NC soft., fraud and account ban?!

The GAME is Anets property. What you own when you buy the game is the game box and the right to use the game. This right to use it (the license) IS transferrable in most countries, as far as I know. The only way to restrict reselling of a license is a signed treaty between you and Anet. EULAs don't count as they are quite unenforcible in most cases.

That's where you are wrong...the only thing ArenaNet needs to enforce a rule against selling license keys is a ban button. Don't like it? don't buy the game. You don't own the license...the license gives you the right to said amount of space on a server that ArenaNet owns...you own nothing but the box the cd and the manual...everything else you borrow from Arenanet while you play. They have the right to deny you the Privelage of playing on their servers for any reason they want. Hell they could pick 1 account a week out of a hat and ban it and there isn't shit you can do about it.

I agree with you Algen

Like all the game out there, what we buy is the Case, and CD (does the same goes with console games) And yes, it developers choice if they want to ban people for any reasons.

As for the OP, sorry that your account got banned but the truth is that any accounts that is for sale on ebay is probably not legit or got obtain illegally so beware!

isn't that illegal algren? because of the nature of most MMORPG's, ANY content on the CD is not accessable unless you are on their internet server. thats like selling a CD with a bunch of music on it but it requires a password, if you don't have the password (or a working cd-key in this situation) all you have is a CD that might as well be used as a drink coaster.

its funny, Anet still has not responded to my e-mails...

Sorry cole, that isnt true. Anet got nothing if the orginal buyer witheld the payment.

Also support team was always relitivly fast in getting back to my requests. Did you check on the status of your support ticket? If it says updated you might want to put down another comment to speed things along. Especially if they are looking for information from you.

That they technically could ban me anytime for any reason doesn't mean that it would be legal for them to do so. I guess I could sue them for banning me for no good reason, but probably it wouldn't get me far because no judge would accept a such a case. So in a way you are right. You still OWN the license, though and thus in THEORY you would be entitled to give it to anyone you wish. So I guess we're both right, in a way.

It says in the EULA that ANET can ban any account for any reason.

Ebay, the largest yard sale of crap in the world. sucks that happened to you, but like said before: buyer beware.......

24 hours since a reply from ANet/PlayNC. i have sent 3 reply e-mails to them..

i think it should be a rule that if some one doesn't get a reply in 72 hours, they get whatever punishment revoked...

No, it is not your property. You are paying for the "right" to use their product.

You might have seen, while installing Windows, that you only own a license [A license is not a deed or title of ownership; the word itself denotes "approved for use", compare with your Driver's License, it can be taken away from you] to Windows or even all the software on your computer.

It's all in what you agree to, no matter how totaliarian it sounds

This certainly doesn't make the EULA void, you're more or less arguing ethics of the EULA and not what it actually says. I'm not certain or clear on weither or not this is against the EULA (afterall, all the guy said was "That's against the EULA!": a common sign that they don't know what they are talking about Let's get a quote in here)

You, however, seem to have confirmed that you think it was against the EULA and even that you've read it before.

Also, in theory, a Parent/Gaurdian does not have to directly press the button, merely have total consent to do so, if I understand correctly.

Please feel free to debate or correct any of this >.<

That's why credit cards have protection...they pay regardless. Credit Card companies lose millions of dollars a year in fraudulent purchases. It's a commonly known fact...you can look it up on google. The credit card company pays Anet.

Fantus: You can't "own" a license key...the license key gives you the privelage to play on the server...i.e. rent space. It is not your personal property. It's not property at all....it ALWAYS belongs to arenanet. You RENT time/space on a server....which can be revoked at any time for any reason. Anet doesn't owe you the right to play.

[QUOTE=Algren Cole]That's why credit cards have protection...they pay regardless. Credit Card companies lose millions of dollars a year in fraudulent purchases. It's a commonly known fact...you can look it up on google. The credit card company pays Anet.

I work in retail, and if a customer disputes a charge due to non-receipt or fraudulent use, and the dispute is upheld, the customer doesn't pay his bill, and the credit card company gets the money back from us.

sagius, i confirmed that yes, buying an account on Ebay or from a friend, or family member or anyone without actually purchasing it from a company who sells it to you un-used and un-opened IS against the EULA. I just think that if ANet knows this goes on, instead of going after those who don't know any better, they should be going after the people who innitiate the practice.

