Is The Advertising Of Private Servers Allowed? This is getting out of hand...

[Deretto 0]

The RPG forum and several other online gaming forums keep bringing up private servers as part of their discussion. Now, I can understand that discussing private servers is ok, but you can't tell me advertising them is.

 

First of private servers are illegal. They steal revenue from programmers and make a mockery of what took plenty of years to develop. These are people's professions we're talking about here. I'm sure a lot of members on this board are programmers themselves. Posting links to private servers is potentially drawing money away from companies that deserve it and it usually goes against the terms of service of the games being pirated. Even mentioning the name of a private server or stating that you have one is advertisement.

 

Honestly I think that Open Discussion should just stay as just a discussion when it comes to private servers and not become a site where people gather and potentially steal money from gaming companies and programmers.

[minimcmonkey 0]

Personally, i think talking about provate servers should be banned, they are illegal, and bad for many reasons, and people talking about them, is increasing the use/creation of them.The threads that say how to make private servers are the worst.

[DeM0nFiRe 0]

Right, I agree. The use of these private servers should not be condoned. It's illegal, it's immoral and it's unfair to game Developers and Gamers alike.

[xpress 0]

I agree with you all. Piracy is a great threat, not just for game developers but for all software developers.And these private servers and warez sites are increasing this piracy. It is very difficult to take actionagainst these servers as most of them are hosted in countries where IT law is very weak. This is really bad, but what is really worst is their advertising. Of course, the reason for the popularity of these private servers is the cost of the software and games I think.E.g, People usually want to play many games, but as these games and softwares are costly they are going to these servers to download them. High costs may be reasonable, because developers spend years of time, labour and money to develop these games and softwares. But they are losing their money, due to their costs.Reducing the selling price of these games will get more sales to them and more money in the long run I think.Whatever, Piracy is a great threat to all and Everybody should condemn it.

[Deretto 0]

I'm surprised this isn't getting much feedback. I don't even see anyone trying to defend their reasons. Do a lot of people just not care or what? O.o

[joeblogg 0]

i don't think it should be illegal. i mean those big gaming companies have so much money, and private servers are just giving people who may not have money to burn a chance to play games that you have to pay for. i mean those companies don't NEED any more money. there so friggin rich.it doesn't really matter whether its right or wrong. this topic is about whether we should be allowed to "advertise" private servers. i mean we shouldn't advertise them but if we mention them and someone goes onto their website and likes it that wouldn't be advertising that would just be them. like if someone mentions marlboro cigarettes on the forums and i go out and buy some that wouldn't be advertising right? PS: i don't smoke, that was just the first example that came into my head.

[DeM0nFiRe 0]

i don't think it should be illegal. i mean those big gaming companies have so much money, and private servers are just giving people who may not have money to burn a chance to play games that you have to pay for. i mean those companies don't NEED any more money. there so friggin rich.

That is a ridiculous thing to say. It's not like they just magically have the money, they earned it by making these games. And FYI, the prices of games would be cheaper if it wasn't for pirating so pirates are just shooting themselves and other gamers in the foot. Besides, you know want these companies to make games for free just because they have money now? What about the programmers and artists and designers who have to get paid?

[iGuest 3]

If there is a game there will always be someone making there version of it. Most private servers come from games that have lost there main attractions. Let me give you two examples, Silkroad Online and Runescape. 

Silkroad was a great triangle job game(I hope I said that right) basically meaning that there are 3 jobs, thieves, hunters, and merchants. The merchants try and travel to other places, hunters protect them and get rid of thieves, the the thieves thieve. Sadly servers started to get very crowded but the game makers keep making new ones every two weeks but again they got filled fast, we found out that goldbots were invading Silkroad(programs that do the work for other people). At first Silkroad Developers got rid of all the bots periodically but now they are everywhere in obvious places but they don't get banned. Meaning either the game makers don't care about there game anymore or they are too dumb to notice something right in there faces. In private servers I see they completely despise bots and all someone has to do in comment on the "reports" section of a forum about the bot and there name and they get banned. Though not instantly, someone goes to check on them, a moderator, administrator, or the owner themselves if they are on. When they confirm that it is a bot(by seeing the same behavior over and over without a pause)then they are banned. So I think private server owners care more about there games then the original game owners.

