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Blizzard has the servers down 6 hours a week (conservatively).
There are 168 hours a in a week.
Blizzard has the servers down 3.57% of the time.
There are a million accounts.
Each account pays $15 a month.
tht is 15 million dollars a month.
3.57% of 15 million is $535,500.
One third of $535,500 is $178,000.
Hmnnnn hmnnn hmnnnn..... that is far more interesting than I thought it would be for one month.
Hello?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
Frog says leave it to Nobel Gnome to think about billing....... :grinyes:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...1Frogbunns.jpg
thank you
Ermmm.....what the hell are you talking about?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
LOL, bored much?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
What is the 1/3 for? I understood everything up to that point. I am not sure what you are trying to demonstrate.
Perhaps what an attorney might charge as his fee for a class action suit. Just throwing out ideas...
Right on. Further thought and a half hour of research makes me think its not feasible yet. You would probably be unable to join in the out of US people lowering the value substantially and at least initially I htink you need to show a consistent pattern of depriving consumers of an expected benefit which Blizzard has undermined by giving free time and which is undermined by the industry standard not being that great (so you expect the games not to be stable).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitebe
I'd read very carefully through the EULA if that was what he would be thinking. I'm sure there are stipulations for server downtime.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitebe
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
Blizzard does not provide a SLA (Service Level Agreement) for its services, so I am pretty sure all they have to do is refund the monthly fee and the product box if they did go to court.
A good service provider will provide 99.999% uptime, something which is not yet possible in the world of mmporg.
Show me a Eula and I will show you lawyers laughing.
Hello?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitebe
/FROG AGREES
Frog says SOE tried to enforce its' EULA in courts but was laughted down the street.
thank you
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitebe
A Eula can be enforced, but so far no one has been crazy enough to pay $100,000 to get lawyers to try to block or enforce a $45 game EULA.
When it comes to a service that they make no indication they would provide? (100% uptime)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitebe
It be very hard to walk out of the courtroom with you pants still on after how fast that suit would get thrown out.
Hello?Quote:
Originally Posted by camrael
/Frog hummmmmmmmmmmmssssss................
Frog says it was tried in Europe and was found to be unenforcable. Results were posted to the OT Forum on this board.
Frog says besides in a Class Action Tort the Lawyers would paid from the Judgment
thank you
Quote:
Originally Posted by camrael
Oh they would not want to do that. That would be a complete win. Imagine a certified class of every player in the US getting three monthly fees and a box cost back. Oh man that would be a big win.
Not feasible I don't think but nice to dream about. That would be like a half million fee.
HAHAHA! It happened once and UO settled out of court. My understanding is they paid all lawyers fees. It was also a service interruption class action.Quote:
Originally Posted by camrael
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
The vast majority of EULA's are much more ironclad however, it is silly to think all EULA's are nonsense when a specific few are proven to be.
Not saying your saying that btw.
Or, if you want the real answer, OSI/EA agreed to make a token payment to a computer museum and then amended their EULA to say that they couldn't and wouldn't guarentee uptime. Bunboy and his crack team of ambulance chasers didn't get a single dollar for themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
The actual reason for the lawsuit was that OSI/EA (originally) advertised UO as '24/7 gameplay' or similar, thereby leaving themselves wide open when they did their (daily, multi-hour with rollbacks) server maintenance. The changed EULA (which pretty much all other MMOG EULA's are based on, to a greater or lesser extent) added said clause about not being able to guarentee access to servers all the time.
Also?
Free tip: When you start threatening class action lawsuits over downtime in a MMOG, that's when the last, tattered remnents of your dignity go flapping away out of the window. Just FYI. :evil:
HAH, great info
the question is if you technically pay blizzard to allow you to connect to their servers when they're up, or if that monthly fee means you pay for each and every minute in the month. I think we expect for there to be some downtime, ie patch downtime.
Amen. Preach it and stuff, brother.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zruu
And it would probably completely kill Blizzard. At which point the fanboys of the world kill the lawyers. :grinyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
when did dmitry go from an amusing ranting lunatic to a sad pathetic fool? :(
haha good lord it was five minutes after mom brought your dinner downstairs... you forgot that already?Quote:
Originally Posted by Milaru
It would never happen that way. I was just responding to Cam.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinyn
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zruu
Yeah but the lawyers got paid. That was the interesting part. And I am fairly sure that you just recited the company line on the settlement. The point of the original post was to show the dollars are reaching the level of "you are just gonna get sued."
In the US when a company is very profitable, they will be sued. The numbers are off because I first added in world wide and that is probably too hard to manage from the US. On the other hand if the numebrs WERE US numbers, I guarantee Blizzard would be sued for something at some point. There has never been a 100 million dollar a year grossing comapny that was not sued for something.
I do not think they are useless. I think they are subject to consumer rules. It's a very interesting and developing area of the law. It is particularly interesting to me that no one has taken on IGE for the way they foster EULA violations. It's a very different kind of suit from a consumer suit but it does show me one interesting thing: the companies' lawyers are not that sure of what will happen with their eulas.Quote:
Originally Posted by camrael
Entertainment level services usually aim for 98% uptime. If they're 'only' reaching 96.43% they're still doing okay
Usually its only with services like phone and power that companies work towards the 5 9's (99.999% uptime)
If you go to a movie theater, and it glitches and for 2 minutes you're looking at a black screen, but when it starts working again, it starts right where it left off, do you demand your money back?
