Activison-blizzard run the official World of Warcraft servers – with an iron fist. They don’t take too kindly to others doing the same, as Scapegaming’s Alyson Reeves has found out.

The law has sided with Acti-Blizz and – and this serve as a deterrent should you wish to run your own for-profit WoW server – and awarded them a whole lot of money. how much is a whole lot?

Oh, just about $88 Million.

Reeves was found guilty of charging users to play on an unauthorised World of Warcraft server and had generated over $3 million from players. The other eighty five million is for statutory damages. Ouch.

That I suppose is what you get for profiting off other people’s work, and crossing Bobby Kotick who, even when he’s off trying to destroy the Jedi,  should not be crossed. Ever.

Too harsh? Possibly, but how else is Kotick going to buy those platinum, diamond-encrusted hand-towel heaters?

Source : slashdot