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According to the article: On October 1, 2010, Blizzard began the unprecedented act of suspending and banning players for the use of cheats and trainers in SING

According to the article: On October 1, 2010, Blizzard began the unprecedented act of suspending and banning players for the use of cheats and trainers in SINGLE PLAYER games of Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. Users found to be using cheats in SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN MODE and AI SKIRMISH mode were treated the same as if they had cheated in a multiplayer online match. For some, their accounts were suspended and for others their CD keys were disabled and they were completely locked out of playing even campaign mode in their legally purchased game. This seems utterly ridiculous to me. Players have already purchased the game, and it seems to me that after that point Blizzard should no longer have control of what they do with the game in single player mode, on their own computer. Perhaps since it keeps track of player rankings they are concerned about cheating in local single player games artificially inflating the achievements and gamer score of some players. However, I still find it strange that Blizzard should take the stance that they still own the software and can take away your access after you have bought it, for doing something with it on your own personal computer, in single player mode.

Rhapso 16y ago
This is the Power of the EULA. By saying yes, I agree to such a contract, you are leasing use of the software, not "buying" it. This little bit of legal jiggery allows the software owner to disable that software for almost any reason. Tis a concept legal rationalized by copy protection, similar to how purchasing most media (music, movies, ect) gives you only a limited license for it's use. The only way to escape this fate is to only use opensource and non-commercially produced software (namely your own and other programmers you know)
- jrockway 16y ago
  Or pirate it. I've never seen an EULA come with software from the pirate bay.
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    Ditto, when I heard I needed an account with Blizzard to play SC2, my first thought was F-you. I happily buy games from Bioware where I need to make an account, why? Because I've not heard of bioware abusing the privileged. I buy games from Steam, why? Because I've not heard of Valve abusing the privilege. However, I've heard of Blizzard abusing their authority near constantly, they're the PayPal of the new-generation of copy protection.
    - pilif 16y ago
      Enlighten me: How did Blizzard abuse their authority? Banning cheaters? Valve does that too and a lost Steam account can hurt much more than a lost Blizzard account (based on the fact that there are many more games you can possibly add to your steam account than to your battle.net account). Now, I'm not hugely into gaming and I might have missed some news, so I'm genuinely interested in what ways Blizzard is worse than Valve.
      - sliverstorm 16y ago
        I support Blizzard here, but I will try to give you a real answer. I couldn't tell you why, but Valve either a) bans people less b) has less people that need banning or c) keeps it quiet Blizzard gets a lot more bad press IMHO because it seems to happen all at once, and possibly also because they have a TON of users (and thus quite a lot of cheaters) An example of why Valve is received so positively can be seen in TF2. When they added item drops, people started working hard to beat the system. Valve was not O.K. with this, but instead of banning everyone they simply deleted the ill-gotten items and gave people who hadn't 'cheated' the system a free hat in the form of a halo called "Cheater's Lament". They stepped on some toes because some people were falsely identified as cheating and lost items, but it went over pretty smooth. It'd also be interesting to know more about the frequency of exploits against the two company's products. The Steam client is buggy, but when it comes to games it seems like Valve runs a pretty tight ship.
        pilif 16y ago
        Valves reaction here is nice, then OTOH, this was about exploiting a game mechanic that wasn't completely thought out. In such cases Blizzard wouldn't ban either - at least not without a warning (they would certainly remove the items though). The Valve forums are full of people complaining about having been banned without reason (yeah. right.). Maybe it's the smaller community that makes it seem as if it didn't happen as often. Frankly. If I were to lose my Steam account, I would be seriously pissed considering all the money that went into that. Also, it's crazy we even have this discussion. I think it's completely crazy that cheating in $game will cause you to lose $allgames. Then again, I guess there must be some motivation to not cheat.
patio11 16y ago
There is something curious about programmers thinking that possession is 10/10s of the law for computer code but that code on your server should serve their interests.
eavc 16y ago
Single player mode unlocks achievements and special badges of honor. If a ton of people are cheating, it devalues that prize and that accomplishment for other people. That's the only reason these people would use those cheats in the first place. There are plenty of legal ways to cheat with codes in the game that won't reward you with the badges.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

Rhapso 16y ago

This is the Power of the EULA. By saying yes, I agree to such a contract, you are leasing use of the software, not "buying" it. This little bit of legal jiggery allows the software owner to disable that software for almost any reason. Tis a concept legal rationalized by copy protection, similar to how purchasing most media (music, movies, ect) gives you only a limited license for it's use. The only way to escape this fate is to only use opensource and non-commercially produced software (namely your own and other programmers you know)

jrockway 16y ago
Or pirate it. I've never seen an EULA come with software from the pirate bay.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  Ditto, when I heard I needed an account with Blizzard to play SC2, my first thought was F-you. I happily buy games from Bioware where I need to make an account, why? Because I've not heard of bioware abusing the privileged. I buy games from Steam, why? Because I've not heard of Valve abusing the privilege. However, I've heard of Blizzard abusing their authority near constantly, they're the PayPal of the new-generation of copy protection.
  - pilif 16y ago
    Enlighten me: How did Blizzard abuse their authority? Banning cheaters? Valve does that too and a lost Steam account can hurt much more than a lost Blizzard account (based on the fact that there are many more games you can possibly add to your steam account than to your battle.net account). Now, I'm not hugely into gaming and I might have missed some news, so I'm genuinely interested in what ways Blizzard is worse than Valve.
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      I support Blizzard here, but I will try to give you a real answer. I couldn't tell you why, but Valve either a) bans people less b) has less people that need banning or c) keeps it quiet Blizzard gets a lot more bad press IMHO because it seems to happen all at once, and possibly also because they have a TON of users (and thus quite a lot of cheaters) An example of why Valve is received so positively can be seen in TF2. When they added item drops, people started working hard to beat the system. Valve was not O.K. with this, but instead of banning everyone they simply deleted the ill-gotten items and gave people who hadn't 'cheated' the system a free hat in the form of a halo called "Cheater's Lament". They stepped on some toes because some people were falsely identified as cheating and lost items, but it went over pretty smooth. It'd also be interesting to know more about the frequency of exploits against the two company's products. The Steam client is buggy, but when it comes to games it seems like Valve runs a pretty tight ship.
      - pilif 16y ago
        Valves reaction here is nice, then OTOH, this was about exploiting a game mechanic that wasn't completely thought out. In such cases Blizzard wouldn't ban either - at least not without a warning (they would certainly remove the items though). The Valve forums are full of people complaining about having been banned without reason (yeah. right.). Maybe it's the smaller community that makes it seem as if it didn't happen as often. Frankly. If I were to lose my Steam account, I would be seriously pissed considering all the money that went into that. Also, it's crazy we even have this discussion. I think it's completely crazy that cheating in $game will cause you to lose $allgames. Then again, I guess there must be some motivation to not cheat.

patio11 16y ago

There is something curious about programmers thinking that possession is 10/10s of the law for computer code but that code on your server should serve their interests.

eavc 16y ago

Single player mode unlocks achievements and special badges of honor. If a ton of people are cheating, it devalues that prize and that accomplishment for other people. That's the only reason these people would use those cheats in the first place. There are plenty of legal ways to cheat with codes in the game that won't reward you with the badges.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]