service to get into their supposedly "open" beta test.
So yeah, paid betas are bad, but there are plenty of shady developers out there who won't hesitate to resort to that kind of dirty tactic in an attempt to earn a profit on a game they know will never be truly finished. And do you really think Gary and his crew are more honest than those other guys? REALLY?
So yeah, paid betas are bad, but there are plenty of shady developers out there who won't hesitate to resort to that kind of dirty tactic in an attempt to earn a profit on a game they know will never be truly finished. And do you really think Gary and his crew are more honest than those other guys? REALLY?
I think you mean shady publishers or development houses, I'm sure you don't mean the actual developer staff, these people are just like you and me, and make no such decisions on what management do or say.
But really I think not even CME or FIRESKY would stoop to the level of paid beta, i think they have run our of toes nevermind shooting themselves in the foot.
I think you mean shady publishers or development houses, I'm sure you don't mean the actual developer staff, these people are just like you and me, and make no such decisions on what management do or say.
Well I don't know you well enough to speak for you but I can assure you that they are NOTHING like me. Mainly because I don't choose to work for a giant, evil, greedy, international corporation.
The whole "I was just following orders" excuse doesn't fly with me. I know this is a worn out example but its still the perferct example: The NGE. When Smedly came down to my cubicle and said: "The 200,000 customers we have now isn't good enough anymore. Change the game to make more people join, even if it means all our current custoemrs quit." I would have quit working for SoE right there on the spot. We know for a fact that was what happened because of Dan Rubenfield's infamous 'go eat a <censored> rant' where he directly said:
We told them. "If you do this, you will lose all 200k subscribers. It is that significant."
It was explained that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch.
Now, if I was a developer at SoE and my boss gave me an order to do something which would cause all 200,000 of our current customers to become very angry and quit the game I WOULD NOT DO IT! And that is why these game developers are nothing like me. The publishers and other people you balme for making these decisions only get away with it because the developers are willing to do what they ask. In my mind, that makes them just as bad as the people making the decisions.
If someone asked you to murder another human being and you did it, would the person who asked you to do it go to jail? Maybe. But so would you.
Originally posted by Raltar Well I don't know you well enough to speak for you but I can assure you that they are NOTHING like me. Mainly because I don't choose to work for a giant, evil, greedy, international corporation. The whole "I was just following orders" excuse doesn't fly with me. I know this is a worn out example but its still the perferct example: The NGE. When Smedly came down to my cubicle and said: "The 200,000 customers we have now isn't good enough anymore. Change the game to make more people join, even if it means all our current custoemrs quit." I would have quit working for SoE right there on the spot. We know for a fact that was what happened because of Dan Rubenfield's infamous 'go eat a <censored> rant' where he directly said: We told them. "If you do this, you will lose all 200k subscribers. It is that significant." It was explained that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch. Now, if I was a developer at SoE and my boss gave me an order to do something which would cause all 200,000 of our current customers to become very angry and quit the game I WOULD NOT DO IT! And that is why these game developers are nothing like me. The publishers and other people you balme for making these decisions only get away with it because the developers are willing to do what they ask. In my mind, that makes them just as bad as the people making the decisions. If someone asked you to murder another human being and you did it, would the person who asked you to do it go to jail? Maybe. But so would you.
Excellent post.
Some of us have standards. Some do not.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
You just work for your employer, you dont decide what business decisions to make, thats not your job.
Its all fair and good having standards, but sticking to these will basically end you up looking for work for the rest of your life. Do you honestly think that whatever you say to your boss will change his mind if it has been made up, refusing to do it will just get you fired.
Now putting this into perspective, your married, the sole income earner and have several kids (just like me), and you are telling me that you would refuse to do a job your employed to do and be fired for your principles. Life doesnt work that way in the real world. Sticking to your principles will just get you unemployed and unhirable.
No one is going to change there mind because some low level employee tells main managerment how they should be running there company, in the real world you paid for doing what they tell you to do. Not what you decide is best. You maybe absolutely 110% correct in your statement to the management, it doesnt mean they will do it, or even listen to you, if anything in the real world you are seen as the trouble maker, you dont do what your told and you get fired.
Sticking by your principles is a great thing to do, but in the real world it just gets you fired, and if you have a family to support you 'JUST DO YOUR JOB'. Now if you dont understand that basic principle I would suggest you get a family and be the sole earner, have a mortgage, have your bills and have all the responsability, now tell me, would you still walk out of that job because you think they are making a bad decision, especially in this working climate. If you said yes, you are a FOOL, and would put something in front of your families health and security.
Sticking by your principles is a great thing to do, but in the real world it just gets you fired, and if you have a family to support you 'JUST DO YOUR JOB'. Now if you dont understand that basic principle I would suggest you get a family and be the sole earner, have a mortgage, have your bills and have all the responsability, now tell me, would you still walk out of that job because you think they are making a bad decision, especially in this working climate. If you said yes, you are a FOOL, and would put something in front of your families health and security.
I must say that I for once agree with Yellowperil here, it's definately best to do whatever the boss says to keep your job than stand up for what you believe in and show some moral character. I spoke to a CME developer on this very subject last weekend and he allowed me to pass on this message,
Principles or not, if what your boss is suggesting is going to end up with a 99% loss in subscribers or the game not launching. Then it is time to get off your butt and find another job which I think is the point being made, the people that thought "If I say nothing and keep my head down I'll still have a job" all ended up like this chump. The others said "I'll get a job with a real company that's going somewhere as this moron will get all the developers fired eventually anyhow!".
I'd have given my opinion once, after it was ignored I'd do what I was told until I had a job working for a company that had a chance of launching a half decent product. Then when I had that job I'd hand in my notice and say goodbye to CME/SOE/Farlan/whoever. CME were never going launch SGW or any of the games from the cash sink studios anyway, the only product Gary got off the ground was MMOGULS. The smart people had jobs lined up with other studios when they saw the writing on the wall. Tell the boss about the problems you see? It's like telling a manic depressive kamikazie pilot that's just been told he has 2 weeks to live that flying into that American carrier is a bad idea!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
Yellowperil, it sounds like you are talking about a CORPORATE enviroment. Do what we say or you are fired. Again, this is why I'm different from game developers. I choose NOT to even work for a giant, evil, faceless corporation in the first place.
You know, this actually causes me to think of that most recent "TRUTH" commecrical I saw on TV. you know the ones I'm talking about, the anti-smoking ads where they ask "do you have what it takes to be a tobacco executive?" I saw one just recently where they were asking a bunch of students questions like "do you want to work in a multi-billion dollar industry" and they were all raising their hand. I couldn't figure out why they were all raising their hands. Who wants to work for these giant corporations in the first place? You don't need to kill half your customers to be evil. Just stealing from them and putting malware on their computers is bad enough in my book.
You know, there are some employeers out there (military, police, goverment, ect.) where just "following orders" so you don't get fired isn't always the end all be all of every situation. In these types of enviroments you are actually legally required NOT to follow an order if it is illegal or contrary to the ture purpose of your orginazation and you are expected to report issues of that nature to the proper authorities. As MMO Doubter said: Some of us have standards... and some apparently don't.
Secondly, I could expound in great detail my opinions on marrage, children, morgages, why its in your best interest not to have any of these things, ect but you sound like the kind of guy who wouldn't listen anyway so I'll make it simple: If you are in a situation in your life where every decision you make must be made exculsively on the basis of how much money it will net you in the end then you have already made some serious mistakes somewhere along the way.
Plus, Agricola makes a good point. You think the CME devs are feeling secure in their ability to support their famlies right now? Think their morgages are being paid every month? Think their retirement plans are going well? How about the guys who did the NGE, think they are at the top of the list of people to hire? Being successful is what pays the bills, not running your company into the ground and pissing off your customers. Not everyone on the gaming industry learns this the hard way but some of them do.
A little perspective here guys...this is a GAME we are talking about not food shipments to some country of starving kids. Keeping a roof over your families heads and putting even one kid through college is WAY more important then mucking up some MMO.
A person who hasn't learned to make compromises or live with poor decisions probably has never spent much time working in an organization larger then one (Profit or Non-Profit).
I work in the Tech industry... though not in the gaming industry.... Have I gone ahead and implemented decisions that I knew were lousy for the Product/Company ?? More times then I care to remember.
Here is how my proffesional ethics work. I am paid to fulfill certain responsibilies in my company. As a proffesional it's encumbant on me to fulfill that duty to the best of my abilities and judgement. However, I am NOT the ultimate decision maker in all areas of responsibilty. There are other people in the company who can override me, including the owners (it's thier dime after-all).
When I see some-one making a decision that I belive excercizes poor judgement or will be harmfull to the company/product. It IS encumbant upon me to comment upon that course of action, inform those individuals and others in the chain of command exactly what I believe to be the consequences of that course of action and provide my best reccomendations based upon my knowledge and experience. I've done this a ton of times, MANY times in writing, formaly documented.
