Why Blizzard Cannot Justly Ban Accounts

[naut]

Recently my Diablo3 account was banned for botting, to be honest it was a long time coming and not unexpected, I had been botting since release. That is beside my point. My ban got me thinking about whether blizzard could actually ban an account at all, and I don't believe they can, allow me to explain.

1. Upon PURCHASING the game, you are not required to sign any licensing agreements, nor do they even give any indication of one existing.

2. It is only after purchasing and installing the game, they tell you that you must create your one and only account linked to this game, and that you must follow their rules to play on that account.

3. If the style of account creating was similar to diablo2, in that any copy of the game could create endless accounts, or if there was a single player mode, Blizzard has all the right to ban one of those accounts for cheating. However in the case of Diablo3, banning your account makes the game completely unusable, and is no different then selling damaged goods and refusing a refund or exchange.

The Consumer Guarantee Act states:
Retailers and other such suppliers guarantee their goods will:
1.Be of acceptable quality (see definition below).
2.Be fit for a particular purpose that you asked about.
3.Match the description given in advertisements or sales brochures, or by the sales assistant.
4.Match the sample or demonstration model.
5.Be owned by the consumer, once purchased.
6.Be a reasonable price, if no price or pricing formula has been previously agreed.

As can be seen in #5, a product must be owned by the consumer once purchased.

I have submitted a ticket with the Better Business Bureau and the responses have been positive so far, I will provide more details as they continue their investigation.

 

[FallenDev]

You know what... that is completely and honestly the truth. Long live democracy lol!

You might just get the whole banning thing thrown out if you win this. That would be awesome man!! Please keep us updated

 

[Polyester]

The use of this software product is subject to the terms of an End User License Agreement available at http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/d3_eula.htm, and all use of the product is subject to the Diablo III Terms of use and the Battle.net Terms of Use.

this is stated on the box. it clearly tells you that using the software is subject to their eula and tos

 

[naut]

this is stated on the box. it clearly tells you that using the software is subject to their eula and tos

Yes but in no way does it state that if you choose to break these rules, you will not be given the option to create a new account and your money will be wasted.

 

[Polyester]

Yes but in no way does it state that if you choose to break these rules, you will not be given the option to create a new account and your money will be wasted.

honestly i cant be bothered actually reading it or finding the appropriate sections, but id be willing to bet money that it would be very clearly written in the eula or tos that if you break it your account can be suspended or banned.

 

[Firework]

honestly i cant be bothered actually reading it or finding the appropriate sections, but id be willing to bet money that it would be very clearly written in the eula or tos that if you break it your account can be suspended or banned.

It doesn't say anywhere in the box art that I am holding in my hand that my gameplay must artbitarily be of unloggable status at any time at their leisure. I think the better business bureau could take Blizzards rank down a notch once they find out they've been cutting peoples service off to such a retail product. This is like a television from Sony that disables itself permanelty when you break their terms of service (he was running the TV 24/7 which is impossible for someone to watch TV for 24/7 but there is no warning anywhere on the packaging).

Any terms of service is fine in game but a Nintendo game cartridge for example doesn't ban you from playing when you decide to exploit the game code to fall through the World. As a consumer technically as long as your not killing someone with the product you ought to be allowed to continue as you please be it play 24/7 or behave sketchy online. All these bannings are allgedly from botting or some such behavior that only a robot could do. Doesn't that speak volumes about the game itself? Surely someone could do something in your game because its fun ; otherwise these bannings are a huge admission that this game isn't fun and only a tool assisted computer could play their product. Sad really.

 

[Polyester]

op you are aware youre purchasing a software license?

 

[Polyester]

It doesn't say anywhere in the box art that I am holding in my hand that my gameplay must artbitarily be of unloggable status at any time at their leisure. I think the better business bureau could take Blizzards rank down a notch once they find out they've been cutting peoples service off to such a retail product. This is like a television from Sony that disables itself permanelty when you break their terms of service (he was running the TV 24/7 which is impossible for someone to watch TV for 24/7 but there is no warning anywhere on the packaging).

