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Blizzard files lawsuit against ‘HonorBuddy’ bot maker
Blizzard Entertainment Inc, the studio behind monster franchises like Warcraft and StarCraft, has filed a lawsuit against the creators of HonorBuddy and several other paid bot programs that are designed to give players an unfair advantage in Blizzard’s games.
Most, if not all, of Blizzard’s games have a serious problem with bots, which are automated scripts that some players use to play the game for them. Often these bots are used to gain a competitive edge over other players, which presents a serious problem both for a game’s community and for its developer.
Blizzard’s suit names James Enright as the person behind the bots, and the game studio said that Enright’s programs violate its copyrights and its end user license agreements.
“Enright is an individual who, in collaboration with an international team of developers and distributors, has been instrumental in creating, programming, marketing, distributing, maintaining, and updating, for profit, a portfolio of malicious software products that are designed to harm Blizzard and its games,” Blizzard said in its complaint (via TorrentFreak).
Blizzard also specifically mentioned the harm that bot programs have on its communities, saying that they hurt the enjoyment of other players.
“The Bots created by Enright and his team have caused, and are continuing to cause, massive harm to Blizzard,” the studio said. “Blizzard’s business depends upon its games being enjoyable and balanced for players of all skill levels, and Blizzard expends a massive amount of time and money to ensure that this is the case.”
Blizzard added that as a direct result of Enright’s bots, it has lost “millions or tens of millions of dollars in revenue and in consumer goodwill.”
Responding to Blizzard’s suit, Zwetan Letschew, CEO of Bossland GmbH, told TorrentFreak that the studio is sueing people who are “are at best random freelancers,” explaining that Enright is not even an employee of Bossland, which owns HonorBuddy and the other bots named in the lawsuit.
This is not Blizzard’s first conflict with HonorBuddy. Earlier this year, the studio reportedly banned over 100,000 World of Warcraft accounts for using bots, but within a few weeks, HonorBuddy relaunched its bot services, saying that “we will give no guarantee and we have never given a guarantee, that our software is immune to detection or bans.”
Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment (c)
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