However, once I've provided the appropriate decision-makers with the full set of information that they need on the subject.... that's where my proffesional responsibility ends. It's upto THEM to make the call... that's what THEY get paid for. If, after having all the benefit of the information I've provided, they still over-ride me ... that's just the way it goes. It's not fun...but you suck it up and carry out your marching orders to the best of your abilities. THAT, IMO, is how proffesionals conduct themselves.
Throwing a tantrum and quiting when you get overriden is, IMO, arrogant, immature and unproffesional.
Now, what I WONT do, regardless of the situation are things that fall into the category of UNETHICAL, DISHONEST or violate my proffesional ethics. I won't steal, cheat, commit fraud .....disrupt some-one elses Network, etc. THAT's the line that a proffesional will draw in the SAND.
There is a huge difference between an epicly stupid decision....and an immoral one.
A: A little perspective here guys...this is a GAME we are talking about not food shipments to some country of starving kids. Keeping a roof over your families heads and putting even one kid through college is WAY more important then mucking up some MMO. B: There is a huge difference between an epicly stupid decision....and an immoral one.
A: One person's opinion. But as I said before, if you have gotten to a point in your life where every decision you make must be based on if it will net you enough money to feed your children then I have to assume you have already made several major mistakes in your life up to this point. Considering that our planet is already choked with over population and every major enviromental problem can be traced back to that fact, my opinion is that you should probably do the entire human race a favor by not having children in the first place. We seem to have quite enough of them already. So maybe developing a half-way decent MMO is more important after all?
Plus, its one thing if you or your children are literally STARVING in the street. If thats the case, fine, steal a loaf of bread. But if you are a game developer wondering if you should lie to your customers just so little Jhonny can go to Harvard, don't expect me to cut you any slack.
B: And its the immoral ones I'm talking about here, Mel. If you screw up an MMO because you are a bad programmer or just an idiot, I can forgive that. When you knowingly wreck an MMO, screw over your fellow employees and lie to your customers just to make a quick buck, I think that falls into the category of an immoral decision and should be punished. When SoE released the NGE on SWG, that was an immoral decision because they were told in advance that they would be ruining the experience for 200,000+ of their paying customers, yet they went ahead with the move anyway. When EA games decided to inculde the SecuROM rootkit in their games, knowing it wouldn't prevent piracy and knowing that their customers would not want illegal software installed on their computers without premission, that was an immoral decision. These sorts of immoral decisions are quickly becoming common place in the gaming industry. Game developers and publishers seem to think that everything is legitimate in the quest for the almighty dollar. And I'll bet a lot of them are just like you: "I have to put food on my table! Its not my job to decide whats right or wrong!"
All I'm saying is, the world would be a better place if more people were concerned about having a clean conscience rather than having a full stomach.
I won't get into the meta-arguement about life-styles. I'll simply say that your beliefs are very different then mine.
On the list of things that are truely important in this world, MMO's (as much as I enjoy them) have to be down pretty near the absolute bottom. They rank somewhere in with; Who won the World Series, What Paris Hilton is wearing these days and What's being featured on the Home Shopping Network.
Too many people take such things WAY TOO SERIOUSLY.
I'm pretty sure that no MMO has ever promised customers that they wouldn't change the mechanics of the game (even dramaticly) you are subscribing to. In fact, I think it's pretty standard to put the fact that such changes may occur right in the EULA that you have to agree to before you sign-up for the game.
That isn't like selling you a Porsche and delivering a Yugo. It's more like a magazine that you are subscribed to changing it's format or style of writing in a way that isn't appealing to you any more. You know very well that's what COULD happen when you buy the product because it tells you so right in black & white when you sign up for it. The nice thing about subscription based services is that you can always cancel your subscription if the Product changes in ways that you don't like. No one is riping anyone off there.
The scenerio you described with SWG may be epochly dumb. Possibly even rude and jerkish.... but it's NOT actually immoral or unethical. It's basicaly a gaming version of "New Coke".
Now there ARE things that some game companies do pull sometimes which DO cross the line. That'd be stuff like charging a person even after they canceled, double-charging, hiding spyware/adware/malware in the product, charging for a product that you never intend to deliver, raising money from investors for a product you never intend to bring to market.
THOSE things are unethical...... but making mechanics changes to a game that PO's the existing fan-base.... Royaly Stupid, Yes.... Immoral, No.
That's a pretty simple one, though muddied with all their talk about dialing home when they first got there. How could it not be clear to them all that the power they need is immense, given how they needed that planet to even try to begin with?
The ship may be charged enough to operate, or maybe even charged as fully as it can be in its condition, but is no where near healthy enough to have that kind of power. Just like Atlantis was operating quite well eventually, but lacked the power to dial Earth.
That's quite a leap there. What is your evidence that the ship hasn't been FULLY recharged? If one dip in the sun wasn't enough, why would the ship not go back for another? Perhaps the ships IS too damaged to dial home, but I have seen nothing to suggest that that is the case, and Rush hasn't given any indication of it, either. Don't cover plot holes with the 'ship is too damaged' blanket.
Atlantis used ZPMs - not solar dips. That red dwarf wasn't going to run out of power.
The episode entitled EARTH brought this out for viewers to understand. They drained the power back down so the ship would recharge and attempted to dial home during the recharge process. FAILED - either because the ship is truly as damaged as Rush is stating or he isn't ready to go home and this is quickly become Star Gate Voyager.
A: On the list of things that are truely important in this world, MMO's (as much as I enjoy them) have to be down pretty near the absolute bottom. They rank somewhere in with; Who won the World Series, What Paris Hilton is wearing these days and What's being featured on the Home Shopping Network. B: I'm pretty sure that no MMO has ever promised customers that they wouldn't change the mechanics of the game (even dramaticly) you are subscribing to. In fact, I think it's pretty standard to put the fact that such changes may occur right in the EULA that you have to agree to before you sign-up for the game... The scenerio you described with SWG may be epochly dumb. Possibly even rude and jerkish.... but it's NOT actually immoral or unethical. It's basicaly a gaming version of "New Coke".
A: Oh yeah, none of thst stuff matters. Which is why we allow people to cheat in the World Series, Paris Hilton walks down the street naked and the Home Shopping Network sells biological weapons.
No matter how "important" or "unimportant" something may seem to YOU, doesn't give you the right to decide for everyone else. And when someone breaks the rules or shows a total distain for the other people they share this planet with, no matter how minor it may seem to you, they need to be held accountable for that.
B: You obviously have NO CLUE about what really happened with the NGE, do you?
What you don't know, or aren't willing to admit, is that the creators of the NGE weren't just dumb and making a mistake. They knew in advance EXACTLY what the consequences of their actions would be. They knew the changes they were making to the game would ruin the experience for ALL 200,000+ of their current customers. They decided to make the changes anyway, even knowing it would cause 200,000 people to stop using their service and probably cause a lot of anger for those 200,000 people. In my opinion, that sort of total disreguard for your own customers who have kept you in business for years is the worst form of evil any company can ever commit without directly causing someone to die.
We told them. "If you do this, you will lose all 200k subscribers. It is that significant."
It was explained that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch.
Dan was one of the developers who worked on the NGE. He has explained multiple times (in a less than friendly manner) why LA and SoE decided to go with the NGE. They KNEW (because they were told by their employees) that it would cause ALL 200,000+ customer to quit the game. They knew and they DID NOT CARE. They just wanted a game which could compete with WoW. That is utterly immoral on every possible level. Thats them saying "we don't care about our customers or the quality of our product, we just want to be rich." There is no possible way you can defend that kind of thinking.
And comapring the NGE to New Coke? Are you serious? When everyone hated New Coke they brought back Coke Classic. When everyone hated the NGE they told us to go <censored> ourselves because they weren't ever going to admit they were wrong. Coke cared if their cusomters were happy or not. Sony clearly is not interested.
A) C'mon.... tell me you are pulling my leg about this stuff?
- Cheating in the World series (e.g. using a "corked bat") will get you penalized according to the rules of that game. Might lose you a whole bunch of fans as well. However, it's level of importance pretty much ends there. However there was nothing about the scenerio you described with NGE that equates to cheating.
There is nothing, that you described, that violates the EULA.... which are the published rules of that game and the agreement between you and the company. Now there are things that CAN trump an EULA, like consumer law.... but nothing that you desribed would remotely fall under any of those categories.
- Some-one walking around naked in a public street violates others rights to use that public resource. Completely different scenerio here. You have no particular RIGHT to play SWG (or any other MMO). It's a privately held resource, not a publicly held one. The only "rights" to it you have are the ones that the company publishes in it's agreement with you. The equivalent would be some-one walking around naked in the privacy of thier own home.... and you trying to tell them they have no right to do so... because you WANT to be a GUEST in thier home.
- The third example you mentioned is so off-base, I'm not going to even comment on it.
I understand the level of "Nerd Rage" about the NGE. I'd be PO'd if a company did that to a product I liked to.... but that still doesn't make it immoral or unethical. There is a VERY big difference there.
