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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPossible addon business models
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 24th 2009 at 3:30PM
Ever since that new addon policy came to light, some addon devs are furious, and threatening to stop publishing their addons completely. But others are being a little more optimistic -- instead of shutting down their addons, they're trying to figure out new ways around Blizzard's rules in order to get compensated for their work. selenite on WoW LJ has one such idea: he suggests a method of "ransomware," where the creators of a mod ask for donations (on their sites, not in-game, as that's against the new policy) and set a goal before they release a new version. BRK had a good point on last week's podcast as well -- he suggested that, like the popular WoW Web Stats, some addons (Recount was one suggestion that came up) can offer information out of game rather than in-game, thus making them able to charge for it, or show advertising on it.Now, some may say that even these types of models will still go against Blizzard's rules (in fact, the rule that says addons may not charge for distribution also hints that they may not charge for "services related", either), but at this point, we don't really know what these rules mean, since, as far as we know, Blizzard hasn't actually shut down any addons. Blizzard may be trying to say that any attempt to make money off of an addon will get it shut down in the game (a strong statement, since you'd think anyone putting time and work into an addon should get something back for it). And if they really do have issues with people who help players play the game making money off of it, what about sites like Wowhead? What about us here at WoW Insider?
At any rate, the ideas are out there. If developers really want to get something back for their work, and they have an addon or an idea that's worth paying for (keep in mind that competition is always there -- if an addon like Recount does charge to go visit another site and get DPS meters, they'll have to make sure it's worth paying that amount rather than just using a free addon), there will probably be a way for them to get compensated.
Filed under: Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Add-Ons
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Nonny Mar 24th 2009 4:45PM
Regarding Wow Insider and Wowhead... I understand the primary source of revenue for both these sites is through advertisements? Which is different, imo, than charging (for example) a subscription fee.
If I'm mistaken and there's money brought in otherwise, please correct me. I'd love to know. :)
WoWie Zowie Mar 24th 2009 5:10PM
honestly, i've given this a lot of thought and i think i might have a reason why they would put this new policy in place.
firstly, i honestly don't believe its an evil ploy to make more money. c'mon seriously, they don't make money on the addons in existence right now do they?
no, they don't. and that argument goes out the window.
second, i don't believe it is the creatives or even the stockholders that thought of this. why would they want to stifle creativity and, ultimately, make less of their game?? which this would do. that would be de-valuing their investment, and they wouldn't want that.
no, i believe this is pure and simple a legal matter. this is the blizzard lawyers looking waaaaay down the road and establishing a safety net for their company. then they run to the guys who make the decisions and say "hey, this is something we should watch out for" and the big wigs say "hmm, fine you lawyer jerks, have it your way. we'll do it to protect our business".
here's why i believe it's legal.
blizzard doesn't want anything that could point to them saying "they allowed this to happen". judging from their BTPNTC, the whole point was to prevent from anyone NEEDING to take up a profession or spec in order to play competitively. and likewise they don't want anyone NEEDING to install an addon that they don't want to use. an addon that, say, costs a lot of money to get. possibly later people saying that the game actually costs more to play than they wanted it to.
maybe not this patch, maybe not next expansion, but someday some genius is going to develop an addon that you NEED to play the game, and that would blow up in blizzard's collective face.
so get it out of the way now and have the foresight to see that there are things that can't be predicted, and in order to stymie that liability, we should put a rule in place now.
evil blizzard ruining the addon world? no
a company being cautious about the impact of their behemoth game? yes
Cipri Mar 24th 2009 5:34PM
You know, you're right about this probably being pushed by their lawyers as a safety net. However, I think they're doing this so that Blizzard can't get sued later on.
Right now, they've replaced Group calendar, Outfitter and many others with their own implementations. Now these were all free "applications". But what do you supposed happens if Bliz created their own "Questhelper" or "Carbonite" in game. I'll tell you what happens, the same thing that happened to Microsoft when they started including Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer into Windows.
No one's gonna bother buying Carbonite anymore, if WoW comes with a FREE "program" that does the same thing, and Carbonite could sue Blizzard for using its Power on the WoW market to push their product off the market.
That, I believe, is the single most important reason they now refuse to allow addons that require payment. Can't be sued for lost income if other people can't make money from addons.
Ben Striegel Mar 24th 2009 7:13PM
@Cipri
I'm not a lawyer. But I am a computer scientist. And I can tell you with the kind of certainty that comes from years of observing software development that there has never (to my knowledge) been a precedent to an add-on developer suing Blizzard for making their add-on obsolete. If there's not a patent for the idea or implementation, there's no basis for such a suit in law.
