The Lawbringer: Mail Bag 9
by Mathew McCurley 
Jan 20th 2012 at 1:00PM
Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps.
Welcome to another mail bag edition of The Lawbringer, ready to answer your questions, inqueries, and crazy considerations. A lot of you have been emailing me about SOPA and PIPA, the two bills currently being legislated on in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. These bills make it extremely easy for parties who feel that they are the victims of copyright infringement to take websites offline without much due process due to the overreaching aspects of the broadness of the respective legislations' wording. We as a subculture of the internet do not like these pieces of legislation.
I chose not to talk about SOPA or PIPA because, honestly, I think everyone is saying what I would say better than I could say it. So many people much smarter than I have already said wonderful things about these bills that you should probably read those instead. If you're looking for more information on SOPA, PIPA, and their general mechanics and potential fallout, hit up Wikipedia for a full FAQ about the bill and great links. For a different perspective, my good friend Chris put up a great discussion of SOPA from a non-legal standpoint as a developer and programmer.
My Lawbringer mail bag always has awesome questions, and I'm thankful to all of you who send them in. I try to get to as many of them as I can, and if you haven't gotten a response, try sending your question in again. It might have just gotten lost or whatever. Email mat@wowinsider.com with any of your Lawbringer questions.
No sale
Our first question this week comes from Joe, who has a buddy looking to sell his World of Warcraft account, and he wants me to clear the air on the issue for him.
Got a friend who is fed up with WOW and wanting to play TOR full time. He is considering selling his account. I told him it was illegal and can be sued, but others are saying it was not. Is that true or not? I think it is cause basically he is getting close to $2000 for an account on Blizzard's dime. Please clear the air on this.Thanks for the email, Joe. Selling your World of Warcraft account is against the Terms of Use and subjects your account to termination. You can and will be denied access to World of Warcraft if you get caught trying to sell it. However, Blizzard, the feds, and all of those types of parties do not get involved if you try to sell your account. You just broke your agreement with Blizzard. That's all.
-Joe
Here's where things get tricky. While all of those people aren't going to sue you or call the cops or get you thrown in prison, the person who paid money for an item you had no license to sell would probably take issue over the money he was out. That guy definitely has a fraud claim, and depending on the amount of money, jurisdiction, local laws, and so forth that are involved, this could mean varying consequences. That is not something I would want to have to deal with. Remember the kid from Florida?
You are correct on this one, Joe. Your friend won't get arrested, but if accounts get banned, parties get spurred, and money is lost, there is definitely a problem. The best thing to do is for your friend just not to sell his account, end of story.
Rock on
I love this next email so much.
Hi Mat,Thanks for the email, Aaron. There are some words, names, colloquialisms, and so on that do not qualify for protection because they are too broad. The last name Windrunner is so gosh-darn broad and non-specific that there are probably already 900 other bands named Windrunner out there already. Not to diss on your band name or anything, but the point is that any overly broad names like Windrunner or Lightbringer, without being copies of the characters from the Warcraft universe, are up for grabs.
I am just getting a band off the ground and I think the name "Windrunner" is an awesome name as it accounts one of the most awesome lore figures around. Can I get into any legal trouble from naming my band after something from Blizzards IP?
Thanks!
Aaron
Where you would run in to trouble is if your songs used Blizzard names or artwork on the albums, if you stressed any relationship to Blizzard that wasn't actually there, or if in any way you made yourself out to be something you weren't. Then you'd start heading into willful infringement and fraud territory. Don't go there.
Large companies fight for the protection of their brand names' becoming too colloquial and too generic. Once a term or phrase becomes too generic, it's harder to protect. Kleenex, Photoshop, Xerox, and Band-Aid are all brands that skirt the line between colloquial, generic term and protectable brand names because of their heavy, generic, everyday use. Interesting, hmm?
Naming your band Windrunner is probably not a problem. Naming your band Sylvanas Windrunner and the Undercity 5 might get you a letter or two in the mail.
Mythical Man Month
@orkchop on Twitter asked about the Mythical Man Month concept and what the deal is with that whole thing. Can you still Wikipedia things? Has the blackout ended?
