World of Warcraft 5. 13 inside story

This article was deleted three times in official website of Warcraft in Ninetowns, so it can't be posted here. Ninetowns, are you so sensitive? I don't even have the courage to read a post.

Tip: The content discussed in this paper is limited to online games in a narrow sense (excluding consumer online entertainment such as QQ Show, short-term battle games such as CS, casual chess games, PC stand-alone games, etc.). This article is long, please read it patiently before making comments. Thank you!

On May 12, when people all over the country mourned the Sichuan earthquake, this national costume of World of Warcraft gave all players a great shock. Without any notice, the game service was temporarily terminated, and an updated agreement was introduced that ignored the rights and interests of players and unequal conditions. Finally, Blizzard stood up and admitted the wrong ending. I believe that the players who know the facts and experiences in these two days have more knowledge and understanding of the operation and management of Ninetowns and Blizzard, including the attitude towards players. As an old Warcraft player (to avoid disputes, I won't send my name), compare the attitudes and practices of all parties before and after, and analyze some controversial places as follows. Since the content of the matter has been tracked by major media websites from the inside out, I won't list the specific things one by one. I believe that players who care about this matter will know that the following are just a few key issues for your analysis and reference:

1. Who belongs to the data of World of Warcraft?

1, I believe that all players are most concerned about: the ownership of player data in World of Warcraft.

To fundamentally understand the attribution of online game data, we should analyze it from the legal point of view, industry rules, player recognition, commercial value and so on. 1. The online game as a whole consists of four parts: operators (Blizzard, Ninetowns, Netease) legal entities, server hosts (including network and other equipment hardware), game server software platform, player hardware and data (reflected in the game as role information and player real identity data).

Among them, there is no doubt about the ownership of the operator company itself, the server host and the server software platform (excluding data), because these all belong to the category of physical property, and according to Chinese laws, the ownership and use right belong to the property owner, and all online games will also specify this clause in the entry agreement.

The main controversial issues are all the player's role information (reflected in the game's role data and player's identity data) and the player's computer (including the software in the computer and the data in the computer), network and identity information.

Please note that I am here to separate the player's role information from the player's identity data, because from the legal point of view, the two are essentially different. Specifically, for example, your real name is Li Xiaoming, your ID number is 53023318888888, and your mobile phone number is13988888. Your World of Warcraft related payment bank account number is ICBC 7 18833222452256, your World of Warcraft login name is NObody, your World of Warcraft password is 123456, your security code is 65432 1, your role is the XXXX server in the fourth district, your role is the bachelor of broadsword, and your trumpet. The last few items are your player role information. Of course, these data are stored in the server of World of Warcraft, managed by the background server software of World of Warcraft, and stored in a super-large database managed by many people, and I don't know how often to back them up. Every time the game starts, the server software supports you to enter the game by reading these data.

100% of your identity information and your hardware and equipment belong to you. I believe that there is no reason for the operator to seize these things from you, except that selling identity information will infringe your privacy or arbitrarily deduct money from your bank card and other property violations (the operator is also a legally established entity, and to be honest, I don't quite believe that Blizzard or Ninetowns will do these stupid things). The other most controversial issue is the ownership of player character information data.

In the middle of the agreement, it is clearly stipulated that the game character data belongs to the operator and is managed and disposed of, and the right to use it belongs to the player, which is controversial. At the beginning of the popularity of online games, the controversy about this point has never stopped since the earliest online games, such as Mud, Stone Tools, UO and Millennium, began to operate in a free mode and paid games.

According to the standard of legal contract system, before entering the game, as long as the game operator provides you with a game agreement and gives you a click button, then you click agree and reach a contract. Because the early online games are free (whether game time or props), they can be regarded as no contract signing or no transaction, so no matter whether the game operator stops, changes the game content or player information, or even deletes the game account, they can't be investigated, because there is no contract, so they are not protected;

Charging games are divided into props charging and time charging. According to legal standards, charging is a transaction, and completing a transaction means the transfer of property ownership or control.