 Now for Runescape, wow what did they NOT do wrong. The main attraction was something called the wilderness a place where people can fight against each other for all they have on them. When they got rid of it they lost A LOT of players, if I remember they hit about a million every weekend and about 3/4 of that weekdays. Now there lucky to get 100,000 every weekend. They tried again by making PvP worlds, meaning a whole world that people can fight each other. It has good effect, a fair amount of people came back. They do add things every month which is good. Although they then changed how people traded. People use to gather around an area and say what there selling and if someone felt like buying they walk up to them and buy it, person to person. Now they get something called the Grand Exchange, you put what you want to sell and how much and just put it into the system, for someone to buy. Not that bad because it helps you too, just click on what you want to buy and for how much and just go do what you do and you will get an alert that your item has arrived. But we lost the want to communicate with other people and make a deal about a sale, those places that people go to sale are now empty, and when you go to the Grand Exchange people barely talk. Then they put a cap on the limit of trading, meaning if you want to trade something you have to give something in about an equal amounts. This ended the chance for newer players to get free stuff from other people, and in those times people were very generous. They sometimes give away there own items to new players or buy things for them but it ended when that cap came in. In private servers I played, there is no grand exchange but no trade cap either.. The server I play even makes there own items to sell, they work 24/7 and moderators and administrators try al ot to make the playing environment for players fun. 

So what I'm saying is I think the private server owners work harder and want the players opinion on how the game should be made. They don't have all the money to easily make a server from scratch so thats why they try harder to keep it running and bot free. They try to get people to join and donate to them because they think the game is great. So I believe that if your saying private servers should be illegal think about this, if they are losing there business to "mockery" servers then I don't think there doing a good job with there own servers in the first place.

[iGuest 3]

Replying to DerettoDude Advertising for Private servers at least by BLIZZARD and WoW standards is NOT illegal in any way...Read your EULA & ToS...Blizz only states that any donations for PRIVATE GAIN or PROFIT is illegal..Otherwise you are free to use a 3rd party emulator, advertise...Do whatever..You just cant profit from it...Get your information straight before you post something like that!

-reply by Totally wrong

 

[iGuest 3]

Illegal?Is The Advertising Of Private Servers Allowed?

As far as I know, these private servers are LEGAL.

You ask Blizzard to send you the data with permission to make a server, they say "ok", if even that, and voila!

The thing is, private servers are NOT STEALING from Blizzard's profit, nor are they affecting the salaries of the programers and tech support who run and update the Blizzard servers.If private servers attempt to make a profit, then let them! Blizzard is not running a monopoly here.

Also, advertisement does not equal evil, as annoying as it may be. Anyone can advertise anything, provided they are given the permission to do so. What makes advertiseing different is that you pay for that permission.

This is called BUSINESS. The fact that blizzard ALLOWS PRIVATE SERVERS TO EXIST is simply an act of arrogance on their part. Or Genius, depending on your point of view.

Private servers are not stealing customers from Blizzard anymore than 'The GAP' steals customers from 'Grandma's Fine Linens' around the corner. Or Vice Versa. Rivate servers simply attract a niche market by provideing different services to the customers for the most part, such as GM powers (which, by the way, would only attract players who wouldn't play on Blizzards servers for the lack thereof, thereby it not being a theft), or attract more picky customers by provideding better services: more customer support, less lag, quicker bug fixes, constant moderation, etc.

 

If your only real point is that Private Servers do not HAVE THE RIGHT TO ADVERTISE, then please remember what it means to have the right to something. These people making and supporting these servers have been given the authority to make them, and therfore have jurisdiction over them. This gives them the right to do whatever the hell they want with their new property, including endorsing/selling its services in other locations (I.E. Advertising).

 One final note on Pirating: China doesn't have it because they control the internet. The rest of the world does not control the internet, and therefore have piracy.Which is better: Security or Freedom? Live in a box, or fight in the wild? Anyone who wants piracy to stop had better start with themselves, and deprive the pirates of one less customer. Any business who wants piracy to stop, should find some way to control it. Blizzard does a fair job of this, by keeping all of the actually important software on base, but the fact that they hand out server data to anyone who asks does not make it piracy, just a way of giving the little people a hand up. Kind of like Valve making the Half-Life games, and then handing out G-Mod.

 I think somewhere in that last paragraph I lost track of my point.

Anyone care to check my logic/facts?