@gomatgo What's this about the Mythical Man Month? Why won't hiring 1,000 more developers help Blizzard get content out faster?The Mythical Man Month, or Brooks' law, is the common way of expressing the concept that "adding more people to a late project makes the project later." The teams at Blizzard are not small by chance; they are they size they are because the money that goes in to them has to balance out on the sheet for the appropriate amount of profit, etc.
Hiring on more people doesn't necessarily mean that content will be produced faster. If all of the team members were on the project at the start, then sure, yes, more people would get the same task done faster, most likely. However, adding more people on to a project clouds vision, requiring you to train and get new team members up to speed on the project and let the natural flow of the work cycle take its time to accommodate new people. You know what I mean, because you have all been on a project where a new person comes on late in the game. It takes some time to get them fully aware of the situation.
When Blizzard is deep into developing raid content or a new expansion, slapping new programmers on the project won't make the coding process any easier because the problem isn't how fast the lead programmer can type. It's not about more and faster typing, but rather what individuals are capable of creating in a certain amount of time. Stuff happens to throw off schedules, but adding more of [insert job here] isn't usually the answer.
This column is for entertainment only; if you need legal advice, contact a lawyer. For comments or general questions about law or for The Lawbringer, contact Mat at mat@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Lawbringer
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Adam Holisky Jan 18th 2012 1:48PM
Question Mat:
When SOPIPA passes, will the auction house still be able to function remotely while selling winged guardian mounts?
Thanks for your answer!
cmb4576 Jan 20th 2012 3:03PM
The avatar you chose for yourself describes my feeling for you as I read the post.
SOPA was shot down and as it stands (though it isn't official until the 24th) PIPA is looking like its done as well.
Brett Porter Jan 21st 2012 10:15AM
@cmb4576 - Because SOPA/PIPA were pulled from their respective house's legislative timetables indefinitely does not mean they were shot down, nor does it mean they are dead forever.
It only means there has been no vote on them and they do not plan on taking a vote "at this time." Only until the bill(s) is up for a vote and they are voted down by a majourity, would they actually be dead in the water. And in that case, only for that particular legislative session.
They could still introduce the exact same piece of legislation each session until the end of time, as some legislators do for particular passions (legalizing marijuna, striking down DOMA, etc). They could also introduce SOPA/PIPA in piecemeal parts of other legislations or standalone bills that sneak it in over time.
TL;DR - don't rest on your laurels assuming SOPA/PIPA is gone forever. It isn't, and probably won't be settled for quite some time.
Homeschool Jan 20th 2012 1:32PM
A note to anyone curious about the "Mythical Man Month", but who's not familiar with project ecosystems:
Think of it like a raid team working on heroic content. Adding new programmers is like adding in new team members. The first few attempts, you're basically assured they'll be subpar - they simply don't know the material. To take it one step further, hiring someone from outside the company is like bringing in someone who's never done any of the fights, even on normal or in LFR. You'll be lucky if you get any productivity out of them the first few times, and chances are, they'll inadvertently set off some mechanic that blows everybody up.
Each system (particularly something so complex as WoW) is so unique that a new person will be completely lost, and will actually detract from other developers' productivity (by asking questions or making mistakes.)
Instead of 2+2=5 or 2+2=4 or even 2+2=3, you end up with 2+2=1.
Windswept Jan 20th 2012 1:59PM
2+2=5
'Nuff Said.
DarkWalker Jan 20th 2012 3:37PM
On the other hand:
- There are often simple, almost foolproof tasks that can be done by new people; to keep with the raiding team analogy, you could ask the new members to farm gold/mats for the flasks the raid team is going to use, while he learns raiding on the guild's alt run, or even by running LFR with a guildie for a coach. There's a limited number of those tasks, though, so the number of new team members that can be integrated at a time without compromising efficiency or quality is often small.
- On the long term, the new team members should become productive. Of course the amount of people that can be thrown at a project is really dependent on how good the management is and how modular the whole project can be made, plus the overhead costs usually grow when teams grow, so there is a limit when it ceases to be worthwhile; I don't think Blizzard is even near that limit.