I was pointing this towards the people on this thread who said that Eula's were useless.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
I speak more of commercial EULA's that companies who are customers of software companies have to adhere to, and that limit the exposure of the developer to refunding the money spent (unless its healthcare and a few other verticals) on purchasing the product.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nadiar
In order to get around a eula that said "there will be service interruptions blah blah blah" you would have to show that the interruptions were beyond the pale. I looked at cable cases today. Cable companies routinely win even if the service is down for days.
I wonder what happened to that suit against Mythic for undermining an item farming operation. I left DAoC around then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by camrael
Hello?
/Frog Wonders.............
Frog asks Fudging?
thank you
Yep, 'entertainment level service' striking again =p
If someones phone was out for days in any state except Alaska, it would be a major deal (fucking regulatory commision).
Oh, and my company will issue a credit for cable and Internet outages that last longer than ~4 hours to anyone who asks, but we keep that on the downlow, since a) its difficult to tell if someone is offline, or just turned off, and b) free money is always good. Whats funny though, is we provide a Free Internet service. People will call in and *demand* a credit for the time they were out. I believe that our Customer Service created a $0 credit, so they can apply it to their bill. It usually says something like:
Litespeed Cable Modem: $24.95
Free Litespeed Cable Modem Discount: $-24.95
Litespeed Outage Credit for x to y: $0.00
LMAO, that would not be a "big win". We would end up paying for it one way or another... future rates, fewer (if possible, holy slowness on their part) updates, even worse servers, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmitry the Wizzy
Win what? Win a case against inflated damages? Sure. Win a case for partial refunds? Hell no I'm pretty sure every state's regulatory commission guarantees partial refunds for time down, even if it's only 30 minutes. Of course YOU have to make the stink, it's not like they're just gonna offer it over the phone to youQuote:
In order to get around a eula that said "there will be service interruptions blah blah blah" you would have to show that the interruptions were beyond the pale. I looked at cable cases today. Cable companies routinely win even if the service is down for days.
welll first it would never happen. Let me jsut get that out. I don't think it would happen but if it di it would be like $100 per person and in a certified class of a half million that is a lot of money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercyy
Apparently so bored that curiousity urged him to spend 5 minutes doing some grade school math.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frozenorb
I agree....it's sad that this thread was ever started. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Zruu
Yes, Blizzard's lawyers. Fire up Westlaw and search for Davidson & Associates, Inc v. Internet Gateway 334 F.Supp.2d 1164. "Davidson & Associates, Inc" is Blizzard, and they prevailed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitebe
Yeah, and scheduled downtime - is announced in advance - you expect (well, after the first week) The servers to go down every Tuesday for a few hours for Weekly maintenance... THis is not an Expected Benefit - this is expected Downtime.Quote:
I htink you need to show a consistent pattern of depriving consumers of an expected benefit
Quote:
Originally Posted by Creyson
Who threatened anything. Good lord you people are sensitive. I also like to discuss the impact of takeovers in the industry and hell on other boards all kinds of things I would never do.
Just because I would never do them doesn't mean they won't be done.
That's the battlenet case. Basically the reverse engineering of battlenet was prohibited by the DMCA and the Eula and Blizzard won at the trial level on both issues as I recall. I never saw if the issues were appealed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smyrt
I think only article 2's warranty provisions and state consumer protection statutes would allow an attorney to circumvent a EULA. The basic principle is that a consumer cannot contract away the protections provided by statute.
An interesting an recent line of cases talks about the adhesion aspect of EULAs. Adhesion is the legal term for the "take it or leave it" aspect of EULAs. What good is a eual for instance that you cannot read till you open a software packs and then you cannot get your money back if you do not agree to the eula.
Cases seem to go both ways about whether such a EULA is enforceable with the test being whether the game is returnable in a reasonable fasion.
Now, such eulas have not (to my knowledge) been tested in the subscrition arena. I wonder what would happen if after subscribing for 3 months, you do not think the game is any good and you THEN decide you do not agree to the EULA. What is the effect of the use of a product for an ongoing time period where you cannot figure out what the product does till after that period? Can you return the game then?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
Expected at the time of the creation of the contract I think is a better way of putting it.
In the telephone cases you have a lot of regulation and even a good deal in the cable cases but the general principle is:
"Look everyone knows service gets interrpted but this is ridiculous" is actionable.
Exactly right, Dmitry. All of section IV of the ruling addresses the EULA and ToS. The short story is that the defendants' attorney argued 6 different ways that the EULA and ToS were unenforceable and the judge biotchslapped all 6 arguments down. Section IV.D specifically covers the adhesion argument.
man..ppl are to serious.. Very amuseing, ever thought about how much we "pay" for down time. :D
Race
This thread makes me really wonder how the EULA got changed in the last patch. Too bad I don't have an old copy.
I used to try and figure out the changes because I was curious... now I just click through.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunal Toadsnatcher
Selective quoting:
Quote:
Blizzard has the servers down 3.57% of the time.
Each account pays $15 a month.
Each account "loses" ~$0.54 a month!
OMG!! I'm so suing.