Among them, the charges for props are more clear. I bought goods or the right to use goods within a limited range of activities (whether it is virtual goods, clothes, weapons, or clothes that can be worn for a long time, etc.). Of course, it also includes physical objects, such as game discs). The transaction is clear, and the limited ownership or use right belongs to the player. The legal dispute here is that the game props are attached to the game characters, and whether the game characters can be purchased through transactions. Then the logical paradox arising from this argument comes out. As a player, all you have is the props of your game character or the right to use them for a limited time. On a large scale, what you buy is only the right to use props during the existence of this game platform. Whether it is a game CD, or the identity, role and equipment in the game, it must be attached to the virtual character itself, so the game is charged for props.

There is no dispute that the ownership and disposal right of text information itself belongs to operators. Of course, the day after you buy clothes, there is no reason for the game company to delete your character without closing the game, resulting in the disappearance of the clothes you just bought. The operator must have violated your right to dispose of virtual goods. However, if the game operator goes out of business the day after you buy clothes, and your role disappears because the server is closed, then it can be said that the game operator is not responsible.

Online games and roads have different charging modes. According to the charging standard of Warcraft, you must buy a serial number first. The content of this serial number transaction is that you buy a software copyright, just like you buy a concept of Kingsoft Internet Security, you can legally use this copy on one of your computers for related work or entertainment. After buying the serial number, I want to buy some cards, that is, buy game time. According to the trading principle in the previous paragraph, the game time you buy includes all the information and character equipment you set during the game time. At the same time, it should be noted that the account itself is also bought with money. Although the nine-city pass and the Warcraft account are merged and registered, this is not the case.

Not these two account names. Account information with the same password is a concept. The Nine Cities Pass is free to register, but you can play Warcraft. The account of Warcraft can only enter the game after purchasing the serial number, while the Nine Cities Pass can log on to the Nine Cities website without purchasing and enjoy the services provided by the website. So there is no doubt that the ownership of the Warcraft account belongs to the player. Unless Warcraft stops operating, the account entry of Warcraft is the property purchased for players or the legal property under the premise of the existence of the service platform of Warcraft. At the same time, the purchase of Warcraft time determines the legal possession and disposal of weapons and equipment acquired by gamers through their legally purchased game time, such as fighting monsters, doing tasks, and legally trading. Therefore, it can be concluded that unless World of Warcraft is shut down, gamers are the only legal owners who have World of Warcraft account, identity data, role information and disposal rights as long as the game is still in operation (whether Netease or Ninetowns agent). This does not change with the change of the Warcraft agreement (of course, whether the agreement itself and the change agreement are legal or whether both parties have the right to change the agreement will be discussed later).

The above is an analysis of account ownership from a legal perspective. From the perspective of game industry regulations, operators invest in the R&D and operation of games, get income and profits from gamers, and provide game services to gamers, while players get happiness from games (of course, some people play gold coins and sell them to get RMB, but that is beyond the scope of this article). As can be seen from this industry process, operators are merchants (also resource monopolists) and players are consumers. According to the news, players are completely in a weak position, just like the phone bill of China Mobile, the oil of China Petrochemical, and Microsoft's "3"&; gt； Therefore, in reality, operators have servers and databases. Therefore, according to the truth that China people and county officials are not as good as the current management, whether it is Ninetowns or Blizzard, the desire to control data is everywhere, and it is bound to take all aspects of life and death power into their own hands according to the idea of operators in the small print agreement that they can't stand for a few pages, and tell players like parents that you should do this, but you can't do it, or you will follow suit. As a player, I am very aware that the influence of game operators on players is everywhere. According to the player's point of view

On the other hand, whether operators have the right to push players to modify or delete accounts has great flexibility. Operators can guide players to give up a weakened 70-level account by opening new clothes, allocating network bandwidth, adjusting career orientation, introducing new races, demand for copies, circulation of gold coins, probability of losing treasures, and length of BOSS's blood slot. Let's practice the role of another race and another profession in the new clothes, and repeat the cycle from 0 to 70 again, so that players can continue to invest the money in the bank in the great cause of Warcraft. From a fair point of view, I don't think the above behavior of operators is an infringement on the player's right to choose or dispose, at least in the sense of the rules of the game itself.

From a commercial point of view, it is not impossible for operators to judge games, and it is in the interest of most players to deal with some illegal or * * behaviors. Maybe more players will prefer to be played by operators. In this case, I believe that no other players will object to the handling of the account except the hacker himself.

