FBI, NCSoft drop hammer on MMORPG pirates

Piracy is generally considered to be one of the biggest problems facing
the
gaming software industry, but it was generally considered that Massively
Multiplayer Online Role-Playing games (MMORPGs) were immune from its
effects. However, a recent press release from NCSoft regarding an FBI
sting
against fradulent Lineage II game servers shows that this is not always
the
case.
The crackdown was against a web site called L2Extreme.com, which provided
subscribers with fraudulent service and pirated copies of the game. The
site has now been taken down and replaced by a warning message from the
FBI, the giant digitized logo evoking memories of arcade games in the
1990s.
L2Extreme.com was operating a copy of NCSoft's server, and had as many as
50,000 active users according to FBI estimates. Not only were they running
an unauthorized Lineage II server, but they were using NCSoft's own
bandwidth to download stolen copies of the game client for distribution to
its own users. NCSoft estimated the losses in bandwidth costs alone to be
nearly a million dollars.
Not all privately-run game servers are necessarily illegal nor have they
warranted FBI investigation. Origin's Ultima Online was so popular with a
group of open-source coders that they developed their own server that
worked with the original client-Ars Technica even operated their own UO
shard, Aedilis, at one point. Generally, game companies did not concern
themselves much with going after open-source server clones, as they
figured
most gamers would prefer to game on the official server with the newest
features and updates. However, the L2Extreme.com site did not develop
their
own server from scratch, but merely stole the code from NCSoft's own
development servers. In addition, while free UO servers required the
player
to purchase a legitimate copy of the game client from a retail store,
L2Extreme simply offered pirated copies of the client to its users.
The real kick in the teeth was the fact that L2Extreme had garnered so
many
users. According to MMORPG Charts, Lineage II reached a maximum of 2
million subscribers in early 2005, but has since slipped to about 1.3
million. Most of that decline has been due to the continued growth of
World
of Warcraft internationally, but 50,000 subscribers running on a pirated
server was a nontrivial impact as well.
NCSoft says that it has no plans to take legal action against players who
had been using the L2Extreme service. The software company is
concentrating
its legal wrath against the operators of L2Extreme, saying that the FBI
investigation is "ongoing" and that suing for compensation has not been
ruled out at this point.
[ Discuss ]
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...-8258.html