Wago.io Partners up with WowUp, CurseForge Denies WowUp's Application for API Access

[SoulSoBreezy]

Every website you go to does that. Yet only Overwolf gets crapped on for it.

Even worse, that quote isn't even accurate. That's from a 2019 article. How about using their site as a source lol https://www.overwolf.com/legal/privacy

1. Information we collect. When you interact with us through the Services, we receive and store certain information, such as operational information required to provide the Services, analytical information used to improve and customize the Services for you, and diagnostic information to improve the performance and stability of the Services. You can choose to opt out from most of these via Overwolf settings, except from operational information which is required to make Overwolf work. If you choose to create an Overwolf account, you will be requested to provide us with your email address, username, and your profile picture. Signing up is not mandatory, and you can use Overwolf without an account. When you visit our websites we collect analytical information through analytics tools to improve and customize the Services.

Emphasis mine.
I think it's extremely important to have good discussion for the sake of our privacy and the well being of creators who choose to monetize their work. But at least use good sources fellas.

[User517849]

Every website you go to does that. Yet only Overwolf gets crapped on for it.

There's a huge difference between website tracking (which is much more limited) versus an installed program on your computer tracking you.

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Even worse, that quote isn't even accurate. That's from a 2019 article. How about using their site as a source lol https://www.overwolf.com/legal/privacy

1. Information we collect. When you interact with us through the Services, we receive and store certain information, such as operational information required to provide the Services, analytical information used to improve and customize the Services for you, and diagnostic information to improve the performance and stability of the Services. You can choose to opt out from most of these via Overwolf settings, except from operational information which is required to make Overwolf work. If you choose to create an Overwolf account, you will be requested to provide us with your email address, username, and your profile picture. Signing up is not mandatory, and you can use Overwolf without an account. When you visit our websites we collect analytical information through analytics tools to improve and customize the Services.

Emphasis mine.
I think it's extremely important to have good discussion for the sake of our privacy and the well being of creators who choose to monetize their work. But at least use good sources fellas.

I was pointing out the original controversy with Overwolf in 2019. It was that controversy that led us to not trusting what Overwolf says now. I'm not trusting them because it seems like they're trying to squeeze blood from a stone.

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1- i mean its technically not but ok, i mean pokimane literally just got banned for "reaction video"
2- there is a difference between reaction vids, and literally just uploading the video in ful with NO CHANGES like wowup is...


dude literally read for fucking once.


"CurseForge does not have an official API for 3rd parties who want to download files from its servers. The way some addon managers operate today, is by reverse engineering the calls between the Twitch Client and the CurseForge backend. A good analogy is someone reverse engineering the Spotify app to stream songs from Spotify’s servers without receiving Spotify’s or the artists’ consent to do so.
Unauthorized use of the CurseForge API introduces challenges that need solving. Most notably:
Authors did not give their consent to have their creations distributed outside CurseForge
Authors’ earnings will be impacted, as CurseForge has no way of monitoring engagement outside its own ecosystem, and changes are coming to the rewards program
Downloads originated from 3rd party services rely on CurseForge servers and CDN, incurring substantial costs and offering nothing to cover them"

wowup is 100% stealing.
also they dont "donate a percentage to addon authors" a majority of it goes to addon authors.

You got me curious so I looked at what Overwolf's API is. It appears to be a bunch of rest endpoints that don't require any kind of security token. There's no magical reverse engineering. All that's required is making a simple rest API call.

If Curse/Overwolf wanted to prevent third party API calls, they needed to implement proper security. That means using SSL and authentication to encrypt their API calls instead of leaving them fully public.

I'm surprised at how many people enjoy sticking up for Overwolf, though. Anything CurseForge does could easily be provided by Github, which Github does for free.

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"they call out people spreading lies, they are white knighting!"

nah, its called being a basic fucking human who prefers correct information instead of made up bullshit.

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so you are fine with Wag.io selling your data and shoving ads in your face?

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i mean literally ALL of your complaints here are fixed by going into the settings and turning that stuff off. also idk how it "tries to make you install other things" to this day i have yet to run into that unless when i try to go to a game it has built in coverage for it asks if i want to install the intergration.