Any terms of service is fine in game but a Nintendo game cartridge for example doesn't ban you from playing when you decide to exploit the game code to fall through the World. As a consumer technically as long as your not killing someone with the product you ought to be allowed to continue as you please be it play 24/7 or behave sketchy online. All these bannings are allgedly from botting or some such behavior that only a robot could do. Doesn't that speak volumes about the game itself? Surely someone could do something in your game because its fun ; otherwise these bannings are a huge admission that this game isn't fun and only a tool assisted computer could play their product. Sad really.

im not even sure what your point is with this post, maybe you guys should do some reading on what a software license is and what it means.

if anything were to even come of this and blizzard were forced to change how they operate in any way or anybody gets their account back then by all means gloat about it to me when the time comes.

edit: im done reading or replying to anything in this thread, theres no point arguing with people who dont know their facts and just talk about things they feel should be right. best of luck to you op.

 

[kork09]

well i've said it before but i'll say it again maybe my ideas will help you or the buddyteam in their lawsuit

1.botting is technically not cheating (unless u do it 24/7 which no human can do ) because it does not provide any advantage over a normal player. in fact botting is less efficient than manual play . there is no way they can prove botting has any effect on the game whatsoever because if you replace botter with normal player you get the same thing.(botters are bound by the same principles as normal players)

2.fk their eula . if they say by buying their product they are entitled to come over to your house and steal your tv this doesn't mean anything . the laws are what matters not their eula

3. they are 10 times worse than us ( on a moral scale ) because d3's endgame is essentially a scam , where they endlessly leach of rmah transactions while not providing any new content or realistically improving the game

4. they probably don't ban now cos the game is dead ..and - x thousands of players represents a - in the rmah transactions (and they know that currently botters will not buy new accounts after they get banned)

 

[aalias1]

I remember something about if you don't agree with eula you can return it to the seller and get refunded.

 

[FallenDev]

It doesn't say anywhere in the box art that I am holding in my hand that my gameplay must artbitarily be of unloggable status at any time at their leisure. I think the better business bureau could take Blizzards rank down a notch once they find out they've been cutting peoples service off to such a retail product. This is like a television from Sony that disables itself permanelty when you break their terms of service (he was running the TV 24/7 which is impossible for someone to watch TV for 24/7 but there is no warning anywhere on the packaging).

Any terms of service is fine in game but a Nintendo game cartridge for example doesn't ban you from playing when you decide to exploit the game code to fall through the World. As a consumer technically as long as your not killing someone with the product you ought to be allowed to continue as you please be it play 24/7 or behave sketchy online. All these bannings are allgedly from botting or some such behavior that only a robot could do. Doesn't that speak volumes about the game itself? Surely someone could do something in your game because its fun ; otherwise these bannings are a huge admission that this game isn't fun and only a tool assisted computer could play their product. Sad really.

Exactly Apple just went through this in court not so long ago about JailBreaks... what you buy is yours. Being they are now offering an PS3 service... what are they going to do about that? You can't Ban someone from PS only Sony has that power... ((what's funny is I hacked my ps3 too now that I'm thinking about this... I have over 1,000 ps3 games on my external lawls))

 

[Phenotype]

It's funny to see people trying to circumvent the fact that they bought a game, cheated for their own personal gain, got banned and now try to justify their actions or try to deny the fact that they knew what they were getting into and it turned out to be a clusterfuck.

This bot should carry a balls size measure requirement, if you don't have enough balls to bot, you wont get it.

 

[Soullinker]

Oh thats great if something can be done
About it. If this passes there are no problem if you get banned.

