Square should sue bot makers?

Square should sue the people who make bots, just like Blizzard did, and won. I don't know if Square has the legal resources of Blizzard, but anything that would get rid of the bots and gold spammers is good.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...7m-in-bot-suit

"Blizzard initially filed suit against Ceiling Fan Software in December 2011. Ceiling Fan was responsible for a number of WoW bots - the most popular of which were Shadow Bot and Pocket Gnome - and has now been ordered by a California court to cease operations and pay Blizzard $7 million in damages."

that just made blizzard possibly richer (if they had that kind of money to pay blizzard) and did nothing about the bots because suing someone doesn't delete the software from every computer on the internet that has it.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

that just made blizzard possibly richer (if they had that kind of money to pay blizzard) and did nothing about the bots because suing someone doesn't delete the software from every computer on the internet that has it.

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It deters other software manufacturers from creating bots. Not only that, but bots have to constantly be updated to make sure that they cant be detected.

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Originally Posted by Gravehill

It deters other software manufacturers from creating bots. Not only that, but bots have to constantly be updated to make sure that they cant be detected.

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you'd be suprised. Fleet Bank was sued for billions of dollars (with a B) and that's not deterring them from being a corrupted, shiatty bank one bit. If fines and jail time actually solved anything in our society, there wouldn't be any crime. There is always someone who thinks they won't get caught.

It can be more challenging than it might seem, because they have to have someone to serve. But there is a precedent now about it and SE should probably consider going after the distributors at least, as long as they're in the US.

Using the legal system in Japan is less likely to be useful, and even less so in other parts of Asia.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

that just made blizzard possibly richer (if they had that kind of money to pay blizzard) and did nothing about the bots because suing someone doesn't delete the software from every computer on the internet that has it.

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It actually stopped that person from developing and distributing the Bot.

I suspect that there is something more than gold selling going on here. Sellers often create new characters to get around the blacklist function. Think about that. Why would they go through the tedious process of making a new character to send tells to people that keep blacklisting them? Obviously the people that blacklist them are never going to buy anything, so what is the motivation? Perhaps there are those that are just trying to disrupt the game?

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It actually stopped that person from developing and distributing the Bot.

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But it neither

1) removes that software from the computers of everyone who ever downloaded it; nor
2) really deters anyone else from trying to make a bot that blizzard can't detect

There's no sure-fire way to stop botting and RMT completely. However, if they have the resources to go after the people running these groups and win the lawsuits, it wo

Would at least give them more resources to put toward the game.

Side note: I really hate touch screens.

Laws regarding RMT are all but non-existant, and most judges wouldn't have any idea wtf you were talking about in regards to them.

RMT is a violation of intellectual property because RMT are selling SE's IP for money. The legal angle is very simple.

And heck, Blizzard already won, so there's even a precedent.

That was an isolated situation where a there was a third party making bot software for the purposes of sale to the general public. 99% of the existing bots are open source freeware and homebrew.

The law is very scant regarding virtual currencies, but I would recommend that SE and other MMO makers look into bitcoin and their method of accounting in order to create a system where by every gil is accounted and traceable for from the point of creation to the point of de-circulation. Making every gil a virtual item, creating license on the ownership of that item, and restricting its use to normal gameplay would go a long way to creating the legal basis for combating third party RMT and tracking bot driven transactions.