They Have to Know.... They Must Have Some Kind of Plan....

[docterfreeze]

I'm talking about the more popular private servers (not saying names). There is no way Blizzard doesn't know about them, do you think they are waiting for something to shut them down or they just flat-out don't care? Some of these servers have hundreds of thousands of people playing them!

I'm baffled by this.

[Deleted]

of course blizzard know about them, but its far too much effort trying to close one down, just for it to reopen a few months later.

[Deleted]

Behind the scenes they might be taking action. But these private servers can just relocate. Might be tricky also if they are being ran from foreign countries that protects them. There's a famous exploits / bot site that changed it's name a couple of years ago, not sure if it's because Blizzard took action against them though.

[docterfreeze]

of course blizzard know about them, but its far too much effort trying to close one down, just for it to reopen a few months later.

They can't file some kind of legal action against them, like stealing their game files?

(Gratz on 10k posts, BTW. ^^)

[IRunSoFarAway]

Of course they know, but they usually only go after the ones that make a big profit, anything else is a waste of time.

[Stir]

Well; of course they know.

However, playing experience on private servers is simply always sub-par. Mostly, people are playing a single-player game with a bad server economy, and the pay/click to do something thing doesn't make it much more appealing. They're usually pretty tight-knit, so as a newer player, it's hard to find somewhere to fit in... And services are poor if present (LFG/LFR probably don't even exist on those servers).
Basically, it's probably not costing Blizzard a lot of money.

And even then, if a private server is not hosted in the US, there are all sorts of legal problems involved... Buy the game, after all, and in many (if not most) places in the world, that game is yours to do with as it please you, as long as you don't start copying the stuff. So in most of the world, private servers aren't even illegal.

Add to that that everyone who plays the game on a private server is a potential paying customer, and Blizzard could have more to lose by tearing them down (legal costs and all) than they would gain. If they'd make private servers stop, they'd alienate potential paying customers. The legal bills would cost much, much more than the private server population would contribute if it were a paying clientele.

You wouldn't just need to win a single case in the US, after all... You'd need to win them all across the world, setting precedents that most countries really do not wish. The main problem is that it would take away ownership rights of a bought product. Paying a subscription fee for WoW is legal (in the EU) because you basically pay for server services; not for the actual game itself. If you were to sell a game that you could ONLY use if you also pay a subscription fee for a secondary product (server services), then that would, in most countries, be a case of illegal marketing. You could circumvent that, of course, by not selling the game itself at all, but the game has already been sold.

So: Private servers are generally not a competition for Blizzard, and there's too much of a legal hassle to prevent it from happening.

[sandmoth12]

Honestly, the private Vanilla and TBC servers are better than the real game is now.

[jetriot]

No Sandmoth. Just no.

[Deleted]

Whats the point of playing on it always lagg and its FAKE not real wow

[Splatter]

Buy the game, after all, and in many (if not most) places in the world, that game is yours to do with as it please you.

Thats not accurate. You pay for a licence to access blizzard property, you do not "own" the game you buy, only the physical discs.

[Stir]

Thats not accurate. You pay for a licence to access blizzard property, you do not "own" the game you buy, only the physical discs.

And that may be accurate in New Zealand (though I doubt that), and it is accurate in the US, but it is not accurate in the EU.

[Airwaves]

Honestly, the private Vanilla and TBC servers are better than the real game is now.

Nice joke there!

[Eldar45]

They generally seem to go after servers that are running current content versions of WoW. They don't seem to care about Vanilla/BC servers and the like.

[Maester]

I dont really see the problem anyway, if people are on those servers chances are they dont want to play the game the way Blizzard intends, or they cant pay either. So really they arent losing money over this, its the same as the piracy argument. Im sure they have better things to focus their energy on.

I disagree. They are in fact losing some money because of this. There are a whole lot of people who can easily afford paying the $15 every month but choose not to because they have the private server as an alternative. There are some very, very good servers out there that rival even Blizzards and are completely free.

Not saying I play on them, I've never played on a private server, but I have heard very good things about a particular few.

[Deleted]

Why would they bother going after private servers when the admins usually shut them down after a few months anyway?

Some of these servers have hundreds of thousands of people playing them!

No they don't. The demand on private servers isn't that high. All private servers offer is a shell of a game, without proper NPC scripts and random rulesets that the admin can change on a whim. Blizzard doesn't care about them because nobody will stick around for long on them, and they're just making the players on them pine for proper servers.

[Deleted]

Nice joke there!

To be honest, some of the really are.

I'm having lots of fun playing on a Classic realm server, it keeps me logged in more than what Pandaria was able to do.

[skycaptain]

I actually play on both official servers and a TBC server, because the experience is different. But i make Tommo's words my own

[MoanaLisa]

Discussion of private servers isn't really allowed. Closing this.