I fully understand that the company was informed that they would loose ALL thier active subscribers. There is nothing IMMORALE or UNETHICAL about a company choosing to loose thier products current audience in hopes of gaining a wider or audience. It's a BLINDINGLY STUPID decision (IMO).... but it's not actualy immoral or unethical. A company has every right to change it's product offering in a manner it see's fit. The only thing that impinges upon that right is where it has contractual obligations that constrain it from doing so. The only other thing that might impinge on that is what it states in it's public advertising. However, it's well known that MMO's (and basicaly any other subscription based service) make changes to thier formats and mechanics from time to time (even dramatic ones) and they publish that fact right in thier licensing agreements.
So the only thing a subscriber can reasonably expect is that the service is as advertised AT THE TIME they purchased it. They can't expect that it will not change in future....UNLESS that was part of the stipulation in the purchasing/license agreement they have with the provider.
What they did was the equivalent of pulling your favorate TV show because it wasn't getting the ratings THEY wanted and replace it with a different type of show in the same time-slot.... a show which turned out to be less popular. There is nothing particularly immoral or unethical about that. STUPID, I'll grant that...but nothing beyond that.
I'd have no problem working for a company that did that and sleeping at night. Wouldn't trouble me in the least. Though I certainly would have some real concerns about the LONGEVITY a company who made such blindingly stupid decisions might enjoy in the market-place..... so I certainly would think about looking for another job for those reason.... but nothing about that scenerio would violate my code of personal or proffesional ethics. Though I would probably be frustrated as all heck with management for ignoring my reccomendations and being so jugheaded in thier judgement.
The NGE wasn't immoral? So when I asked if they were revamping the game as I wanted to know before making a one year subscription and the company policy was to lie and say no when they knew it would be changed that was not an immoral act? Then when they announced shortly after I'd purchased a one year sub and the new expansion that in 2 weeks the game was changing and that 90% of the expansion was null and void and there would be no refunds that wasn't an immoral act? When SOE were making promises to professions such as creature handler in order to keep subscribers while at the same time they knew it wouldn't happen and in less than one month that profession would be wiped from the game, that wasn't an immoral act?
Gary Whiting not paying his staff for months causing people to lose houses and children to go without medical coverage whilst all the time pumping money from investors into a pyramid scheme was not an immoral act? Luring desperate people into a pyramid scheme that is based off profits from a non existant product (SGW) is not an immoral act?
Well I guess we all have different moral values but in my opinion lying and using lies to acquire money under false pretences (stealing in short) are immoral acts in my opinion. Wether conducted by a common street thug or a legit businessman (which Gary Whiting isn't and John Smedley barely is), they are still acts of immorality in my opinion.
I don't deny the company has rights to change the game as in the NGE, but SOE actively lied about it whilst taking cash and refused to give refunds despite selling a product under false pretences. They did eventually refund ToOW expansions but only after threatened with court action. As for Whiting he's pretending to make a game in order to keep a pyramid scheme going, please tell you find that immoral!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
There is a WORLD of difference between what's happening with CME and what has been described as going down with SOE. What went down with SOE was that they changed the format of their product.... there is nothing immoral about that. Subscription based services tend to PUBLISH the fact that may happen right in the EULA's they make thier subscribers sign in order to play. If the subscriber doesn't read and believe that....then they really only have themselves to blame. Note, that it is USUALY possible to get ahold of an EULA for a product BEFORE you plunk down any money for it (even the origional box purchase)... though some companies don't make it very straightforward as to how you go about doing so (and THAT is an issue). It's also VERY WELL KNOWN to anyone that has any experience with MMO's that changes (large and small) to game mechanics happen all the time in that medium.... so no reasonable person can legitimately claim that they went into purchasing a multi-month subscription without the knowledge that there was a risk that the game mechanics might change in a way that might wreck thier enjoyment of the product.
What you USUALY get with a multi-month subscription is a discount of the monthly rate....along occasionaly with some other perks. What the company gets is improved cash flow (money now rather then later) and a somewhat more predictable revenue stream due to lock in. It is and always has been a gamble for the subscriber whether they'll get thier money out of that option... and no one who isn't comfortable with that risk should pursue it.
I didn't read any of the SOE boards.... but in general, game developers refrain from making solid commitments when communicating with the public FOR VERY GOOD REASONS. You don't promise anything you aren't 100% sure you will deliver. If you do...and fail to deliver on that....then yes the developer IS at fault for that. However, what I've seen MANY, MANY times.... on boards is developers discuss things that they WANT to do... or "have in the works", ETC... but they put a huge QUALIFICATION in with those statements... that they are not 100% sure it will happen like that. Almost inevitably the end user IGNORES that mile high qualification the Dev put in.... and tries to construe/twist what the Dev said as a PROMISE rather then a plan. THAT is the end-users fault when it happens. It's one of the reasons why you often get so little communication from Dev's on a public forum.
Cause if fans are going to hold every thing you say as an absolute promise.... even when you make it clear to them that you can't promise anything, the ONLY alternative is to never say anything to them. So I'd be very curious to see EXACTLY what was said by them. Maybe your right and they did make firm commitments to you....in that case you've got a legitimate beef about proffesional ethics. However, VERY OFTEN fans are the ones that take statements as commitments when a straight reading of them indicates they are not.
Furthermore, If what the Dev who wrote that article says is true..... THEY couldn't tell you any earlier about the NGE stuff because THE DECISION HADN'T BEEN MADE YET. He said they informed the public, as soon as the decison had been finalized. Now, I don't know if what he is claiming there is factualy accurate.... but I've seen enough of what goes on inside Corporations to know that sort of stuff DOES happen. It's totaly bone-headed and poor performance on the part of the senior decision makers responsible..... but it honestly is more often the case of a failure of competance rather then a failure of ethics. I have no idea which one of those would apply to SOE's case... but I'm not neccesarly going to assume the worst.
Now the stuff going on at CME sounds VERY DIFFERENT to me. At least from the outside it sounds pretty dodgey. I have no inside knowledge of the situation, so I can only judge by what information is publicaly available or comes in 3rd hand. But yes, if 1/10th of what has been said about that situation prooves true.... there are very serious ethical issues there.
Which is probably the most blindingly stupid statement in the universe. By your logic, slavery is okay as long as some leader somewhere makes a law saying its legal to own a slave.
Just because some company makes everyone who uses their product sign a legal document surrendering all their rights doesn't make anything they decide to do after that ethical or moral. The fact that they even ask you to sign away your rights in the first place is unethical.
Talking with you is a waste of my time. Its clear you are going to continue to whine that video games aren't important enough to be bound by any ethical standard just to justify the fact you don't apparently give a shit about anyone but yourself. You are obviosuly every bit as evil as the people you are defending.
Going to avoid flaming here.... No I do NOT believe LAW = ETHICS.
I DO, however believe that when a company publishes EXACTLY what they agree to be BOUND BY.....and you READ and SIGN that AGREEMENT you have NO LEGITIMATE cause to complain when they do something that agreement states they have a RIGHT TO DO.
Companies have a LEGITIMATE RIGHT to change their product offerings. The only time they don't is when that change would impinge on some-one elses right(s)...... OR they have made AGREEMENT or FIRM COMMITMENT not to do so. I have never heard of an MMO yet that has made such an agreement/commitment. In point of fact, most PUBLISH the fact that they MAY DO so right up front.
There is NOTHING DECEPTIVE or UNETHICAL about changing thier product when they told you right in the EULA agreement you signed that they MIGHT DO JUST THAT.
Edit: Furthermore what "Rights" EXACTLY do you claim they were asking you to sign away?
Do you believe you have an inherent "right" to dictate to some other person/company how they develop their product or run their company?
Do you believe you have an inherent "right" to hold them to whatever expectations are in your head, even though they never agreed to such?
That's really the core of the problem here.... far too many people don't understand the difference between a PRIVILEDGE and a RIGHT.
Going to avoid flaming here.... No I do NOT believe LAW = ETHICS. I DO, however believe that when a company publishes EXACTLY what they agree to be BOUND BY.....and you READ and SIGN that AGREEMENT you have NO LEGITIMATE cause to complain when they do something that agreement states they have a RIGHT TO DO. Companies have a LEGITIMATE RIGHT to change their product offerings. The only time they don't is when that change would impinge on some-one elses right(s)...... OR they have made AGREEMENT or FIRM COMMITMENT not to do so. I have never heard of an MMO yet that has made such an agreement/commitment. In point of fact, most PUBLISH the fact that they MAY DO so right up front. There is NOTHING DECEPTIVE or UNETHICAL about changing thier product when they told you right in the EULA agreement you signed that they MIGHT DO JUST THAT.
Good post. I read the longer one just prior to this and I absolutely agree.
Players need to go into these games with eyes wide open and realize what they are getting into. This is not to say the game company won't do things that will piss them off but in the end, if they do, the player can just end the subscription.
Game companies do usually say (and I don't recall any mmo company not including this) that they rerserve the rigth to make changes or that gameplay may change. If a player doesn't believe this then they are fooling themselves.
Is it nice or good business to radically change your product? Well, I suppose not. But they do reserve that right and on their end they hopefully don't shoot themselves in the butt.
