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Exactly. They never tried to hide it, they've been doing it for ages and it helps solve the issue of huge peak bandwidths needed for patch downloads. WoW alone

Exactly. They never tried to hide it, they've been doing it for ages and it helps solve the issue of huge peak bandwidths needed for patch downloads. WoW alone has 12 million subscribers, and a vast majority of them are going to be downloading that patch the day of release. I'd much rather use some of my bandwidth for this than wait ages to get a decent connection with a reasonable download speed or try in vain to find someone with a private mirror. If anything we should be praising them for using the potential of peer-to-peer as a distribution model rather than just railing against all torrents as piracy.

michaelcampbell 16y ago
I agree with you here, but to be fair his post doesn't go down the "p2p == piracy == bad" route.
- marcamillion 16y ago
  I am not advocating that Blizzard shouldn't use this technology to reduce/eliminate their bandwidth bill. I am a huge proponent of P2P and Bit Torrent. It's all about disclosure. All I want to happen is for Blizzard to tell me upfront...listen, this is what we are going to do and this is why. List the benefits to me. Don't make me have to download some sleezy 'downloader' (I hate downloaders by the way, but that's another story) and feel my net connection go to the dogs without understanding why - only to find out that my upstream is being blasted through the roof. Just tell me upfront what I am getting myself into. That's all I am saying.
  - michaelcampbell 16y ago
    The tone of your article and this reply seems to suggest you think Blizzard is trying to sneak this in the back door, rather than you just being surprised and overreacting to the realization. Perhaps they are, but I never got that impression. Whether I read the EULA or saw the downloader and saw immediately what it was doing or I just got lucky somewhere, I honestly thought this was common knowledge.

michaelcampbell 16y ago

I agree with you here, but to be fair his post doesn't go down the "p2p == piracy == bad" route.

marcamillion 16y ago
I am not advocating that Blizzard shouldn't use this technology to reduce/eliminate their bandwidth bill. I am a huge proponent of P2P and Bit Torrent. It's all about disclosure. All I want to happen is for Blizzard to tell me upfront...listen, this is what we are going to do and this is why. List the benefits to me. Don't make me have to download some sleezy 'downloader' (I hate downloaders by the way, but that's another story) and feel my net connection go to the dogs without understanding why - only to find out that my upstream is being blasted through the roof. Just tell me upfront what I am getting myself into. That's all I am saying.
- michaelcampbell 16y ago
  The tone of your article and this reply seems to suggest you think Blizzard is trying to sneak this in the back door, rather than you just being surprised and overreacting to the realization. Perhaps they are, but I never got that impression. Whether I read the EULA or saw the downloader and saw immediately what it was doing or I just got lucky somewhere, I honestly thought this was common knowledge.