

Blizzard uses Bit Torrent, or other P2P, for downloads to the user? - marcamillion
http://marcgayle.posterous.com/blizzard-uses-bit-torrent-or-other-p2p-for-do

======
thirsteh
Blizzard has been distributing content via BitTorrent by default since day 1
of World of Warcraft in November 2004. You can deactivate 'Use peer-to-peer
networking' in the downloader to only download from Blizzard's web servers. I
don't see what the big deal is.

~~~
NickPollard
Exactly. They never tried to hide it, they've been doing it for ages and it
helps solve the issue of huge peak bandwidths needed for patch downloads. WoW
alone has 12 million subscribers, and a vast majority of them are going to be
downloading that patch the day of release.

I'd much rather use some of my bandwidth for this than wait ages to get a
decent connection with a reasonable download speed or try in vain to find
someone with a private mirror.

If anything we should be praising them for using the potential of peer-to-peer
as a distribution model rather than just railing against all torrents as
piracy.

~~~
michaelcampbell
I agree with you here, but to be fair his post doesn't go down the "p2p ==
piracy == bad" route.

~~~
marcamillion
I am not advocating that Blizzard shouldn't use this technology to
reduce/eliminate their bandwidth bill. I am a huge proponent of P2P and Bit
Torrent. It's all about disclosure.

All I want to happen is for Blizzard to tell me upfront...listen, this is what
we are going to do and this is why. List the benefits to me.

Don't make me have to download some sleezy 'downloader' (I hate downloaders by
the way, but that's another story) and feel my net connection go to the dogs
without understanding why - only to find out that my upstream is being blasted
through the roof.

Just tell me upfront what I am getting myself into. That's all I am saying.

~~~
michaelcampbell
The tone of your article and this reply seems to suggest you think Blizzard is
trying to sneak this in the back door, rather than you just being surprised
and overreacting to the realization.

Perhaps they are, but I never got that impression. Whether I read the EULA or
saw the downloader and saw immediately what it was doing or I just got lucky
somewhere, I honestly thought this was common knowledge.

------
jolan
Yep, saves them from having to pay for a CDN.

The saddest part is that they didn't have UPNP/NAT-PMP to punch holes in the
firewall for upload so you still got crappy download speeds. I'm not 100% sure
if this was ever fixed.

~~~
michaelcampbell
The post is a bit faux-alarmist, but one point he makes I agree with: I wish
there were some throttling controls; by throttling upspeed you actually get
better downspeed, which doesn't seem possible with the Blizzard downloader,
sadly.

And the firewall issue you mention.