This is a small problem. The key problem lies in the protection of players' rights and interests under the premise of major adjustment. It can't be implemented according to this idea. Ninetowns and Netease are just agents. For Blizzard, the agents of Ninetowns may not be Netease, but Netease does not do Tianya, Tianya does not do MOP. Actually, there is no problem. However, when dealing with the internal adjustment of operators (including hardware adjustment of server clusters and player data transfer), all the data and privacy information of players are involved, and operators must consider this issue according to the idea of giving priority to protecting players. I deposited 65,438+00,000 yuan in ICBC, and now the next document of the People's Bank of China says that industry and commerce will be closed, and all the data of industrial and commercial customers and customer accounts will be transferred to agriculture. As a result, I took my industrial and commercial card to the Agricultural Bank of China to withdraw money. People say it no longer exists. Let's set up a new agricultural account and transfer your old industrial and commercial account information. Well, if you set up an agricultural account, you are agriculture. As a result, I opened a new card and transferred my account. After checking, there is only 3000 yuan left. What should I do? It is said that the People's Bank of China has regulations that it is not responsible for the data loss caused by this transfer. what do you think? Why don't you look for the number 100 on your 10,000 yuan and see if you can find it? If you want to find them, I'll go to the vault to check them for you and see if I can find them. If I can't find them, there is nothing I can do. Listen, what can you do? What can you say? Forget it. Next time, why not save money abroad and deposit it in Switzerland?

Data processing is completed by the operator. Even if the operator's awareness is not as high as Wang Laoji's, calculate the awareness of gamers. You still have to rely on these players to make money in the future. The trust and support of players is the most important thing. There is no shortage of consumers and players willing to spend money in China at any time, but you have to make everyone comfortable, otherwise no one will do anything to spend money.

Therefore, regardless of the laws and regulations, even for the long-term benefit, Blizzard should not make any more mistakes in modifying data, deleting numbers and returning files. Even if the internal contradictions are big and the requirements of the Nine Cities are high, Blizzard should consider the compensation of the Nine Cities as much as possible on the basis of the players, so as to ensure that the Nine Cities will not do anything that will ultimately harm the interests of the players because of anger. Maybe Ninetowns is not so stingy, or Netease is generous. The most important attitude is blizzard. After all, Blizzard is an upstream manufacturer. If such a thing can't be handled by another broker, the player will be full of grievances, the Ninetowns will be wronged, and finally the player will be injured. I'm almost sure that if Blizzard or Netease didn't give a satisfactory explanation to Ninetowns and always supported Netease to take an opposing attitude towards Ninetowns, * * wouldn't play with this thing if it wasn't a fool. Just change it here and there.

Let's take a step back and broaden our horizons. I believe that the majority of players will also support my idea. Consumers in China are sad, as if they are so easily satisfied. Just give us a game line that is slightly off the card, log in the game smoothly, and update our foreign servers no later than one year. . . , not important. This is our World of Warcraft player in China. Blizzard should be satisfied. A few days ago, * * said several figures of the operating profit of the nine cities, which were clear in logic and easy to understand. Yes, there are so many players in China. What does it matter even if you make money? But think about whether you have done enough for the World of Warcraft players in China. Speaking of the final post handover of the reputation of the nine cities, can you still hold out the words "to Degang Guo"

3. Player privacy issues

In the latest agreement update (including similar contents in the previous agreement, but unclear), it includes that the operator has the right to monitor the player's computer hardware, network, operating system, hard disk data and so on. In order to prevent problems such as number theft and over-the-counter trading.

Rong. Personally, I think Blizzard (definitely not dominated by the Nine Cities, for no reason) is a bit extreme on this issue. Dealing with hackers is Blizzard's right, but the player's computer software and hardware and hard disk data are also personal privacy. When the use of power conflicts, we should consider the power level, social security and other issues. Personal property ownership and the right to survival belong to the basic rights of human beings, followed by the right to education and the right to freedom of speech. Blizzard claims that the power of hackers in management games is only attached to the management right in the game environment. Compared with the seemingly just premise of the so-called legal agreement, it seems to me that the game client is completely putting the cart before the horse to mine the customer's hard disk data, completely ignoring the privacy of the player. Personally, this behavior has broken through the permission of computer security laws and regulations, and even violated the criminal law. Of course, I'm not a professional lawyer. But as a consumer, if there are experts who can prove that Blizzard really stole my private data through the game client, then I would rather give up this World of Warcraft that has accompanied me for 5 years and given me infinite happiness.