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Thanks, as I mentioned before (I think). I work in the Tech Industry for an ASP...though not related to games. My position is more of an Engineer then Development really....but some of what I do does touch on Development. Sitting on this side of the fence...really gives me alot of insight for the position alot of Dev's in MMO's are in.
Unfortunately, this topic highlights why you often see so little public communication from Dev's. Most actualy LIKE/WANT to talk about their work with the end users of their products. That exchange can also be quite helpful for them in their design work (even if they don't end up using what the end user suggests). However, one of the things Dev's very quickly realize is that they often have VERY LIMITED control over what makes it into the final product that the end user sees/experiences. Heck, sometimes even the senior execs don't have all that much control as the realties of budgets/schedules/resources hit home. However, if you say anything to an end-user.... no matter how much you qualify it as not a sure thing.... people will try to treat it as a promise..... either that or they'll get all PO'd and ragefull if you float an idea that they don't like....even if you try to make it clear that your just floating the idea....and haven't firmed up any decisions with it yet. It's really kinda unfortunate how things tend to go down that way.
Sovrath, Thanks, as I mentioned before (I think). I work in the Tech Industry for an ASP...though not related to games. My position is more of an Engineer then Development really....but some of what I do does touch on Development. Sitting on this side of the fence...really gives me alot of insight for the position alot of Dev's in MMO's are in. Unfortunately, this topic highlights why you often see so little public communication from Dev's. Most actualy LIKE/WANT to talk about their work with the end users of their products. That exchange can also be quite helpful for them in their design work (even if they don't end up using what the end user suggests). However, one of the things Dev's very quickly realize is that they often have VERY LIMITED control over what makes it into the final product that the end user sees/experiences. Heck, sometimes even the senior execs don't have all that much control as the realties of budgets/schedules/resources hit home. However, if you say anything to an end-user.... no matter how much you qualify it as not a sure thing.... people will try to treat it as a promise..... either that or they'll get all PO'd and ragefull if you float an idea that they don't like....even if you try to make it clear that your just floating the idea....and haven't firmed up any decisions with it yet. It's really kinda unfortunate how things tend to go down that way.
I was reading an interview (blog? was something) with Brad McQuaid and he stated that one of the things he learned was not to talk about things that aren't 100% going to be put in game.
My initial thought was "isn't this common sense?"
It's sort self fulfilling prophecy as you are correct, devs want to talk about their work, they want to talk about the things that they are excited about. But it's very clear that not everything works out the way they intended.
So what do they do? Leave it in and get a broken or unbalanced system? Remove it and have players rush to the boards decrying the dev team and saying they are lazy?
I worked at a software company and oftentimes I would see them include things, remove things and rush to meet some sort of arbitrary deadline that someone higher up created because the customer wanted to see results.
Software develpment seems to be a messy business as who knows how long it will take to make something that works relatively bug free. And after it is done, will it work the way it was meant to?
At one point I was looking at the user interface and commented on how it wasn't really very user friendly nor was it aesthetically pleasing. the comment I got was that it (and this is paraphrased) fulfills the requirement and that if the customer wanted it changed they would have to go back and discuss it with the customer regarding extra fees, etc. So essentially, given the scope of the project, the interface got the job done but there were no more resources to spend on changing it and it would be an entirely new additioin to the job if the customer wanted it changed.
At the time I thought that was B.S. but while looking at everyone work long hours to meet the deadline it sort of made sense. It would have been nice to have revisited the interface but there really wasn't enough time and the interface worked.
I have to say that companies that have the resources to hold off until the product is to their liking are most likely few and far in between.
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A bigger problem is that many EULAs, in the software industry in general and the video game industry in particular are "legal" because they have not been tested in court yet. In the very few times it has to this point, EULAs and the software makers in general, have come out on the losing side. Companies have gotten away with borderline/illegal EULAs, because not many people are going to go through the trouble of suing over $50 + a monthly fee, but, with "virtual property" becoming more and more common, because of all this RMT BS companies are doing now, it is only a matter of time.
As a side note, it is a well founded legal principle (in the US, at least) that an illegal contract (and there are many legal definitions of this) is NOT enforceable, under any circumstance, regardless if there is a signed contract or not. If someone decides to sell a kidney for $50000, and then doesn't, you can't sue, because the activity is prohibited by law. A person can not contractually agree to have their rights violated. If in a software EULA, it said that CME or SOE or whomever had the right to come to your house and kick you in the balls if you cancel a subscription, would that be legal? Of course not.
Bottom line is that clicking that "I accept" button on terms and conditions, is worthless, in most cases, and means nothing. It is an attempt to make people think that the company has the right to do this and that, but in reality, the EULAs are, to use legal parlance, crap.
Below is one of the few cases of where a EULA went to court, and the software company lost, huge....
From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
A Seattle man is free to sell second-hand software on eBay, a US court has said. It found that the maker of the software, Autodesk, could not stop the resale by claiming that its software is licensed rather than sold.
Software companies have long claimed that software is not sold to users but licensed, and many software licences forbid the resale of the software. A Seattle District Court has found, though, that the packages of software in question were sold, not licensed, and that the licence is not binding on subsequent buyers.
Timothy Vernor bought several copies of Autodesk's AutoCAD design software in 2005 and 2007 from businesses that had originally bought the software from Autodesk. He then put the software up for sale on eBay. Each package contained discs, a copy of a licence agreement and other documentation.
Each time, Autodesk issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notice asking eBay to suspend the auction, which it did.
Each time that happened Vernor wrote to Autodesk asserting his rights and saying that the software was legitimate and not a pirated copy, but received no reply. Ebay reinstated the auctions. At one point eBay suspended his seller's account for a month for repeat infringements of its policies when Autodesk had complained a number of times.
Vernor applied to the Court for a declaration that he had the right to sell the software because he believed that this process would be repeated every time he tried to buy and sell software.
The court said that Autodesk's initial transfer of the software to the businesses was a sale, not a licensing arrangement. Those businesses, therefore, had the right to re-sell the software with or without the permission of Autodesk.
The 'first sale doctrine' is an important part of US copyright legislation. Richard Jones, the judge in the case, said that if invoked, the doctrine would protect Vernor.
"If there were no License, there is no dispute that Mr. Vernor's resale of the AutoCAD packages would be legal," he said in his ruling. "The first sale doctrine permits a person who owns a lawfully-made copy of a copyrighted work to sell or otherwise dispose of the copy."
The Court relied on a 1977 decision involving prints of films, in which the US government took action against Woodrow Wise, who operated a film sales operation in Los Angeles.
That case was the first to look at what is a licensing arrangement and what is a sale, Jones said. It found that in cases where a company expected the material to be returned – as it would if loaning a print to a cinema for display – that was a license arrangement. Where it never expected the material to be returned – such as when a studio allowed actress Vanessa Redgrave to have a print in return for money – that was a sale.
Jones said that subsequent decisions had backed Autodesk's contention that software distribution could be a sale, he had to stay consistent with the earliest relevant ruling, which was that of the case of Wise.
"Although technology has changed, the question at the core of this case is not technological," said Jones. "Mr. Vernor does not seek to take advantage of new technology to ease copying, he seeks to sell a package of physical objects which contain copies of copyrighted material. The essential features of such sales vary little whether selling movie prints via mail (as in Wise) or software packages via eBay."
The ruling also dealt with the extent of the power of the original software licence. Vernor asked the Court to declare that the original licence, which forbade the re-selling of the software, did not control his behaviour.
The Court said that the argument Autodesk had earlier made – that Vernor should not be allowed to own the software because the licence was non-transferable – must govern to whom it can apply.
"Not only has Autodesk failed to surmount the thorny issues of privity and mutual assent inherent in its contention that its License binds Mr. Vernor and his customers, it has ignored the terms of the License itself," said the ruling. "The Autodesk License is expressly 'nontransferable.' License: Grant of License. Autodesk does not explain how a nontransferable license can bind subsequent transferees."
The software industry relies on categorising what consumers often think of as software sales as software licensing agreements. If followed by other courts, the Autodesk ruling could affect the ability of software publishers to restrict the transfer of their technology in that way.
The court denied Autodesk's motion for dismissal or summary judgment. The case continues.
A bigger problem is that many EULAs, in the software industry in general and the video game industry in particular are "legal" because they have not been tested in court yet. In the very few times it has to this point, EULAs and the software makers in general, have come out on the losing side. Companies have gotten away with borderline/illegal EULAs, because not many people are going to go through the trouble of suing over $50 + a monthly fee, but, with "virtual property" becoming more and more common, because of all this RMT BS companies are doing now, it is only a matter of time. As a side note, it is a well founded legal principle (in the US, at least) that an illegal contract (and there are many legal definitions of this) is NOT enforceable, under any circumstance, regardless if there is a signed contract or not. If someone decides to sell a kidney for $50000, and then doesn't, you can't sue, because the activity is prohibited by law. A person can not contractually agree to have their rights violated. If in a software EULA, it said that CME or SOE or whomever had the right to come to your house and kick you in the balls if you cancel a subscription, would that be legal? Of course not. Bottom line is that clicking that "I accept" button on terms and conditions, is worthless, in most cases, and means nothing. It is an attempt to make people think that the company has the right to do this and that, but in reality, the EULAs are, to use legal parlance, crap.