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i mean it literally does? i can show you screenshots of the settings to prove this, but if you really think we are "paid shills" cause we know how to fucking click "settings" and then turn stuff off, idk man.

maybe you should ask your grandpa for some computer advice, cause even the elderly seem better at navigating systems then you it seems.

I'm not happy with Wago.io strong arming WoWUp into including an ad. Why would I be?

But since the WoWUp client is open source it was easy enough to pull the code and remove it.

Also, from what I saw in the source code, there isn't any tracking. All it does is merely call Wago.io for the ad and displays the ad. I could verify all this because WoWUp's code is actually open source and on Github.

Again, my entire point is, this isn't 2004. Webhosting isn't that expensive. I hope more addon authors do the right thing and migrate to Github.

[SoulSoBreezy]

I was pointing out the original controversy with Overwolf in 2019. It was that controversy that led us to not trusting what Overwolf says now. I'm not trusting them because it seems like they're trying to squeeze blood from a stone.

Emphasis mine. Though really, speak for yourself. It's not 2019 either. Many authors already do their work primarily from github but also upload to Curseforge, wago, Wowinterface etc because those sites have searchability. Curseforge arguably offers the best in terms of discoverability, and it's the author's choice to upload to these places for exposure and a piece of the ad share.
I think it's great to support addon creators. I think it's pretty dickish for one to go out of their way to NOT support addon creators if they're looking for indirect compensation. Same goes for calling on creators to work for free like it's the right thing to do.
I'm just giving an opinion as a user of addons. If you really believe you're right, you should go to these folks and tell them to effectively demonetize.

[User517849]

Emphasis mine. Though really, speak for yourself. It's not 2019 either. Many authors already do their work primarily from github but also upload to Curseforge, wago, Wowinterface etc because those sites have searchability. Curseforge arguably offers the best in terms of discoverability, and it's the author's choice to upload to these places for exposure and a piece of the ad share.
I think it's great to support addon creators. I think it's pretty dickish for one to go out of their way to NOT support addon creators if they're looking for indirect compensation. Same goes for calling on creators to work for free like it's the right thing to do.
I'm just giving an opinion as a user of addons. If you really believe you're right, you should go to these folks and tell them to effectively demonetize.

I have and will continue to do so.

[rrayy]

Again, my entire point is, this isn't 2004. Webhosting isn't that expensive. I hope more addon authors do the right thing and migrate to Github.

Who made you arbiter of what is right? Aadon operators want to be compensated in some way for their hard work, PEople like you go out of yoru way to circumvent it. I would ask add on operators continnue to try to get some money for their work and try to avoid people like you who want to poach it for free.

[User517849]

Who made you arbiter of what is right? Aadon operators want to be compensated in some way for their hard work, PEople like you go out of yoru way to circumvent it. I would ask add on operators continnue to try to get some money for their work and try to avoid people like you who want to poach it for free.

Addons shouldn't be direct commercial ventures. Indirect commercial ventures is fine, but if addon authors are looking to make money it should be Blizz paying them (which Blizz seems very content not to do), not us.

That said, I've already blocked the advertising in WoWUp so while this change is disappointing, it doesn't impact me.

[rrayy]

Addons shouldn't be direct commercial ventures. Indirect commercial ventures is fine, but if addon authors are looking to make money it should be Blizz paying them (which Blizz seems very content not to do), not us.

That said, I've already blocked the advertising in WoWUp so while this change is disappointing, it doesn't impact me.

People have the right to get compensated for their work. You come off extremely entitled and seem to be freeloading. You have no right to get anything for free. They have every right to charge YOU for their hard work. The fact you think you should get it for free shows how selfish you are

[User517849]

People have the right to get compensated for their work. You come off extremely entitled and seem to be freeloading. You have no right to get anything for free. They have every right to charge YOU for their hard work. The fact you think you should get it for free shows how selfish you are

Per Blizzard's ToS, it's against the terms to try to charge for addons. Therefore, if you're making addons you should not expect any form of compensation, either direct or indirect.

Add-ons must be free of charge.

