I don’t know that PR would be a sufficient barrier. They seem perfectly willing to be raging jackasses.
I think the bigger question is whether their contract with Larian is sufficient that they actually have the juice to compel them to take legally questionable action to restrict mods. There are a couple companies that use DMCA shit to harass mods into shutting down, but there really isn’t a strong basis behind it. It’s just them having a big enough checkbook to not be worth the fight. And even the sketchy “bypassing copy protection” method they usually use isn’t relevant to a game that’s DRM free. The strongest actual precedent against mods is stuff like Bungie getting judgements against cheat distributors, but that isn’t the same, because it’s actively degrading the service for others.
My guess is that it won’t get shut down because WOTC can’t make Larian bully people into shutting it down.
Yes, but this is an offline game, and I’ve never seen such a warning without some plausible justification. There’s no basis for interfering with an online component here, so what would Larian even say as they sent warnings?
Using an legally purchased offline game “illegally” would be quite a precedent, no?
My guess is that it won’t get shut down because WOTC can’t make Larian bully people into shutting it down.
Yeah. Larian didn’t seem very interested in blocking this capability (they left all this stuff in the executable), like they did the absolute minimum they were contractually obligated to do lol.
Take-2 has bullied mods that don’t connect to their servers claiming it’s an illegal derivative work or violates the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA. If Larian actually wanted to be assholes, they could make life annoying for people who want to make mods.
Again, I don’t think there’s any actual legal merit behind harassment for mods, but lack of merit isn’t always enough for community projects to be comfortable standing up and fighting against well funded harassment.
I do think the lack of merit makes it significantly harder for WOTC to compel Larian into any nonsense like that though.
I don’t know that PR would be a sufficient barrier. They seem perfectly willing to be raging jackasses.
I think the bigger question is whether their contract with Larian is sufficient that they actually have the juice to compel them to take legally questionable action to restrict mods. There are a couple companies that use DMCA shit to harass mods into shutting down, but there really isn’t a strong basis behind it. It’s just them having a big enough checkbook to not be worth the fight. And even the sketchy “bypassing copy protection” method they usually use isn’t relevant to a game that’s DRM free. The strongest actual precedent against mods is stuff like Bungie getting judgements against cheat distributors, but that isn’t the same, because it’s actively degrading the service for others.
My guess is that it won’t get shut down because WOTC can’t make Larian bully people into shutting it down.
Yes, but this is an offline game, and I’ve never seen such a warning without some plausible justification. There’s no basis for interfering with an online component here, so what would Larian even say as they sent warnings?
Using an legally purchased offline game “illegally” would be quite a precedent, no?
Yeah. Larian didn’t seem very interested in blocking this capability (they left all this stuff in the executable), like they did the absolute minimum they were contractually obligated to do lol.
Take-2 has bullied mods that don’t connect to their servers claiming it’s an illegal derivative work or violates the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA. If Larian actually wanted to be assholes, they could make life annoying for people who want to make mods.
Again, I don’t think there’s any actual legal merit behind harassment for mods, but lack of merit isn’t always enough for community projects to be comfortable standing up and fighting against well funded harassment.
I do think the lack of merit makes it significantly harder for WOTC to compel Larian into any nonsense like that though.