THANK YOU!
Finally... someone who gets it!
Just because a company can force you to sign something before you use their product doesn't make it legal. And even in the cases where it does, it doesn't make their actions ethical by default.
Well most EULA wont work, but some aspects of the EULA in europe at least will stand if they go to court.
Since Vista MS has specified you license the software from them and dont own it, thats why you can still buy used copies of XP, and transfer them around on PC's, which you cannot do on Vista and especially Windows7, this is licensed to the machine you install it on (first time), if your PC craps out and you buy another one, you need to buy another copy of Windows 7. Now one way MS is trying to absorb the XP copies is to give you the Windows XP virtual PC in Windows 7, this id doanloadable free from MS for Windows 7, but you need a XP license for it. Now if you read the agreement on that, you will find that once you assign your XP license to Windows 7, it will be bound and no longer transferable. Nice little trick that dont ya think.....
Anyways, going back to the original EULA and agreements you will have to accept when playing games, most have a EULA and then a terms of use, 2 separate documents that you will agree to, in wow you have to accept twice. One will cover what you can actually do with the software, copying, etc. And one will cover how you use the software, sort of more ingame based, no hacking, no selling of items, no this or that.
The main issue here is that if you sell items, and their terms specify you cant do this, they ban the account, and it wont be based on the EULA but on the terms of use. The terms of use will cover a much broader range of things, the EULA is more to do with the actual software, the terms more to do with the game itself.
With the terms of use they have a lot more power to do stuff as they like it, this is why when you update WOW, you have to re-agree to both the eula and the terms and conditions, this is basically forcing you to accept any changes that have been made. If you dont agree to the terms then you cannot access the game.....
More and more companies are now licensing there software as this allows them to control their property, how you use it and terms you have to follow, its much easier just to turn your software off if you breach the terms than going through court cases. Another issue is that ignorance isn't acceptable as an excuse, the EULA and terms and conditions are literally an agreement you sign (by clicking agree).
Comments
If and when beta resumes I can honestly say that it will not be a paid for beta, the reasons for this is when you pay for something you expect something in return.
Beta is just the opposite of stable product, the servers will and maybe only operational at certain times, and the people paying would expect that they are listened to, and anything they say should be heard.
Imagine you pay for beta, but the server times are not ideal for you, do you really think they would give you your money back. The test servers go down for 2 weeks, do you demand the servers are made available to you because you paid for them.
In short its a concept that if it was even considered I would have serious doubts about that company... very serious doubts, as you are literally paying for a service that could be down 99-99.99999% of the time.
While its true that paid betas are bad things and they tend to piss off the people who paid for them only to discover they got a broken and worthless product, that doesn't mean it can't happen.
Plenty of the other games have done paid betas. Mortal Online is doing some kind of paid beta thing right now. Dark and Light also had a paid beta test but attempted to disguise it by calling it a "pre-release" of the actual game, however it was undeniably a beta test since only about 10% of the game was open, most of the content was unfinished and it was buggy as hell. I still have doubts that Shaowbane ever left beta testing, despite being on the market for something like six years (and being in development for nearly ten years before that). More and more companies are also doing those deals where you have to pre-order the game from Gamestop and/or sign up for some other crazy online service to get into their supposedly "open" beta test.
So yeah, paid betas are bad, but there are plenty of shady developers out there who won't hesitate to resort to that kind of dirty tactic in an attempt to earn a profit on a game they know will never be truly finished. And do you really think Gary and his crew are more honest than those other guys? REALLY?
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
I think you mean shady publishers or development houses, I'm sure you don't mean the actual developer staff, these people are just like you and me, and make no such decisions on what management do or say.
But really I think not even CME or FIRESKY would stoop to the level of paid beta, i think they have run our of toes nevermind shooting themselves in the foot.
Well I don't know you well enough to speak for you but I can assure you that they are NOTHING like me. Mainly because I don't choose to work for a giant, evil, greedy, international corporation.
The whole "I was just following orders" excuse doesn't fly with me. I know this is a worn out example but its still the perferct example: The NGE. When Smedly came down to my cubicle and said: "The 200,000 customers we have now isn't good enough anymore. Change the game to make more people join, even if it means all our current custoemrs quit." I would have quit working for SoE right there on the spot. We know for a fact that was what happened because of Dan Rubenfield's infamous 'go eat a <censored> rant' where he directly said:
We told them. "If you do this, you will lose all 200k subscribers. It is that significant."
It was explained that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch.
Now, if I was a developer at SoE and my boss gave me an order to do something which would cause all 200,000 of our current customers to become very angry and quit the game I WOULD NOT DO IT! And that is why these game developers are nothing like me. The publishers and other people you balme for making these decisions only get away with it because the developers are willing to do what they ask. In my mind, that makes them just as bad as the people making the decisions.
If someone asked you to murder another human being and you did it, would the person who asked you to do it go to jail? Maybe. But so would you.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
Excellent post.
Some of us have standards. Some do not.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
You just work for your employer, you dont decide what business decisions to make, thats not your job.
Its all fair and good having standards, but sticking to these will basically end you up looking for work for the rest of your life. Do you honestly think that whatever you say to your boss will change his mind if it has been made up, refusing to do it will just get you fired.
Now putting this into perspective, your married, the sole income earner and have several kids (just like me), and you are telling me that you would refuse to do a job your employed to do and be fired for your principles. Life doesnt work that way in the real world. Sticking to your principles will just get you unemployed and unhirable.
No one is going to change there mind because some low level employee tells main managerment how they should be running there company, in the real world you paid for doing what they tell you to do. Not what you decide is best. You maybe absolutely 110% correct in your statement to the management, it doesnt mean they will do it, or even listen to you, if anything in the real world you are seen as the trouble maker, you dont do what your told and you get fired.
Sticking by your principles is a great thing to do, but in the real world it just gets you fired, and if you have a family to support you 'JUST DO YOUR JOB'. Now if you dont understand that basic principle I would suggest you get a family and be the sole earner, have a mortgage, have your bills and have all the responsability, now tell me, would you still walk out of that job because you think they are making a bad decision, especially in this working climate. If you said yes, you are a FOOL, and would put something in front of your families health and security.
I must say that I for once agree with Yellowperil here, it's definately best to do whatever the boss says to keep your job than stand up for what you believe in and show some moral character. I spoke to a CME developer on this very subject last weekend and he allowed me to pass on this message,
Principles or not, if what your boss is suggesting is going to end up with a 99% loss in subscribers or the game not launching. Then it is time to get off your butt and find another job which I think is the point being made, the people that thought "If I say nothing and keep my head down I'll still have a job" all ended up like this chump. The others said "I'll get a job with a real company that's going somewhere as this moron will get all the developers fired eventually anyhow!".
I'd have given my opinion once, after it was ignored I'd do what I was told until I had a job working for a company that had a chance of launching a half decent product. Then when I had that job I'd hand in my notice and say goodbye to CME/SOE/Farlan/whoever. CME were never going launch SGW or any of the games from the cash sink studios anyway, the only product Gary got off the ground was MMOGULS. The smart people had jobs lined up with other studios when they saw the writing on the wall. Tell the boss about the problems you see? It's like telling a manic depressive kamikazie pilot that's just been told he has 2 weeks to live that flying into that American carrier is a bad idea!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Yellowperil, it sounds like you are talking about a CORPORATE enviroment. Do what we say or you are fired. Again, this is why I'm different from game developers. I choose NOT to even work for a giant, evil, faceless corporation in the first place.
You know, this actually causes me to think of that most recent "TRUTH" commecrical I saw on TV. you know the ones I'm talking about, the anti-smoking ads where they ask "do you have what it takes to be a tobacco executive?" I saw one just recently where they were asking a bunch of students questions like "do you want to work in a multi-billion dollar industry" and they were all raising their hand. I couldn't figure out why they were all raising their hands. Who wants to work for these giant corporations in the first place? You don't need to kill half your customers to be evil. Just stealing from them and putting malware on their computers is bad enough in my book.
You know, there are some employeers out there (military, police, goverment, ect.) where just "following orders" so you don't get fired isn't always the end all be all of every situation. In these types of enviroments you are actually legally required NOT to follow an order if it is illegal or contrary to the ture purpose of your orginazation and you are expected to report issues of that nature to the proper authorities. As MMO Doubter said: Some of us have standards... and some apparently don't.
Secondly, I could expound in great detail my opinions on marrage, children, morgages, why its in your best interest not to have any of these things, ect but you sound like the kind of guy who wouldn't listen anyway so I'll make it simple: If you are in a situation in your life where every decision you make must be made exculsively on the basis of how much money it will net you in the end then you have already made some serious mistakes somewhere along the way.
