I don't believe it should be _illegal_ to create, or operate, a compatible backend for the software at any point.
The first-party solution, with all of the historical knowledge, employees, codebase, marketing budget, and so on and so forth, is going to be superior enough that these emulations will never gain significant traction anyway.
To me, it seems like an issue of legal departments getting out of control.
Should the emulators be able to patch code, or make ehancements? If someone grabbed WoW 8.0, with a decade and a half of work put into it, and then threw in a battle royale mode and that took off like crazy, is that totally fine?
This isn't just taking their IP, this is taking their effort, modifying slightly and then reselling. It seems intellectually dishonest to take a copy of a movie, put a new opening scene on it and then sell it again.
You do know what the purpose of IP/patents originally was, right? The fact that companies have brainwashed you into thinking it's "dishonest" for the rest of society to benefit from their original invention is depressing. Why shouldn't other people be able to make their own WoW back-end and offer a competing service? Maybe it'll give Blizzard a proper kick in the ass after nearly everybody else in the MMO space failing abjectly.
> You do know what the purpose of IP/patents originally was, right? The fact that companies have brainwashed you into thinking it's "dishonest" for the rest of society to benefit from their original invention is depressing.
Dude, harsh.
As a developer, I wouldn't want someone taking the work I'd spent years to build, taking a slightly older copy and then iterating on it and selling it.
I'd be open to expanding IP protection for smaller businesses. But something like WoW - it's a billion dollar product that has more than paid for itself over the years. Blizzard doesn't need the protection of IP. It's just rent-seeking at this point.
I'm not sure what moral justification there is for them to keep milking it, while preventing other people from effectively remixing their work - forever. I think of all the awesome things that could be done with WoW as a base if only Blizzard's profiteering wasn't the only relevant factor.
The first-party solution, with all of the historical knowledge, employees, codebase, marketing budget, and so on and so forth, is going to be superior enough that these emulations will never gain significant traction anyway.
To me, it seems like an issue of legal departments getting out of control.