However as far as i know you buy the right to use their software not the software itself. Which i think makes all the diffrence. However if this is not mentioned beforehand and only in the tos which has no force over law in eu you may have a case of that your refused service and ask a refund.
But go ask a retailer for a refund on half an year old game because acording to the law blizzard should refund you.
Correct me if i am wrong but i hope op succees

 

[bambam922]

I'm fairly sure that Blizzard's legal team is more knowledgeable than any internet sleuth.

It's like saying that you got your hand caught in the ceiling fan while putting together an IKEA table because the instructions were not clear enough.

 

[motsmots]

Does it matter anymore though? It seems Blizzard has completely given up on chasing botters. No ones been banned for 5 months now.

 

[Soullinker]

I'm fairly sure that Blizzard's legal team is more knowledgeable than any internet sleuth.

It's like saying that you got your hand caught in the ceiling fan while putting together an IKEA table because the instructions were not clear enough.

allow me to disagree... what we are talking about is like the macdonalds coffee case. They got sued that there was no warning that the coffee is hot and the person won.

As for blizzard having good lawyers, there ia no dought but their is always a door that can be used.

 

[Soullinker]

It's funny to see people trying to circumvent the fact that they bought a game, cheated for their own personal gain, got banned and now try to justify their actions or try to deny the fact that they knew what they were getting into and it turned out to be a clusterfuck.

This bot should carry a balls size measure requirement, if you don't have enough balls to bot, you wont get it.

It is not about ball size everyone here is aware of what they do... this is not para jumping to have balls.
This is simple : you have to consumatives in this game electricity and new keys...
take the key factor out and this buisnes becomes allot better. Not to mention that if your a big player and you have a huge ele. bill you can just rent a dorm room whit flat rent where you dont play ele and the rent would be smaller than rent ele bill.
If you take out one factor and limit the other you have no cost of running other than the rent. Allowing infinite grow... its all just math if gain is more than cost?

 

[Polyester]

allow me to disagree... what we are talking about is like the macdonalds coffee case. They got sued that there was no warning that the coffee is hot and the person won.

As for blizzard having good lawyers, there ia no dought but their is always a door that can be used.

a software license agreement has nothing to do with the lack of a warning label on a hot drink. apples and oranges.

back when you would buy games for the super nintendo, nintendo 64 etc you would purchase the game and you would own that game. these days you are purchasing a software license, by agreeing to the terms of use of the license you are allowed to use that piece of software (in this case, the game).

a driver's license would be a more accurate comparison than your mcdonalds coffee. what happens when you break the terms of using your license? you lose demerit points and eventually your license to drive (in australia, at least). having a license to use a piece of software is no different, if you break the terms of use for for your software license agreement then the authority (in this case, blizzard) can suspend or revoke access. make sense?

edit: im not an expert on this, so theres a chance ive said something thats inaccurate. the bottom line is that chances are the people in this thread are not smarter than blizzards legal team and if there was a loophole that prevents them from banning your accounts it would have been exploited a long time ago.

 

[kork09]

a software license agreement has nothing to do with the lack of a warning label on a hot drink. apples and oranges.

back when you would buy games for the super nintendo, nintendo 64 etc you would purchase the game and you would own that game. these days you are purchasing a software license, by agreeing to the terms of use of the license you are allowed to use that piece of software (in this case, the game).

a driver's license would be a more accurate comparison than your mcdonalds coffee. what happens when you break the terms of using your license? you lose demerit points and eventually your license to drive (in australia, at least). having a license to use a piece of software is no different, if you break the terms of use for for your software license agreement then the authority (in this case, blizzard) can suspend or revoke access. make sense?

well yeah but you are not endangering someone's life with botting as opposed to driving drunk for example.
there are always arguments on both sides who makes the better argument wins . simply the fact that blizzard has a legal team which no doubt they doesn't suck at their jobs it doesn't necessarily mean they are right or that they can win anything by default

 

[Giwin]

tl;dr blizzard has better lawyers, don't even think that a service comes under the "goods" section... get over your ban.