Valve has wrapped the banhammer in tinsel, adding a lovely Christmassy flavour to their anti-smurfing actions. Players who have been banned for smurfing are finding a Highly Toxic Lump of Coal in their accounts, a ‘Seasonal Reward’.
I feel sorry for the goobers who bought this game before the mod was released. Sad thing is that activision could do this themselves but then they couldn’t gouge gen Zers with micro transactions so they won’t
Is someone well versed enough in law to explain why Activision can do this? If the mod requires the software to be purchased and only uses resources present in the owned game - wouldn’t that be fair to use, so long as it’s not sold? Or is this just a case of Activision has the big stick and a small dev team knows they have no shot in fighting Activision’s lawyers without going broke?
Fair use is determined in a court. If somebody sues you, you can’t just say “Nah actually it’s fair use” and then not show up to court.
The C&D letter wasn’t a lawsuit yet, but a warning that one would be coming. The mod team had the choice of complying or going to court, which costs time and money. In court, even if they ended up winning, it’s not guaranteed that the dev team would be granted legal fees. Atop that, who wants to spend the next few months to years stressing on a court fight?
It’s an unfortunately lopsided situation where a C&D is enough to make most small time projects fold at the prospect of even having to go to court.
I haven’t forked over any $$ to Activision in over a decade, I see no reason to ever change my stance. I don’t feel like I’m missing out either, I simply cannot understand why this franchise ever got as popular as it is, let alone why it remains so popular today. A fool and his money…
I haven’t bought a video game in years. It’s just been garbage after garbage. The market is saturated with so much shit that I don’t even care to play games anymore.
I mean, some of the best games of all time (imo) have released in the last 3 years. Not sure what you’re on about with all games being garbage nowadays
Sorry, when I say good games I mean games that I find to be good. There have been games that are popular that I have no interest in. I also find games to be too expensive.
This is one of those genuinely funny bugs, tbh. I remember Singles 2, the slightly more naughty competitor from years ago, had a ton of these weird quirky interactions,like masturbating with guests around and stuff.
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