Ever heard of Konfabulator? It was software that enabled desktop widgets on Mac and PC computers. Then Apple came out with Mac OS X Tiger which featured a new app called Dashboard that does essentially the same thing, in essentially the same way. As it is prone to do, the internet got its webs all up in a tangle accusing Apple of ripping off Konfabulator, and it's probably true. But nothing ever came of it. And in the end, because it's so tightly integrated with the OS and has more developer support, Dashboard is probably the better product.
Any time a developer allows their product to be extended by third parties, they're acknowledging that their product is intentionally incomplete and that allowing people to create their own functionality tailored to their own experience and playstyle is a superior solution to forcing everyone to do things in one particular way. If I were an add-on developer I would consider it an esteemed honor if my work urged Blizzard to duplicate its functionality, rendering me obsolete. I'd also be slightly pissed, but I'd forgive them if they named an epic item after me.
No add-on developers sued Mozilla for adding spellcheck to Firefox. Script writers didn't sue the makers of Tribes for adding skiing to subsequent games.
The only slight precedent I can think of is Internet Explorer, and even that isn't perfect. When MS saw that people wanted to be on this "intarnet" thing they licensed the code from Mosaic and made a browser our of it and included it with every copy of Windows (totally legal). The lawsuits came later, and only because MS had already been called out for being unfriendly and bundling IE was seen to be a violation of a prior consent decree.
Just so I know, does anybody else actually bother taking half an hour and referencing five wikipedia articles to write a blog comment?
Cipri Mar 24th 2009 8:30PM
@Ben Striegel
Maybe there have been no addon vs Bliz style suing, but back in 2007 here in Europe, Microsoft was forced to release a version of Windows XP called Windows XP N, without Windows Media Player in it, after courts ruled that Microsoft abused its Monopoly position to push Real Networks off' the market.
In the US, similar cases have been filed against Microsoft, and undoubtedly other companies as well. They may not be identical situations, but their lawyers might find them dangerously close.
Simple fact is, if you're allowing people to make money with your product, they have reason to sue you if you piss them off. If they can't make any money, they have less reason to sue you.
IANAL, but I know what I'd advise in a situation like this.
Taladan Mar 24th 2009 5:41PM
You can't offer information off the game 'cause add-ons can't connect to the internet -- at all.
WowHead does that by using an addon that saves the information on disk and a customized launcher that reads that information and sends to their server when the game exits. If you try to do such thing for every add-on, you'd have to call a different launcher every time (e.g., WowHead Launcher, Recount launcher, etc.)
schm0 Mar 24th 2009 5:43PM
I don't know about any of you, but I wouldn't dream of donating or paying for an addon for a game that I pay a monthly subscription fee. I simply can't afford to. If you want to make an addon for free, the expect the general public to use it for free. You, in return, have the right to ask for donations for your services, and indeed, people should feel free to pay for such a service if they feel like it.
If the developers stop making their addons, someone else will just gather up the pieces and make something better. It's the nature of the the beast. People will always be looking for a better way to do things. In the years since the very first add-ons were developed, popularity for one add-on became drowned out by the next best thing, and so on and so forth. Just look at a similar example: Wowhead and it's effect on Thottbot.
And let's not forget that Blizzard's support for UI improvements means easier access for developers to utilize these new functions and improve on them. The addition of in-game threat UI improvements did not kill Omen (and it's brethren.) Rather, it made it better and more lightweight.
My point is, the only real "developers" that are affected are the ones that are develop their add-ons for one purpose and one purpose only: to make money. What could be more selfish than that?
Phonix Mar 24th 2009 8:22PM
This isn't really a new policy. It is an old policy that was redesigned to stretch over into World of Warcraft.
Blizzard never allowed anyone to sell their maps for Starcraft or Warcraft III either.
Hone Melgren Mar 26th 2009 5:19AM
Starcraft & Warcraft maps both contained copyrighted content.
Addons don't.
They do stuff via the API provided by Blizzard.
It's been proven several times in a court of law you can't copyright an API
Aaronomus Mar 24th 2009 10:05PM
Am I the only person who thinks the addon devs should just ignore the new rules? After all, how could Blizzard hope to enforce them?
Urza Mar 24th 2009 10:43PM
By patching WoW to prevent said addons from working in their game.
Urza Mar 24th 2009 10:43PM
I'm going to flip this argument...