Go to ebay right now and you will see that virtual gold is sold for almost every single MMORPG out there. you don't see people getting slammed for this. i mean ANet could easily go in undercover and find out the account names of these people (which is easy to do), and ban them. yet they dont.

Also, if Anet still gets money, why would i lose my account? i think ANet DID lose money, otherwise i would not have lost the account...

(until the other day, for every game i have ever played MMORPG or anything else online based, i have always bought my games in a similar fashion, so technically i just found out that it was against the EULA).

oh and i was joking about the 72 hour thing algren, if that is what you are refering to.

Let me end the speculation on a few things:

• When credit card fraud takes place, we do not keep the money. Visa doesn't lose; the person who committed the fraud doesn't lose. When this happens, there is usually a pretty sophisticated entity behind it, and we lose quite a lot of money a day to these CC scams.
• A lot of this is done with stolen credit cards. Someone gets a key via stolen CC, resells it, and when it is discovered to be unpaid for (since the charge is cancelled by the CC company) the account is closed.
• EULAs most definitely have been upheld in court. See Blizzard Entertainment vs. BnetD, a recent settlement of a EULA case. (Hint: The EULA violators lost.)
• There is a reason we have relationships with vendors. I wouldn't consider buying from someone who wasn't authorized and if you think you can get something priced at $50 for $30, you should think twice.
• We do care about this.

I cannot say why you have not heard from Support. Certainly you should have heard within a few hours, at most. If you do not hear from them by tomorrow, send me your ticket number via PM here and I will see that you get a response.

I'm very sorry for what happened to you. But thank you for posting, for you have probably warned a few others about such scams, and hopefully they can avoid the hassles due to the information that you have provided.

EULA was written by Anet's Lawyers, not the developers... just to clear that up.

Gee, Algren. Why do you hate the dev's so much? lol.

Take another look at the Terms of Service.

Generally there's a section in there about the company's obligations to the costomer. These generally involve providing the service they promise you, and responding within a given timeframe to your support emails and such.

A short list, but meaningful.

Nope, illegitemate according to the EULA. Questioning the legality of the lisence agreement itself is an entirely different matter.

Being outlawed (sorta), the practice of selling accounts is generally done by people who want to steal money or accounts.

I've had enough experience with this sort of thing in other MMO's and seen enough horror stories to be able to tell you definitively that you should run screaming from the next guy that offers to sell you an account.

It's just too damn often someone trying to scam you.

OMFG LOL!
Go try playing other mmorpgs, ok? In EVE Online typical reply time is over 5 days. Sometimes you'll wait over a week with no answer, just to get informed that your ticked was resolved and closed for no reason. My personal record with them was seven weeks to get few useless lost items back And you pay 15€ for that!
Every other mmo is like that. And they're all pay to play!

By law*, A.net have 14 days to reply to your complaint.

Whinning that they didn't reply in such complicated case within 24 hours
is totally awesome!

you can sit around and 'ebate' the legality of it, but the bottom line is you broke the rule you got popped. the rule is GW is non transferable, and you transfered it. sorry. all i can say is buy a legit key and try to follow the legal process to get your money back.

Get of your high horse.

He bought it second hand and the seller was a con, he then discovered you cant buy it second hand according to the EULA.

Which paradoxically is inside the box that he bought second hand, opps to late.

And before anyone says the EULA was on the website, dont. I mean are you telling me you go and read the EULA on the website before buying ANY game, dont even bother trying to lie on that one (someone already has).

And if you click on the link i provided earlier you will see EULA is not 100% law, as courts have ruled against and for them.

PIRACY IS ILLIGAL, just to get that straight.

But re-selling a game YOU have paid for is abit of a grey area. The Law says that if you have bought something you own it, you cant lease it but can sell it, the EULA says you buy a licence to play. Hence why court rullings have gone both ways.

I dont buy pirate games, nor do i copy them. I am a legit user, but i hate EULA's as they stiffle the rights of the HONEST players, whilst those not so honest simply find ways to abuse them.

Maybe i need to get off my high horse too.

Yes but when i asked why the white mantle in the divinity coast kept healing the mergoyles, a long time ago, i got a response in 3 hours.

now that im asking something that is a potential threat to other GW players and involves a loss of money for both me and ANet, i have not recieved a reply. THAT is why i posted, i was not complaining, just making an observation. I know how bad other MMIRPG response times are, just i know the ANet and plaync support team are usually quicker than this and was just taking notice to the time it has been taking.