Second, the analysis of the relationship between this agency transfer and Blizzard, Ninetowns and Netease.

1, when will the agreement between Ninetowns and Blizzard expire?

This question is clear, June 7, 2009. This is also the termination date of the operation of World of Warcraft by the Nine Cities.

2. Who owns the ups and downs of Ninetowns and Blizzard?

During the honeymoon period, it doesn't matter who is dominant, because they all make money, and Ninetowns also pay Blizzard on time, and Blizzard also maintains it regularly. Players usually only have 1 to 2 tubas, and generally only wander in one area. Large numbers are few, but many people. Ironforgrima and Ogrima have too many teams. Usually it is impossible to form a team without brushing the screen, and it is too fast.

The earliest cracks appeared in May 2007. EA, Blizzard's biggest competitor, won the equity of Jiucheng 15% for 128 billion yuan. According to the Ninetowns, this cooperation was completely for the cooperation of Warhammer, and it was forced, but the views on this matter are definitely different. Others are not allowed to snore next to Blizzard. This crack

Finally, it is reflected in the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. Wrath of the Lich King, which was supposed to be released in the second half of 2008, was originally due to the fact that it was too early to release a new version of Burning Crusade just one year after its launch. It was not until April 2008 that Ninetowns announced the renewal of the China agent of Wrath of the Lich King on Nasdaq, and promised to start listing as soon as possible. At that time, European clothing, American clothing and even Taiwan Province clothing were in a state of "east wind only". Only the national service was postponed for various reasons until Netease appeared, and the secret agreement of Blizzard was initially released in March 2009. The contact between Netease and Blizzard is estimated to have been planned a year ago, and it was not until the contract between Blizzard and Ninetowns expired that things were put on the table. It is also fully considered.

Secondly, the idea of the nine cities. In fact, Ninetowns should have known about the termination of cooperation long ago, but didn't tell anyone. They are still making a final effort to save it. Of course, they also consider the interests. If the Morning Post, listen, we will no longer represent Warcraft after the contract expires! So when?

At the beginning, the income of the nine cities will inevitably drop sharply, facing a large number of customer losses. After all, players will always be skeptical about whether the data transfer can be carried out smoothly, not to mention the loss compensation of a bunch of overdue customers, the return of dealer cards, the decline in sales of goods around the game, and the future sources of income. After all, The9' s income in Warcraft accounts for an absolute high proportion, and it takes three months to make careful arrangements. Only domestic players continue to do tasks silently. Even after the news of giving up the agency came out, many new and old players filled in the new service upgrade number in May 2009. They fully believe that Blizzard, as a super-first-class game company, will not do anything to hurt players, and also fully trust Netease, as the most successful enterprise in playing games among several established portals, will not mismanage data and will not be sorry to players.

After several months of silence, the contradiction suddenly broke out. At the beginning of April, after an internal email from the president of Ninetowns was exposed, Netease asked to buy the Warcraft server and all the data of Ninetowns at a price of about 30% off, and then paid $6.5438+0 million to ask Ninetowns to transfer all the World of Warcraft operation and management personnel. Nine cities are sure.

I think Netease is throwing money at people, and the first nine cities are not short of more than 20 million dollars. The second is that it feels that it can't lose face. If you agree, it is the alliance under the city. If you do such a thing, The9 may lose all the original Jianghu status in the game circle, and even be considered incompetent. In addition, as long as the servers, data and managers are in their hands for one day, this is the bargaining chip, and they can earn more money from Blizzard or Netease during the closing stage.

On April 16, 2009, all the dust settled, the agreement of Netease Blizzard was signed, and Ninetowns also issued a notice promising to ensure the smooth completion of the handover. Immediately, the Nine Cities carried out institutional adjustment to stabilize the business team, and enabled salary increase, post adjustment and even equity incentives. This shows that Ninetowns are dissatisfied with Netease's work, and many executives in Ninetowns have semi-publicly questioned Netease's targeted poaching of the Warcraft operation team. Netease quickly retorted that Netease's malicious poaching was slander, and the saliva lawsuit was getting worse.

