Tag: Add-ons

Some developers of add-ons for World of Warcraft were so angered by Blizzard’s new policy essentially forbidding the creation of add-ons that are commercial or feature in-game donation buttons that they have pulled their add-ons from public distribution. This includes some very popular add-ons, such as Outfitter, QuestHelper, and Group Calendar.

John Stephen, the developer of Outfitter, posted at WoWInsider on why he ended public distribution of Outfitter,

1) I’ve never charged for or advertised in my addons and I don’t want donations. I don’t care if this “must be free” policy has been around for years in the gaming community, it’s still wrong and it’s abusive of the time and energy it takes to develop and support a major addon. Even the open source community has accepted the “pay for support” model as a viable way to provide free software, but even that is forbidden by the new policies (can’t charge for addon-related services).

2) I’m not asking anybody to stop using their existing copies of my addons. Also, I’ve been on the PTR prior to this and Group Calendar and Outfitter both seemed to work just fine with 3.1 so far.

3) I’m not stopping development, I’m stopping public distribution. I still have my addons available on my site and I don’t mind if you want to re-distribute them to your friends and guildies via email or a private download section on your guild’s site.

4) I’m waiting to hear Blizzard’s response to all of this. If the developers who need or desire compensation for their time are happy with the outcome, then I’m happy. None of this policy change directly affects my work, but it does affect my sense of right and wrong.

Just more Blizzard heavy handedness toward the WoW community. In general, Blizzard has not had to pay any price for its past mistakes and errors because the game is so damn popular no single blunder has ever cost it any revenue. Only when game related policies — such as the brief ban on GLBT guilds — have percolated beyond the gaming press and into mainstream media has Blizzard had to reverse itself.

But in the case of add-on developers Blizzard has, to a large extent, relied on people essentially donating their time in non-commercial projects to create UIs for WoW that work for a wide variety of people. And now, Blizzard is turning around and giving the finger to those same folks who have been providing third party support and enhancements for WoW.

As usual, when Blizzard strays from actual game development its policies and pronouncements tend to be beyond stupid.

Blizzard recently updated its UI Add-On Policy for World of Warcraft with the intent of pretty much banning any commercial WoW add-ons.

1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

. . .

4) Add-ons may not include advertisements.
Add-ons may not be used to advertise any goods or services.

5) Add-ons may not solicit donations.
Add-ons may not include requests for donations. We recognize the immense amount of effort and resources that go into developing an add-on; however, such requests should be limited to the add-on website or distribution site and should not appear in the game.

In general, this is an awful idea. I can see Blizzard’s desire not to have in-game solicitations of donations and/or advertising. Among other things, I assume you’d get a lot of people installing add-ons that include this and then complaining that it’s all World of Warcraft’s fault and/or generating support calls that are really due to an add-on.

But the blanket ban on charging for add-ons is stupid. Blizzard should set the parameters for what’s allowed (like “no in-game advertising”) and then leave well enough alone. As long as an add-on complies with all the rules, who cares if there’s some uber-useful mod that the creator charges a small fee for?

This would be a bit like Microsoft saying it is fine for developers to create free macros for Excel, but nobody is allowed to charge for said macros.

With this change, Blizzard is apparently targeting the folks behind mods like Carbonite which offers a free quest helper add-on, and a more advanced premium version to people who sign up for a paid membership to the Carbonite website. Clearly a lot of work has gone into Carbonite, and why shouldn’t its developers be able to charge players for their efforts?