Plus, Agricola makes a good point. You think the CME devs are feeling secure in their ability to support their famlies right now? Think their morgages are being paid every month? Think their retirement plans are going well? How about the guys who did the NGE, think they are at the top of the list of people to hire? Being successful is what pays the bills, not running your company into the ground and pissing off your customers. Not everyone on the gaming industry learns this the hard way but some of them do.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
A little perspective here guys...this is a GAME we are talking about not food shipments to some country of starving kids. Keeping a roof over your families heads and putting even one kid through college is WAY more important then mucking up some MMO.
A person who hasn't learned to make compromises or live with poor decisions probably has never spent much time working in an organization larger then one (Profit or Non-Profit).
I work in the Tech industry... though not in the gaming industry.... Have I gone ahead and implemented decisions that I knew were lousy for the Product/Company ?? More times then I care to remember.
Here is how my proffesional ethics work. I am paid to fulfill certain responsibilies in my company. As a proffesional it's encumbant on me to fulfill that duty to the best of my abilities and judgement. However, I am NOT the ultimate decision maker in all areas of responsibilty. There are other people in the company who can override me, including the owners (it's thier dime after-all).
When I see some-one making a decision that I belive excercizes poor judgement or will be harmfull to the company/product. It IS encumbant upon me to comment upon that course of action, inform those individuals and others in the chain of command exactly what I believe to be the consequences of that course of action and provide my best reccomendations based upon my knowledge and experience. I've done this a ton of times, MANY times in writing, formaly documented.
However, once I've provided the appropriate decision-makers with the full set of information that they need on the subject.... that's where my proffesional responsibility ends. It's upto THEM to make the call... that's what THEY get paid for. If, after having all the benefit of the information I've provided, they still over-ride me ... that's just the way it goes. It's not fun...but you suck it up and carry out your marching orders to the best of your abilities. THAT, IMO, is how proffesionals conduct themselves.
Throwing a tantrum and quiting when you get overriden is, IMO, arrogant, immature and unproffesional.
Now, what I WONT do, regardless of the situation are things that fall into the category of UNETHICAL, DISHONEST or violate my proffesional ethics. I won't steal, cheat, commit fraud .....disrupt some-one elses Network, etc. THAT's the line that a proffesional will draw in the SAND.
There is a huge difference between an epicly stupid decision....and an immoral one.
First of all Mel, Nice NECRO post...
A: One person's opinion. But as I said before, if you have gotten to a point in your life where every decision you make must be based on if it will net you enough money to feed your children then I have to assume you have already made several major mistakes in your life up to this point. Considering that our planet is already choked with over population and every major enviromental problem can be traced back to that fact, my opinion is that you should probably do the entire human race a favor by not having children in the first place. We seem to have quite enough of them already. So maybe developing a half-way decent MMO is more important after all?
Plus, its one thing if you or your children are literally STARVING in the street. If thats the case, fine, steal a loaf of bread. But if you are a game developer wondering if you should lie to your customers just so little Jhonny can go to Harvard, don't expect me to cut you any slack.
B: And its the immoral ones I'm talking about here, Mel. If you screw up an MMO because you are a bad programmer or just an idiot, I can forgive that. When you knowingly wreck an MMO, screw over your fellow employees and lie to your customers just to make a quick buck, I think that falls into the category of an immoral decision and should be punished. When SoE released the NGE on SWG, that was an immoral decision because they were told in advance that they would be ruining the experience for 200,000+ of their paying customers, yet they went ahead with the move anyway. When EA games decided to inculde the SecuROM rootkit in their games, knowing it wouldn't prevent piracy and knowing that their customers would not want illegal software installed on their computers without premission, that was an immoral decision. These sorts of immoral decisions are quickly becoming common place in the gaming industry. Game developers and publishers seem to think that everything is legitimate in the quest for the almighty dollar. And I'll bet a lot of them are just like you: "I have to put food on my table! Its not my job to decide whats right or wrong!"
All I'm saying is, the world would be a better place if more people were concerned about having a clean conscience rather than having a full stomach.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
A)
I won't get into the meta-arguement about life-styles. I'll simply say that your beliefs are very different then mine.
On the list of things that are truely important in this world, MMO's (as much as I enjoy them) have to be down pretty near the absolute bottom. They rank somewhere in with; Who won the World Series, What Paris Hilton is wearing these days and What's being featured on the Home Shopping Network.
Too many people take such things WAY TOO SERIOUSLY.
I'm pretty sure that no MMO has ever promised customers that they wouldn't change the mechanics of the game (even dramaticly) you are subscribing to. In fact, I think it's pretty standard to put the fact that such changes may occur right in the EULA that you have to agree to before you sign-up for the game.
That isn't like selling you a Porsche and delivering a Yugo. It's more like a magazine that you are subscribed to changing it's format or style of writing in a way that isn't appealing to you any more. You know very well that's what COULD happen when you buy the product because it tells you so right in black & white when you sign up for it. The nice thing about subscription based services is that you can always cancel your subscription if the Product changes in ways that you don't like. No one is riping anyone off there.
The scenerio you described with SWG may be epochly dumb. Possibly even rude and jerkish.... but it's NOT actually immoral or unethical. It's basicaly a gaming version of "New Coke".
Now there ARE things that some game companies do pull sometimes which DO cross the line. That'd be stuff like charging a person even after they canceled, double-charging, hiding spyware/adware/malware in the product, charging for a product that you never intend to deliver, raising money from investors for a product you never intend to bring to market.
THOSE things are unethical...... but making mechanics changes to a game that PO's the existing fan-base.... Royaly Stupid, Yes.... Immoral, No.
That's a pretty simple one, though muddied with all their talk about dialing home when they first got there. How could it not be clear to them all that the power they need is immense, given how they needed that planet to even try to begin with?
The ship may be charged enough to operate, or maybe even charged as fully as it can be in its condition, but is no where near healthy enough to have that kind of power. Just like Atlantis was operating quite well eventually, but lacked the power to dial Earth.
That's quite a leap there. What is your evidence that the ship hasn't been FULLY recharged? If one dip in the sun wasn't enough, why would the ship not go back for another? Perhaps the ships IS too damaged to dial home, but I have seen nothing to suggest that that is the case, and Rush hasn't given any indication of it, either. Don't cover plot holes with the 'ship is too damaged' blanket.
Atlantis used ZPMs - not solar dips. That red dwarf wasn't going to run out of power.
The episode entitled EARTH brought this out for viewers to understand. They drained the power back down so the ship would recharge and attempted to dial home during the recharge process. FAILED - either because the ship is truly as damaged as Rush is stating or he isn't ready to go home and this is quickly become Star Gate Voyager.
A: Oh yeah, none of thst stuff matters. Which is why we allow people to cheat in the World Series, Paris Hilton walks down the street naked and the Home Shopping Network sells biological weapons.
No matter how "important" or "unimportant" something may seem to YOU, doesn't give you the right to decide for everyone else. And when someone breaks the rules or shows a total distain for the other people they share this planet with, no matter how minor it may seem to you, they need to be held accountable for that.
B: You obviously have NO CLUE about what really happened with the NGE, do you?
What you don't know, or aren't willing to admit, is that the creators of the NGE weren't just dumb and making a mistake. They knew in advance EXACTLY what the consequences of their actions would be. They knew the changes they were making to the game would ruin the experience for ALL 200,000+ of their current customers. They decided to make the changes anyway, even knowing it would cause 200,000 people to stop using their service and probably cause a lot of anger for those 200,000 people. In my opinion, that sort of total disreguard for your own customers who have kept you in business for years is the worst form of evil any company can ever commit without directly causing someone to die.
And before you go off on another ignorant rant about how they were just following orders and it was dumb but okay, let me refer you to Dan Rubenfield's Infamous 'Go eat a <censored> rant':
We told them. "If you do this, you will lose all 200k subscribers. It is that significant."
It was explained that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch.
Dan was one of the developers who worked on the NGE. He has explained multiple times (in a less than friendly manner) why LA and SoE decided to go with the NGE. They KNEW (because they were told by their employees) that it would cause ALL 200,000+ customer to quit the game. They knew and they DID NOT CARE. They just wanted a game which could compete with WoW. That is utterly immoral on every possible level. Thats them saying "we don't care about our customers or the quality of our product, we just want to be rich." There is no possible way you can defend that kind of thinking.
And comapring the NGE to New Coke? Are you serious? When everyone hated New Coke they brought back Coke Classic. When everyone hated the NGE they told us to go <censored> ourselves because they weren't ever going to admit they were wrong. Coke cared if their cusomters were happy or not. Sony clearly is not interested.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
A) C'mon.... tell me you are pulling my leg about this stuff?
- Cheating in the World series (e.g. using a "corked bat") will get you penalized according to the rules of that game. Might lose you a whole bunch of fans as well. However, it's level of importance pretty much ends there. However there was nothing about the scenerio you described with NGE that equates to cheating.
There is nothing, that you described, that violates the EULA.... which are the published rules of that game and the agreement between you and the company. Now there are things that CAN trump an EULA, like consumer law.... but nothing that you desribed would remotely fall under any of those categories.