All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

This has been Blizzard's official policy since 2009.

Before the policy revision in 2009, every addon under the sun had a donation nag and Blizzard put a stop to it.

https://brokentoys.org/2009/03/21/bl...ng-for-addons/

No one should go into addon development expecting it to be a replacement for a full time job. It might indirectly lead you to other opportunities, especially if you're a skilled programmer, but expecting to sustain a living (or even make a notable amount of money) for addon development is absurd.

I know there are some addon authors that dispute this (DBM comes to mind) but my counterpoint to that is you don't hear the BigWigs guy pulling the same charade.

I'm specifically against the commercialization of addons because addons should not be a commercial endeavor with Blizzard's current ToS.

If Blizzard changed the ToS, then I'd have no issue with them being heavily commercialized and would expect it.

[rrayy]

Per Blizzard's ToS, it's against the terms to try to charge for addons. Therefore, if you're making addons you should not expect any form of compensation, either direct or indirect.

Add-ons must be free of charge.

All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

This has been Blizzard's official policy since 2009.

Before the policy revision in 2009, every addon under the sun had a donation nag and Blizzard put a stop to it.

https://brokentoys.org/2009/03/21/bl...ng-for-addons/

No one should go into addon development expecting it to be a replacement for a full time job. It might indirectly lead you to other opportunities, especially if you're a skilled programmer, but expecting to sustain a living (or even make a notable amount of money) for addon development is absurd.

I know there are some addon authors that dispute this (DBM comes to mind) but my counterpoint to that is you don't hear the BigWigs guy pulling the same charade.

I'm specifically against the commercialization of addons because addons should not be a commercial endeavor with Blizzard's current ToS.

If Blizzard changed the ToS, then I'd have no issue with them being heavily commercialized and would expect it.

LOL you say you are against it then claim you woudn't be against it if Blizzard changed it's rules. you absolutely still would have a problem with it because you are entitled and think you should be able to take someone elses hard work for free.

And nobody expects it to replace a full time job, so let's stop with that BS strawman. ALl they wan't is a little money for their hard work. YOu just want to take whatever you want for free. Complete entitlement.

[rhorle]

LOL you say you are against it then claim you woudn't be against it if Blizzard changed it's rules. you absolutely still would have a problem with it because you are entitled and think you should be able to take someone elses hard work for free.

So it is entitlement to expect the rules Blizzard created to be followed? Your argument also fails to realize that the only reason addon authors are being given money is to keep them on specific sites so those sites can profit off both Blizzard (the api/code) and Authors (those that use the api/code). Everyone from web host to consumer would prefer to get things without a fee.

I'm also sure most addon authors would rebel if they had to pay Blizzard a fee in order to create an addon. I don't blame anyone from wanting to monetize their hobby/skills but you can't just focus on one side of the equation just so you can insult a poster.

[User517849]

LOL you say you are against it then claim you woudn't be against it if Blizzard changed it's rules. you absolutely still would have a problem with it because you are entitled and think you should be able to take someone elses hard work for free.

And nobody expects it to replace a full time job, so let's stop with that BS strawman. ALl they wan't is a little money for their hard work. YOu just want to take whatever you want for free. Complete entitlement.

I'm saying that they shouldn't expect money for their hard work when Blizzard's ToS specifically states, "You are not allowed to commercialize addons."

By making a product that can't be charged for and expecting to be compensated for it, the addon authors are the ones that are acting entitled.

"We know we're making a product we can't charge for, but, we should be entitled to monetize it anyways!"

Additionally, the only reason Curse, Wago, or any other site is paying them is so that Curse, Wago, etc. can make more money by having the majority of addon traffic go through their site.

The real solution is that Activision Blizzard should:
1. Make it a requirement for any addon made for WoW to be hosted on a first party addon site.
2. Add in an addon updater in the Blizzard launcher.
3. Microsoft/ActiBlizz should then determine if addon authors should be compensated.

Whether or not Microsoft/ActiBlizz will do that after the merger remains to be seen.

You can make the argument that addon authors will stop making addons, which is exactly what happened back in 2009. The person making QH stopped making QH. What ended up happening? QH is implemented by Blizzard in the current iteration of WoW.