On May 8, 2009, the vice president of Blizzard announced that Magic * * * needed to stop its service for a period of time, but how long was this "deadline" and did not give a clear time. Does this mean that Blizzard has not done a good job in the ideological work of Ninetowns, and Ninetowns are still secretly resisting all the handover work?

Because online games are time-conscious consumption, to the extreme, if Ninetowns really take the tactics of dragging, leaning and suing for three months, there will still be a few loyal players who will settle down in American clothes and Taiwanese clothes, while those who are not so determined may be dragged away by the "Eternal Tower", and all angry people will take it out on cs. Will this happen? I don't think it's impossible. I believe that Jiucheng must have considered the pros and cons of this approach. First of all, the benefits are obvious. The longer we delay Blizzard and Netease, the more anxious we are, and the easier it is to make concessions on compensation conditions or trading conditions. Secondly, if you delay enough time and make your new players in World of Warcraft on Netease suffer heavy losses, then you will export evil spirits. Thirdly, let Warcraft lose more customers, which is also good for the new games represented by Ninetowns in the later period. Without strong competitors, why not? This guy Chen Tianqiao base, left a considerable number of Warcraft players to live in a grand venue. It doesn't matter, anyway, it can't make you feel good about Netease and Blizzard.

If Teacher Zhu of Jiucheng really thinks so, let's wait and see. It's no use playing, just watch the fun!

Let's take a look at the blizzard again. On May 12, the blizzard once again exposed the nature of predators. In order to avoid trouble, we solved the possible trouble once and for all, changed the user agreement without authorization, put a tighter rope on the player at several key points, and deprived the player of all rights. Anyway, I am a parent, and all the resources are in my hands. I can do whatever I want. What is even more incredible is that the updated agreement has not been recognized by Ninetowns, which is still legal and the only agent at present, but the players who saw the agreement for the first time all blamed it on Ninetowns, because Blizzard wrote all the changes in the agreement in the name of Ninetowns. Under the detailed analysis of countless savvy netizens, it is confirmed that Jiucheng will not do such a thing that harms others and does not benefit itself, but the biggest change in the agreement itself. The patch that updated the agreement was revoked half an hour later, and Ninetowns did not publish the content of the patch on the website. It is estimated that the nine cities will be ready to get angry when they see the blizzard. On May 13, after a meeting and discussion, Ninetowns set out to fight back and released the following two statements in the form of moderators or administrators in the official forum of Warcraft:

(1). The patch was not released by the ninth city, and the modification of related agreements was not made by the ninth city. We knew nothing about this before.

Love.

(2) At present, the ninth city is the operator of World of Warcraft, and the ninth city and users are both parties to the user agreement. Without the consent of both parties, the modification of the terms of the contract by a third party has no effect on both parties.

Although this statement did not appear in the content of official website's homepage, I believe that the players who are like ants in your pants must have seen it these days, and this post has also been transferred to 17 173, Sina game board and many other places. Ninetowns dare to post this post, I believe it is not approved by Blizzard, and they tend to think that Blizzard has crossed the line in this matter. Ninetowns seem to be ready to fight against blizzard, and I personally can't agree with blizzard's way of doing things. In business cooperation, the first element is benefit, the second element is strength, the third element is relationship, and the third element is honesty. The juxtaposition of elements is because the third element in China is relationship, and the third element in Europe and America is honesty. Of course, this is only the difference of the third element. Without the first and second elements, it is nonsense.