- Some-one walking around naked in a public street violates others rights to use that public resource. Completely different scenerio here. You have no particular RIGHT to play SWG (or any other MMO). It's a privately held resource, not a publicly held one. The only "rights" to it you have are the ones that the company publishes in it's agreement with you. The equivalent would be some-one walking around naked in the privacy of thier own home.... and you trying to tell them they have no right to do so... because you WANT to be a GUEST in thier home.
- The third example you mentioned is so off-base, I'm not going to even comment on it.
I fully understand that the company was informed that they would loose ALL thier active subscribers. There is nothing IMMORALE or UNETHICAL about a company choosing to loose thier products current audience in hopes of gaining a wider or audience. It's a BLINDINGLY STUPID decision (IMO).... but it's not actualy immoral or unethical. A company has every right to change it's product offering in a manner it see's fit. The only thing that impinges upon that right is where it has contractual obligations that constrain it from doing so. The only other thing that might impinge on that is what it states in it's public advertising. However, it's well known that MMO's (and basicaly any other subscription based service) make changes to thier formats and mechanics from time to time (even dramatic ones) and they publish that fact right in thier licensing agreements.
So the only thing a subscriber can reasonably expect is that the service is as advertised AT THE TIME they purchased it. They can't expect that it will not change in future....UNLESS that was part of the stipulation in the purchasing/license agreement they have with the provider.
What they did was the equivalent of pulling your favorate TV show because it wasn't getting the ratings THEY wanted and replace it with a different type of show in the same time-slot.... a show which turned out to be less popular. There is nothing particularly immoral or unethical about that. STUPID, I'll grant that...but nothing beyond that.
I'd have no problem working for a company that did that and sleeping at night. Wouldn't trouble me in the least. Though I certainly would have some real concerns about the LONGEVITY a company who made such blindingly stupid decisions might enjoy in the market-place..... so I certainly would think about looking for another job for those reason.... but nothing about that scenerio would violate my code of personal or proffesional ethics. Though I would probably be frustrated as all heck with management for ignoring my reccomendations and being so jugheaded in thier judgement.
The NGE wasn't immoral? So when I asked if they were revamping the game as I wanted to know before making a one year subscription and the company policy was to lie and say no when they knew it would be changed that was not an immoral act? Then when they announced shortly after I'd purchased a one year sub and the new expansion that in 2 weeks the game was changing and that 90% of the expansion was null and void and there would be no refunds that wasn't an immoral act? When SOE were making promises to professions such as creature handler in order to keep subscribers while at the same time they knew it wouldn't happen and in less than one month that profession would be wiped from the game, that wasn't an immoral act?
Gary Whiting not paying his staff for months causing people to lose houses and children to go without medical coverage whilst all the time pumping money from investors into a pyramid scheme was not an immoral act? Luring desperate people into a pyramid scheme that is based off profits from a non existant product (SGW) is not an immoral act?
Well I guess we all have different moral values but in my opinion lying and using lies to acquire money under false pretences (stealing in short) are immoral acts in my opinion. Wether conducted by a common street thug or a legit businessman (which Gary Whiting isn't and John Smedley barely is), they are still acts of immorality in my opinion.
I don't deny the company has rights to change the game as in the NGE, but SOE actively lied about it whilst taking cash and refused to give refunds despite selling a product under false pretences. They did eventually refund ToOW expansions but only after threatened with court action. As for Whiting he's pretending to make a game in order to keep a pyramid scheme going, please tell you find that immoral!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Agricola,
There is a WORLD of difference between what's happening with CME and what has been described as going down with SOE. What went down with SOE was that they changed the format of their product.... there is nothing immoral about that. Subscription based services tend to PUBLISH the fact that may happen right in the EULA's they make thier subscribers sign in order to play. If the subscriber doesn't read and believe that....then they really only have themselves to blame. Note, that it is USUALY possible to get ahold of an EULA for a product BEFORE you plunk down any money for it (even the origional box purchase)... though some companies don't make it very straightforward as to how you go about doing so (and THAT is an issue). It's also VERY WELL KNOWN to anyone that has any experience with MMO's that changes (large and small) to game mechanics happen all the time in that medium.... so no reasonable person can legitimately claim that they went into purchasing a multi-month subscription without the knowledge that there was a risk that the game mechanics might change in a way that might wreck thier enjoyment of the product.
What you USUALY get with a multi-month subscription is a discount of the monthly rate....along occasionaly with some other perks. What the company gets is improved cash flow (money now rather then later) and a somewhat more predictable revenue stream due to lock in. It is and always has been a gamble for the subscriber whether they'll get thier money out of that option... and no one who isn't comfortable with that risk should pursue it.
I didn't read any of the SOE boards.... but in general, game developers refrain from making solid commitments when communicating with the public FOR VERY GOOD REASONS. You don't promise anything you aren't 100% sure you will deliver. If you do...and fail to deliver on that....then yes the developer IS at fault for that. However, what I've seen MANY, MANY times.... on boards is developers discuss things that they WANT to do... or "have in the works", ETC... but they put a huge QUALIFICATION in with those statements... that they are not 100% sure it will happen like that. Almost inevitably the end user IGNORES that mile high qualification the Dev put in.... and tries to construe/twist what the Dev said as a PROMISE rather then a plan. THAT is the end-users fault when it happens. It's one of the reasons why you often get so little communication from Dev's on a public forum.
Cause if fans are going to hold every thing you say as an absolute promise.... even when you make it clear to them that you can't promise anything, the ONLY alternative is to never say anything to them. So I'd be very curious to see EXACTLY what was said by them. Maybe your right and they did make firm commitments to you....in that case you've got a legitimate beef about proffesional ethics. However, VERY OFTEN fans are the ones that take statements as commitments when a straight reading of them indicates they are not.
Furthermore, If what the Dev who wrote that article says is true..... THEY couldn't tell you any earlier about the NGE stuff because THE DECISION HADN'T BEEN MADE YET. He said they informed the public, as soon as the decison had been finalized. Now, I don't know if what he is claiming there is factualy accurate.... but I've seen enough of what goes on inside Corporations to know that sort of stuff DOES happen. It's totaly bone-headed and poor performance on the part of the senior decision makers responsible..... but it honestly is more often the case of a failure of competance rather then a failure of ethics. I have no idea which one of those would apply to SOE's case... but I'm not neccesarly going to assume the worst.
Now the stuff going on at CME sounds VERY DIFFERENT to me. At least from the outside it sounds pretty dodgey. I have no inside knowledge of the situation, so I can only judge by what information is publicaly available or comes in 3rd hand. But yes, if 1/10th of what has been said about that situation prooves true.... there are very serious ethical issues there.
Mel...
You seem to think: LAW = ETHICS
Which is probably the most blindingly stupid statement in the universe. By your logic, slavery is okay as long as some leader somewhere makes a law saying its legal to own a slave.
Just because some company makes everyone who uses their product sign a legal document surrendering all their rights doesn't make anything they decide to do after that ethical or moral. The fact that they even ask you to sign away your rights in the first place is unethical.
Talking with you is a waste of my time. Its clear you are going to continue to whine that video games aren't important enough to be bound by any ethical standard just to justify the fact you don't apparently give a shit about anyone but yourself. You are obviosuly every bit as evil as the people you are defending.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
Raltar,
Going to avoid flaming here.... No I do NOT believe LAW = ETHICS.
I DO, however believe that when a company publishes EXACTLY what they agree to be BOUND BY.....and you READ and SIGN that AGREEMENT you have NO LEGITIMATE cause to complain when they do something that agreement states they have a RIGHT TO DO.
Companies have a LEGITIMATE RIGHT to change their product offerings. The only time they don't is when that change would impinge on some-one elses right(s)...... OR they have made AGREEMENT or FIRM COMMITMENT not to do so. I have never heard of an MMO yet that has made such an agreement/commitment. In point of fact, most PUBLISH the fact that they MAY DO so right up front.
There is NOTHING DECEPTIVE or UNETHICAL about changing thier product when they told you right in the EULA agreement you signed that they MIGHT DO JUST THAT.
Edit: Furthermore what "Rights" EXACTLY do you claim they were asking you to sign away?
Do you believe you have an inherent "right" to dictate to some other person/company how they develop their product or run their company?
Do you believe you have an inherent "right" to hold them to whatever expectations are in your head, even though they never agreed to such?
That's really the core of the problem here.... far too many people don't understand the difference between a PRIVILEDGE and a RIGHT.
Good post. I read the longer one just prior to this and I absolutely agree.
Players need to go into these games with eyes wide open and realize what they are getting into. This is not to say the game company won't do things that will piss them off but in the end, if they do, the player can just end the subscription.
Game companies do usually say (and I don't recall any mmo company not including this) that they rerserve the rigth to make changes or that gameplay may change. If a player doesn't believe this then they are fooling themselves.
Is it nice or good business to radically change your product? Well, I suppose not. But they do reserve that right and on their end they hopefully don't shoot themselves in the butt.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
"LEGITIMATE RIGHT" does NOT equal ethical behavior.