Of course, Blizzard knows this; they are often hiring. I don't think it's easy finding good enough local talent in sufficient numbers, though; the number of openings they have is fairly large:
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/directory.html
Zanathos Jan 20th 2012 7:10PM
Surely the number of mats farmers (which in this analogy, I guess would be interns getting coffee and making copies) isn't the limiting factor in releasing content though.
ikutcher Jan 22nd 2012 5:51PM
Nine people can't make a baby in one month
D4 Jan 20th 2012 1:45PM
For the slightly sillier summary of the Mythical Man Month: 9 women working together cannot carry a baby to term in one month. (They can produce 9 babies in 9 months, but that's not the same thing.)
D4 Jan 20th 2012 1:49PM
For the slightly sillier summary of the Mythical Man Month: 9 women working together cannot carry a baby to term in one month. (They can produce 9 babies in 9 months, but that's not the same thing.)
Ailuvan Jan 20th 2012 2:09PM
They can, however, produce duplicate posts in a bad comment system 9 times faster than one person.
:-)
andrews Jan 21st 2012 7:12AM
Of course Blizzard can't add more people to get a give raid out quicker, but I see no valid development reason they couldn't add more people to get multiple raids out quicker. The same would apply to many different independent systems. A new dungeon is relatively independent of other things in the game world.
If Blizzard hides behind this excuse they are being fairly dishonest.
The issue of hiring local talent is probably a more serious one, if they are still located in southern California as I recall. Many talented people would never move there, in large part due to cost of living issues. The same would be true of anyone located in Silicon Valley. Some really good people are already there, but it is economically very difficult to move there, especially for the lower level positions.
That still doesn't justify the glacial pace of development on this cash cow for them. As with all companies, they are trying to put as little as they must so they have more money for other things the company is doing (including for shareholders, if they pay a dividend), but that always runs the risk of too little innovation.
Schadenfreude Jan 21st 2012 4:00PM
"Many talented people would never move there, in large part due to cost of living issues."
I think this is the big issue for Blizzard's hiring process, especially since according to glassdoor.com and similar sites (caveat: lots of disgruntled employees) the pay can be a little low.
andrews Jan 21st 2012 10:40PM
I believe many game companies have gotten away with paying low salaries in the past because so many people desperately want to work at a game company. I doubt this is ultimately good in the long run, but they will have to figure that out.
I might be more interested if they opened an office in North Texas. :)
Eskarel Jan 22nd 2012 1:53AM
The mythical man month is actually a bit more complicated than has been presented here. It's not just about training up new people, though that's one of the ways it's primarily talked about due to the fact that it's most tempting to try and throw people at a problem when you're running late and want to meet a deadline. The mythical man month is also about things like overhead. Time to communicate, time for meetings, time to establish and maintain relationships etc. When you have one person on a team, that person can dedicate all their time to the task at hand, they are as close to 100% effective as any person can get. Add a second person and that person now has to communicate with the first person which not only takes time away and makes them less effective than the guy in the one person team, but also makes the first person less effective as well. This continues on and on with each person you add having to communicate with everyone else up until the point where you have enough people that the additional communication burden caused by adding one more person is greater than the contribution that person can make.
True, from a programming point of view, raids and dungeons are relatively separate, but they all have to fit together. They need to reflect the story that is being told. They need to match the overarching design and art themes of the patch or expansion. They need to take into account any changes to spells or abilities or any new spells or abilities. They need to be sufficiently different from one another that the player base isn't bored(imagine your favorite instance ever, then imagine that every other instance in that tier had been exactly the same and tell me you would have enjoyed it as much). They need to have loot tables which fit the instance, but also fit with all the other instances and the badge gear.
All of this requires significant communication, which means meetings, and anyone who has attended a large meeting knows that they don't work very well. Blizzard has relatively small teams because that's the way it's done and for good reason. Even Microsoft who are probably one of the bigger development firms in terms of employees doesn't actually have particularly large individual teams, and they have huge issues with problems caused by lack of communication and cooperation between teams.
Essentially speaking, Blizzard could increase their development team by an order of magnitude, but 1) they'd probably only double or maybe triple their output and 2) the quality of that output would be far lower