I'm a software engineer. There's a reason I write boring business software for a living and I don't make addons with the intention of monetizing them (I did try once):
1. Per Blizzard's ToS, even if I make the best addon in the world, I can't directly charge for that addon
2. Addon profitability is subject to users, at best, feeling generous and being willing to donate
3. At any time, Blizzard could change WoW and make my addon obsolete or less useful by including more functionality in the base game or removing APIs my addon depends on

That said, in my spare time I do do other forms of content creation, but I would never expect to feel entitled to making a living off of my content. It's a hobby not a career path.

Finally, if I actually did manage to achieve making an awesome addon, the popularity I'd attain could be monetized in other areas that are actually monetizable (streaming, YT channel, social media, etc.) without trying to profit off of my addon in and of itself.

To see an addon that successfully did this, look at TSM and WoWHead.

[gaaara]

WoWUP are really despicable... They sh*t on curseForge and overwolf but this is quite pathetic as Overwolf went through some lengths to make it a smooth transition from twitch and deliver a quality product that offers a compensation to add-on developers as well as maintaining an API on which they can feed outside apps.

Now they discover that setting such a product requires a cost for infrastructure and support and adopt the exact same model as overwolf (model that they were very critical about still a few months ago), they deserve to see their app die and get sh*t on by players. That's not the right way to do good business. Having this sickening mentality will only force new third party applications to keep their service and data closely guarded and not opened to the community.

Quick question, do they pay you in cryptocurrency or you get the cash delivered by a pigeon? (Serious question...asking for a friend)

[Magical Mudcrab]

I'm saying that they shouldn't expect money for their hard work when Blizzard's ToS specifically states, "You are not allowed to commercialize addons."

By making a product that can't be charged for and expecting to be compensated for it, the addon authors are the ones that are acting entitled.

"We know we're making a product we can't charge for, but, we should be entitled to monetize it anyways!"

This is not what is happening. The relationship between Curseforge, Developers, and Users is (in a nutshell):
- Curseforge is a business, providing centralized hosting and distribution of addons, making money through advertisements, merchandising, and premium subscriptions.
- Addon developers are paid by Curseforge for listing their addons for driving traffic to the website.
- Users are allowed to download addons for free, but "pay" through either subscription or by viewing advertisements on the site.

When a group like WoWUp create a competing application and Curseforge is not making money, then they are taking money from Curseforge while using their backend and infrastructure. WoWUp's relationship with them was parasitic, essentially Curseforge had all infrastructure, development, and maintenance costs, and WoWUp served the content by using the Curseforge APIs. This is bad for both Curseforge, who needs to make money in order to host the addons for players, and the Addon Developers, who are attracted to the platform because it gives them a small paycheck for hobby development or doing what they are passionate about. In this relationship the addons aren't monetized, but the system needs traffic in order to self-sustain (i.e.: no Blizzard rules are broken).

[Playintrafic]

The fundamental problem: why does WoW need so many add-ons to get things right?

The fundamental question, why do so many simpeltons just poorly implemented UI when things can be done to make it better, easily.

[Magical Mudcrab]

The fundamental question, why do so many simpeltons just poorly implemented UI when things can be done to make it better, easily.

In Blizzard's defense, HCI is a difficult field, even regarding something seemingly as rudimentary as game UIs. A lot of HCI best practices regarding usability (and accessibility) are relatively new and are constantly being updated as more studies are done. Blizzard, and most games from that era, drew the short end of the stick in that sense as they were developed prior to HCI becoming more prevalent in non-academic settings for software design and they have probably been bogged down with technical challenges in trying to improve their native UI because it was made inflexibly at the start.

[Cosmic Janitor]

In Blizzard's defense, HCI is a difficult field, even regarding something seemingly as rudimentary as game UIs. A lot of HCI best practices regarding usability (and accessibility) are relatively new and are constantly being updated as more studies are done. Blizzard, and most games from that era, drew the short end of the stick in that sense as they were developed prior to HCI becoming more prevalent in non-academic settings for software design and they have probably been bogged down with technical challenges in trying to improve their native UI because it was made inflexibly at the start.