Wrong is wrong, even if you have a contract which allows you to get away with it.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
Sovrath,
Thanks, as I mentioned before (I think). I work in the Tech Industry for an ASP...though not related to games. My position is more of an Engineer then Development really....but some of what I do does touch on Development. Sitting on this side of the fence...really gives me alot of insight for the position alot of Dev's in MMO's are in.
Unfortunately, this topic highlights why you often see so little public communication from Dev's. Most actualy LIKE/WANT to talk about their work with the end users of their products. That exchange can also be quite helpful for them in their design work (even if they don't end up using what the end user suggests). However, one of the things Dev's very quickly realize is that they often have VERY LIMITED control over what makes it into the final product that the end user sees/experiences. Heck, sometimes even the senior execs don't have all that much control as the realties of budgets/schedules/resources hit home. However, if you say anything to an end-user.... no matter how much you qualify it as not a sure thing.... people will try to treat it as a promise..... either that or they'll get all PO'd and ragefull if you float an idea that they don't like....even if you try to make it clear that your just floating the idea....and haven't firmed up any decisions with it yet. It's really kinda unfortunate how things tend to go down that way.
I was reading an interview (blog? was something) with Brad McQuaid and he stated that one of the things he learned was not to talk about things that aren't 100% going to be put in game.
My initial thought was "isn't this common sense?"
It's sort self fulfilling prophecy as you are correct, devs want to talk about their work, they want to talk about the things that they are excited about. But it's very clear that not everything works out the way they intended.
So what do they do? Leave it in and get a broken or unbalanced system? Remove it and have players rush to the boards decrying the dev team and saying they are lazy?
I worked at a software company and oftentimes I would see them include things, remove things and rush to meet some sort of arbitrary deadline that someone higher up created because the customer wanted to see results.
Software develpment seems to be a messy business as who knows how long it will take to make something that works relatively bug free. And after it is done, will it work the way it was meant to?
At one point I was looking at the user interface and commented on how it wasn't really very user friendly nor was it aesthetically pleasing. the comment I got was that it (and this is paraphrased) fulfills the requirement and that if the customer wanted it changed they would have to go back and discuss it with the customer regarding extra fees, etc. So essentially, given the scope of the project, the interface got the job done but there were no more resources to spend on changing it and it would be an entirely new additioin to the job if the customer wanted it changed.
At the time I thought that was B.S. but while looking at everyone work long hours to meet the deadline it sort of made sense. It would have been nice to have revisited the interface but there really wasn't enough time and the interface worked.
I have to say that companies that have the resources to hold off until the product is to their liking are most likely few and far in between.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
A bigger problem is that many EULAs, in the software industry in general and the video game industry in particular are "legal" because they have not been tested in court yet. In the very few times it has to this point, EULAs and the software makers in general, have come out on the losing side. Companies have gotten away with borderline/illegal EULAs, because not many people are going to go through the trouble of suing over $50 + a monthly fee, but, with "virtual property" becoming more and more common, because of all this RMT BS companies are doing now, it is only a matter of time.
As a side note, it is a well founded legal principle (in the US, at least) that an illegal contract (and there are many legal definitions of this) is NOT enforceable, under any circumstance, regardless if there is a signed contract or not. If someone decides to sell a kidney for $50000, and then doesn't, you can't sue, because the activity is prohibited by law. A person can not contractually agree to have their rights violated. If in a software EULA, it said that CME or SOE or whomever had the right to come to your house and kick you in the balls if you cancel a subscription, would that be legal? Of course not.
Bottom line is that clicking that "I accept" button on terms and conditions, is worthless, in most cases, and means nothing. It is an attempt to make people think that the company has the right to do this and that, but in reality, the EULAs are, to use legal parlance, crap.
Below is one of the few cases of where a EULA went to court, and the software company lost, huge....
From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
A Seattle man is free to sell second-hand software on eBay, a US court has said. It found that the maker of the software, Autodesk, could not stop the resale by claiming that its software is licensed rather than sold.
Software companies have long claimed that software is not sold to users but licensed, and many software licences forbid the resale of the software. A Seattle District Court has found, though, that the packages of software in question were sold, not licensed, and that the licence is not binding on subsequent buyers.
Timothy Vernor bought several copies of Autodesk's AutoCAD design software in 2005 and 2007 from businesses that had originally bought the software from Autodesk. He then put the software up for sale on eBay. Each package contained discs, a copy of a licence agreement and other documentation.
Each time, Autodesk issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notice asking eBay to suspend the auction, which it did.
Each time that happened Vernor wrote to Autodesk asserting his rights and saying that the software was legitimate and not a pirated copy, but received no reply. Ebay reinstated the auctions. At one point eBay suspended his seller's account for a month for repeat infringements of its policies when Autodesk had complained a number of times.
Vernor applied to the Court for a declaration that he had the right to sell the software because he believed that this process would be repeated every time he tried to buy and sell software.
The court said that Autodesk's initial transfer of the software to the businesses was a sale, not a licensing arrangement. Those businesses, therefore, had the right to re-sell the software with or without the permission of Autodesk.
The 'first sale doctrine' is an important part of US copyright legislation. Richard Jones, the judge in the case, said that if invoked, the doctrine would protect Vernor.
"If there were no License, there is no dispute that Mr. Vernor's resale of the AutoCAD packages would be legal," he said in his ruling. "The first sale doctrine permits a person who owns a lawfully-made copy of a copyrighted work to sell or otherwise dispose of the copy."
The Court relied on a 1977 decision involving prints of films, in which the US government took action against Woodrow Wise, who operated a film sales operation in Los Angeles.
That case was the first to look at what is a licensing arrangement and what is a sale, Jones said. It found that in cases where a company expected the material to be returned – as it would if loaning a print to a cinema for display – that was a license arrangement. Where it never expected the material to be returned – such as when a studio allowed actress Vanessa Redgrave to have a print in return for money – that was a sale.
Jones said that subsequent decisions had backed Autodesk's contention that software distribution could be a sale, he had to stay consistent with the earliest relevant ruling, which was that of the case of Wise.
"Although technology has changed, the question at the core of this case is not technological," said Jones. "Mr. Vernor does not seek to take advantage of new technology to ease copying, he seeks to sell a package of physical objects which contain copies of copyrighted material. The essential features of such sales vary little whether selling movie prints via mail (as in Wise) or software packages via eBay."
The ruling also dealt with the extent of the power of the original software licence. Vernor asked the Court to declare that the original licence, which forbade the re-selling of the software, did not control his behaviour.
The Court said that the argument Autodesk had earlier made – that Vernor should not be allowed to own the software because the licence was non-transferable – must govern to whom it can apply.
"Not only has Autodesk failed to surmount the thorny issues of privity and mutual assent inherent in its contention that its License binds Mr. Vernor and his customers, it has ignored the terms of the License itself," said the ruling. "The Autodesk License is expressly 'nontransferable.' License: Grant of License. Autodesk does not explain how a nontransferable license can bind subsequent transferees."
The software industry relies on categorising what consumers often think of as software sales as software licensing agreements. If followed by other courts, the Autodesk ruling could affect the ability of software publishers to restrict the transfer of their technology in that way.
The court denied Autodesk's motion for dismissal or summary judgment. The case continues.
THANK YOU!
Finally... someone who gets it!
Just because a company can force you to sign something before you use their product doesn't make it legal. And even in the cases where it does, it doesn't make their actions ethical by default.
Wrong is still wrong at the end of the day.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
Well most EULA wont work, but some aspects of the EULA in europe at least will stand if they go to court.
Since Vista MS has specified you license the software from them and dont own it, thats why you can still buy used copies of XP, and transfer them around on PC's, which you cannot do on Vista and especially Windows7, this is licensed to the machine you install it on (first time), if your PC craps out and you buy another one, you need to buy another copy of Windows 7. Now one way MS is trying to absorb the XP copies is to give you the Windows XP virtual PC in Windows 7, this id doanloadable free from MS for Windows 7, but you need a XP license for it. Now if you read the agreement on that, you will find that once you assign your XP license to Windows 7, it will be bound and no longer transferable. Nice little trick that dont ya think.....
Anyways, going back to the original EULA and agreements you will have to accept when playing games, most have a EULA and then a terms of use, 2 separate documents that you will agree to, in wow you have to accept twice. One will cover what you can actually do with the software, copying, etc. And one will cover how you use the software, sort of more ingame based, no hacking, no selling of items, no this or that.
The main issue here is that if you sell items, and their terms specify you cant do this, they ban the account, and it wont be based on the EULA but on the terms of use. The terms of use will cover a much broader range of things, the EULA is more to do with the actual software, the terms more to do with the game itself.
With the terms of use they have a lot more power to do stuff as they like it, this is why when you update WOW, you have to re-agree to both the eula and the terms and conditions, this is basically forcing you to accept any changes that have been made. If you dont agree to the terms then you cannot access the game.....
More and more companies are now licensing there software as this allows them to control their property, how you use it and terms you have to follow, its much easier just to turn your software off if you breach the terms than going through court cases. Another issue is that ignorance isn't acceptable as an excuse, the EULA and terms and conditions are literally an agreement you sign (by clicking agree).