The cooperation with Blizzard is trapped by these three elements. First of all, the relationship between the two sides is absolute before the interests. Anyway, we are going to split up. You pay more, I earn more, you pay less, I earn less. Then we can't agree on the first element of interest. Look at the strength. Although you are the biggest game company in Blizzard, I am not bad in Ninetowns. In China, it is also a role of stamping one foot and three earthquakes, and you can't mess around. Anyway, you are a foreign company, and we are familiar with public security, procuratorial work, law, industry and commerce, and taxation. There is nothing unfair, don't mess around. Let's stick to the procedure. We're in a hurry. Hey! Neither the first element nor the second element can meet the needs of cooperation or compromise between the two sides, so we should look at the third element and treat it differently. For the nine cities, the most important thing to consider is to retaliate against Blizzard and Netease without offending gamers and keep their hard-won status in the rivers and lakes. This relationship refers to the relationship between the nine cities and gamers. Ninetowns want to ensure that players still recognize Ninetowns, so in this confrontation with Blizzard, Ninetowns want to take revenge on Blizzard. Blizzard is still the industry leader after all. On the premise that interests and strength are at a disadvantage, honesty is

Is what Blizzard should maintain most. It is better to talk about the present than the future. Can you think about the handover from the perspective of players and consumers, and can you promote the smooth transition between Netease and Ninetowns? If Blizzard can show the boldness of vision of some big companies in terms of conditions, give Ninetowns an early and clear answer in terms of conditions, and stop making meaningless little moves behind, players may not be so disappointed with Blizzard, which can be regarded as an explanation for these two days.

3. Looking ahead, Netease and Blizzard.

The following are some views on the cooperation between Blizzard and Netease:

Netease, as the poorest portal and the most successful online game company in China, is one of the few companies qualified to cooperate with Blizzard. Netease definitely has the ability and team to run World of Warcraft. Undoubtedly, as mentioned above, the focus is on when Netease's first set of servers can be started and when the wrath of the Lich King will go online. These two problems are the most urgent tasks facing Blizzard and Netease at present. Team building, revenue plan, marketing and other issues should be considered in the next step. The first two problems have not been solved, and everything is empty talk.

Now Blizzard must be full of confidence, and the Lich King is also selling well in other parts of the world as an information piece. Through the investigation of domestic forums and websites, Blizzard must also know the expectations of domestic players for this expansion. The problem is time. According to the normal calculation, it is only now that we start to toss. Netease's release of Wrath of the Lich King will inevitably be delayed until June 5438+00, 2009, and it will be next year.

Netease's team has just launched, so it is estimated that there are not many core operation and management personnel that can be recruited by Nine Cities, and it is difficult to estimate the software personnel. Their own personnel have no experience in the operation and management of large-scale online games. It is estimated that the smart ones are all from the side of A Chinese Odyssey. So is Blizzard going to practice the old version for Netease's team or just toss the new version for them? The answer is obvious. Blizzard certainly dare not hand over a game version that will be operated for more than one year in the future to a new team for operation and management. Netease's game management team is no matter how good it is, it is hard to say that there are some big or small loopholes. After the Nine Cities incident, Blizzard should leave some shadows in my mind, and it will inevitably put forward requirements for new game services and management to save customers and ensure long-term operation.

Think again about the near future. Netease's server can't be opened until the things in Nine Cities are finished. After all, people have data. Even if they get the data back safely, Netease will not dare to release the test server until the World of Warcraft-scale software debugging, hardware coordination, customer service training, GM running-in, market planning, advertising and other things are completed. Even if this time is short, it may be July, that is, from June. This does not include the nine cities. If something is done, it will be postponed. Since August, the whole management team has been familiar with the management content. It takes three months to practice, and there should be a lot of new things to update in the new expansion, so we should reserve another month to debug the new expansion. In this way, I am still far from the listing of Wrath of the Lich King. The earliest time was 1 1, so everyone was waiting for the new year's 80 th grade.

There is also the cost. I wonder if Netease will adjust the price. Obviously, the number of users will be reduced by a large number in August, and Netease's original westward journey customers are mostly little girls, and they have no clue and may not be willing to pull them over. Besides, adult Warcraft games are still a bit complicated for them. that

It can be seen that in terms of the number of users, at least the customers in front of them are absolutely not as imposing as the heyday of the Nine Cities. It's hard to say whether they can catch up some time ago. I heard that Netease's bid for Blizzard is much higher than that of Ninetowns. Netease doesn't make money doing Warcraft? With fewer users and higher fees, Netease will really do business at a loss. We will wait and see.

Conclusion: I'm not a fortune teller, and I'm not very mature in some ideas about the future. I stayed up in the middle of the night, scribbled something and shared some personal thoughts with my brothers. It's purely my opinion. If I can't reach it, I will hold my hand. If I don't reply, it's endless!