I'm not sure your typical raider/arena/m+ WA random-icon-bukkake GUI is what most people would associate with good HCIs either. The normal interface is perfectly serivable, certainly when it comes to gaming and the competition, maybe with the exception of healing, but it doesn't offer assist and flat out cheat systems as custom UI do. The question here is more why do so many people feel compelled to download these GUI tools in the first place and we all know it's because of the overly self-imposed meta the game has. Well that and because of the arms race the devs have been doing with the addon makers since launch.

[User517849]

This is not what is happening. The relationship between Curseforge, Developers, and Users is (in a nutshell):
- Curseforge is a business, providing centralized hosting and distribution of addons, making money through advertisements, merchandising, and premium subscriptions.
- Addon developers are paid by Curseforge for listing their addons for driving traffic to the website.
- Users are allowed to download addons for free, but "pay" through either subscription or by viewing advertisements on the site.

When a group like WoWUp create a competing application and Curseforge is not making money, then they are taking money from Curseforge while using their backend and infrastructure. WoWUp's relationship with them was parasitic, essentially Curseforge had all infrastructure, development, and maintenance costs, and WoWUp served the content by using the Curseforge APIs. This is bad for both Curseforge, who needs to make money in order to host the addons for players, and the Addon Developers, who are attracted to the platform because it gives them a small paycheck for hobby development or doing what they are passionate about. In this relationship the addons aren't monetized, but the system needs traffic in order to self-sustain (i.e.: no Blizzard rules are broken).

I never said Blizzard rules are broken; that wasn't my argument at all.

I was disputing the fact that you should make addons and feel entitled to making a living off of it.

You should make addons as a hobby and if you tire of that hobby, open source the addon and pass it on to someone else.

You missed a lot of the conversation where he said I was entitled and I asked how was I entitled.

Blizzard clearly said the rules are that addons can't be directly monetized.

Therefore, I stated that addon developers are entitled because they expect to make money off of something Blizzard has strictly said can't be monetized.

Additionally, my argument wasn't that CurseForge shouldn't close their API.

My secondary argument was that addon authors should migrate their addons to other websites (Github, etc.) because they shouldn't be making addons for money in the first place.

That said, in regards to CurseForge closing their API, I feel like the real solution is to use a web scraper that avoids all the ads but can still download the file. That said, that's neither here nor there.

Personally, I haven't seen any web advertisements in a long time because I use an ad blocker so the act of me going to CurseForge wouldn't earn them any add revenue anyways.

[Magical Mudcrab]

I never said Blizzard rules are broken; that wasn't my argument at all.

I was disputing the fact that you should make addons and feel entitled to making a living off of it.

You should make addons as a hobby and if you tire of that hobby, open source the addon and pass it on to someone else.

You missed a lot of the conversation where he said I was entitled and I asked how was I entitled.

...

Therefore, I stated that addon developers are entitled because they expect to make money off of something Blizzard has strictly said can't be monetized.

What do you mean by "make addons and feel entitled to making a living off of it"? If someone makes addons, monetizes them through Curseforge and donations, and is able to make a meager living out of it, is this a problem? Unless they're paywalling their addons or making premium versions, they're doing nothing wrong and shouldn't feel pressured not to monetize them.

Blizzard clearly said the rules are that addons can't be directly monetized.

But they aren't directly monetized as per Blizzard's rules:

1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

- Link

The intent of this is to stop paywalling of addons or forcing users to pay for premium versions of an addon. Websites like Curseforge don't do either of these things, they instead monetize via ads or by giving priority in download queues. Addon authors, on their part, typically monetize through sites like Curseforge or through donations. That said, I don't believe the terms laid out by Blizzard are even legally enforceable, although that doesn't stop Blizzard from issuing takedown requests and legal threats.

My secondary argument was that addon authors should migrate their addons to other websites (Github, etc.) because they shouldn't be making addons for money in the first place.