I spend 4 hours a head for 3 weeks farming gold. I spent 84 hours of my life playing WoW and getting gold. Should I be able to sell it?
I spend 4 hours a day for 3 weeks making a mod. I spent 84 hours of my life making a mod. Should I be able to sell it?
Why is it alright to say you can ask for money doing one thing related to WoW, but it's not alright to ask for money for gold farming and power leveling? Both are "helping" people.
If it's server and bandwidth costs, those can easily be fixed. Don't run a dedicated website, join one of the large mod community sites. OR get Google ads on your site, open an amazon.com store to earn sales referral from WoW novels, comics, and strat. guides.
aramis Mar 25th 2009 2:38AM
I still don't see what the problem is. Add-on developers shouldn't have to charge for their stuff period especially if it's connected to a product OWNed by someone already.
Just because they put in time and effort to create the add-on doesn't mean they should charge for it. It's something they took it upon themselves to do. They weren't commissioned to do it. They weren't asked. They just did. And they did it for a game that is OWNed by someone else.
So explain this to me like I'm a 5-year old. How someone could charge money for a product that only benefits the user of someone else's already copyrighted product who did not formally ask to develop the item in question to begin with?
Eric Mar 25th 2009 12:43PM
With a new MMO in the works they could also just be using WoW as a test subject for all sorts of crazy crap since it has a high probability of cutting in to WoW's Market since its being done by Blizzard
Maybe they are trying to see how far they can go before damaging the community so they know what not to don on this "Next-Gen MMO"
Hone Melgren Mar 26th 2009 5:19AM
@23 Grubba
"It's not "open code," it's owned 100% by Blizzard, and players and addon writers are accessing it under the license privileges granted by Blizzard to do so. I would love to see such a lawsuit attempted."
*facepalm*
Blizzard allows you to code via their open API. The developers don't have direct access to blizzard code - they have access to a programming interface that provides function names , variables and expected outputs.
Addon author's code are %100 their own as you can't copyright an API. I refer to several law cases the most prominent that comes to mind is Microsoft vs WINE. The judge on that cases and every other case that has come up has proven you can't copyright a API as function names and the like in API aren't unique enough to be copyrighted.
My last point is you don't need a wow account or a copy of wow to write addons. You can use third party lua interpreters and emulators to write it. In fact I know of lots of addon authors who longer have wow accounts nor do they have a copy of wow even loaded in their computers . Yet they are able to update and maintain their addons just fine. They don't have active wow accounts so hence are not liable under a license agreement they have not agreed to.
I'ld love to see such a lawsuit attempted as well. So the judge can throw it out and charge Blizzard for wasting the court's time.
Hone Melgren Mar 26th 2009 5:25AM
Take a look at this thread guys
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864749872&sid=1
It's the Mikord author of MikScrollingBattleText (MSBT) about how much work goes into coding , maintaining and answer user questions on an addon.
Its somewhere around 1,000-2,000 hrs over four years.
So sure "someone else" can pick up those abandoned addons. Be sure to tell them they'll be treated no matter than Slaves by the addon community in general.
In fact tell them they'll be doing this for no appreciation , no recognition of their work , that they don't own any of the work they do and when they raise concerns about Blizzard's policy they will be told "STFU Slave you can be quickly replaced"
I thought the Civil War was all about abolishing slavery???? Looks like the South won after all.
barduck Mar 26th 2009 6:46AM
I think this addon issue was blown way out of proportions.
There are other compensations besides immediate cash and there are people who are motivated by other things to create great stuff which benefit the community.
Just look at the open source movement in the last 20 years. Many developers don't see any short term money return for the endless work they put into it. Instead they may receive satisfaction from helping others or doing a something well, fame, self promotion, connections, bragging rights, brand recognition or page views for their web site. Those things don't necessary immediately translate into revenue but may be very valuable in the long term.
And let's be frank, how many WoW addon developers got into it with expectations to make money out of it? It is not like they put a huge fund investment into it anyway, hosting and bandwidth are cheap these days and there are plenty of sites which will host your addons free of charge.
I created game related fan applications/websites before and I never expected to get a single cent out of it, it was fun while it lasted and I moved on when it didn't.
So all those addon developers who are threatening to quit, sad to see you go but so be it, there will be plenty others who will move in to fill the void and will happily do it for fun or the other rewards mentioned above.
Unless it is the bar mod, of course, I can't live without the bars replacement mod...j/k
- barduck