The addons are already hosted on a remote repository. You can even find their addons on GitHub if you search for them (like DBM, Retail). You could argue that they should make releases with the binaries required to add the file, and many do. DBM, in this case, appears to have the downloads available under their releases. That said, this will never be the correct solution because it makes searching for and maintaining addons a pain for all users, making it so that less technical (or less dedicated) players will just be unable to find or download addons.

[User517849]

What do you mean by "make addons and feel entitled to making a living off of it"? If someone makes addons, monetizes them through Curseforge and donations, and is able to make a meager living out of it, is this a problem? Unless they're paywalling their addons or making premium versions, they're doing nothing wrong and shouldn't feel pressured not to monetize them.



But they aren't directly monetized as per Blizzard's rules:


- Link

The intent of this is to stop paywalling of addons or forcing users to pay for premium versions of an addon. Websites like Curseforge don't do either of these things, they instead monetize via ads or by giving priority in download queues. Addon authors, on their part, typically monetize through sites like Curseforge or through donations. That said, I don't believe the terms laid out by Blizzard are even legally enforceable, although that doesn't stop Blizzard from issuing takedown requests and legal threats.



The addons are already hosted on a remote repository. You can even find their addons on GitHub if you search for them (like DBM, Retail). You could argue that they should make releases with the binaries required to add the file, and many do. DBM, in this case, appears to have the downloads available under their releases. That said, this will never be the correct solution because it makes searching for and maintaining addons a pain for all users, making it so that less technical (or less dedicated) players will just be unable to find or download addons.

There's a difference between making a living by happenstance off of it and feeling entitled to making a living off of it. My point is (that you don't seem to understand) that you shouldn't go into making addons expecting to make a living off of it because you can't *directly* charge for them.

To make and maintain a really popular addon and expect to make a living off of that is silly because you can't directly charge for it. You're dependent off of donations plus whatever you can make off of affiliate sites. Hell, I'm sure if an addon author wrote a book about how to make an addon, that's another potential revenue channel, too.

Not all addons are hosted on a CF alternative. WoWUp actually does maintain a list of GitHub repos that are distributed with the client, too. If WoWUp continues to add GitHub sources to WoWUp, then it'll work fine. That's currently what WoWUp is doing.

Again, you're coming in at the end of the argument. The argument was about *entitlement* not whether or not it was possible to make money off of addons. Realistically, the top 1% of 1% can make enough money to live off of addons.

It's similar to streaming, could you become the next big streamer? Sure. But are you entitled to make a living off of streaming? No.

[Magical Mudcrab]

There's a difference between making a living by happenstance off of it and feeling entitled to making a living off of it. My point is (that you don't seem to understand) that you shouldn't go into making addons expecting to make a living off of it because you can't *directly* charge for them.

The problem is that no one has argued this. No one has said that addon authors are entitled to make a full time salary off their work on addons, just that they're entitled to monetize their work. Even looking at the conversation between you and @rrayy, they said that they were not arguing that addon authors were entitled to full time salaries several times. If I were to summarize their argument, it seems to be that "addon authors have the right to choose distribution platform(s) and whether they want to monetize their work, and can choose to only host on platforms that provide compensation". They're essentially just arguing in favor of the Curseforge model, nothing else.

To make and maintain a really popular addon and expect to make a living off of that is silly because you can't directly charge for it. You're dependent off of donations plus whatever you can make off of affiliate sites. Hell, I'm sure if an addon author wrote a book about how to make an addon, that's another potential revenue channel, too.

Sure, informative content is another possible revenue stream. Discussing how to write LUA, coding best practices, common design patterns, etc., would be a good, but niche, way to make money (although it would probably be better distributed through Youtube and E-Book, with Medium and WoWhead articles acting as introductory material to get people interested).

Not all addons are hosted on a CF alternative. WoWUp actually does maintain a list of GitHub repos that are distributed with the client, too. If WoWUp continues to add GitHub sources to WoWUp, then it'll work fine. That's currently what WoWUp is doing.

Sure, and so long as WoWUp is getting consent from the addon authors to distribute their addons, everything is OK. If not, they're opening themselves up to takedowns (DMCA if hosting the content and not just linking to GitHub binary downloads) and possibly authors making the release binaries unavailable on their repository releases.