1. im not on a high horse and
2. Just calling it like i see it
3. It was obviously a scam to begin with (to me anyway) so although i feel sorry for the OP for losing 30 clams, I have a hard time beleiving they thought they were buying a legitimate copy of the game.

What exactly made you think it was not a legit copy?

It was a second hand game, i see nothing illigitamate about that.


(edit = We can argue about the EULA, what i mean is that from the buyers point of view (and he wont have read the EULA as he hasnt bought it) he is simply buying a second hand game, why should that seem illigitamate).

Gaile...You should have atleast mentioned that this case is not an EULA case. It's grounded on the DMCA(Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998). And thus not a valid example of a copyright holding up in court. The case was argued around the DMCA and Blizzards lawyers briefly threw in an argument in regards to their EULA in an attempt to form a precedence. You should have also mentioned that this case is not closed and as of this day(september 30) the case is still set to appear before the US 8th District Supreme Court of Appeals. Blizzard will lose the appeal. BnetD hasn't broken any laws. It was within their Fair Use to reverse engineer the application and the game servers they produce, which interoperate with Blizzards game servers.... It's perfectly legal within current US Copyright Laws. The DMCA is not applicapable in the UK and therefore a UK based operation can't be held legally responsible for failing to comply with that law. This entire case is based around the DMCA and the Fair Use Copyright Act...it has little to do with EULAs.

You'll also note that Section 17 U.S.C. 107 makes clear that the United States recognizes the fact that prior creative works can inspire new creative works, which includes a copyright owners "exclusive rights". They recognize that our laws allow others to make uses of a developer's creative works even when the developer has withheld his consent to that use.


Blizzard is attempting to hold a UK company responsible for a US law(DMCA) that is poorly written, unfair and technically a violation of Constitutionally gauranteed rights set forth in the Bill of Rights. There is no way Blizzard is going to win this case. Before you say legal precedence has been made for EULAs upholding in court you should atleast wait until the court case is closed.


Alcaza: I don't hate the developers....I like the developers. I think they've done a pretty nice job creating this game. I don't like the irection this game is going or the the policy of strict ballwashing ArenaNet has developed since release. But that has nothing to do with this thread or any of the arguments in it.

I am only GUESSING so i do not know.

But i assume that the person that answers questions about game issues, bugs ect. Is not the same person that will answere a legal question.

there is a simple and annoying reason why i never buy second hand online games.

C D K E Y

if anyone else in the world (except the developer/publisher) has my cdkey, then its likely im gonna try and login one day and get 'error - cdkey in use', 'error - account banned', 'error - password incorrect', etc.

you dont buy non-shrinkwrapped games from shops.

you dont buy ex-rental games from dvd/video stores.

a cdkey is effectively worth the $RRP that you pay. everything else you could get from nefarious sources if necessary (a buddy, p2p fileshare, no questions return policy electronic shops).

online access to secured servers that verify your purchased cdkey is the real price of a game, and you should ensure that you ensure nobody else knows that key.

yes it sounds paranoid, but geez itd suck to see your key sitting in a text file on edonkey.

doesnt help the OP too much, but im hoping others wont make the same mistake.

Dont buy second hand rental games/vids/dvds full stop.

They are always in appaling condidtion, even though they may look fine.

I'm not aware of ANY case where a shrink wrap EULA has been upheld in court. If I remember correctly, the pro-shrink wrap faction tried to make them enforcible via some UCITA legislation some 5 years ago, but failed miserably in trying so.

Also, I'd like to see some proof to your claim that you don't actually OWN the software LICENCE (NOT the software, you of course never own that). The license is the (non-exclusive) right the use the software - that's what you actually buy when purchasing GW. Useage rights can be transfered unless otherwise agreed (EULA's don't count). You don't buy or rent server space, you buy the right to use the software itself. If you have some sources to prove me wrong, I'd really be interested to see it.

here is the problem.

1 you have not bought the game

A you have bought a one person non transferable account on their servers agreeing to abide by the arbitrary rules and standards of behavior they specify.

2. a game you can resell is completely self contained and needs no outside resources to function (servers, and all ingame actions in this case)

3 you bought a service not a game which is completely different

also you are not an owner under any possible reasoning you are a renter

Provide me some links to show me that.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

This is where i got my info from, i could not find more so i may be wrong. But from what i gather the leasing argument does not stand up in court.

back right at you

for once something was taken in the spirit intended and not construed as a flame

you have purchased the right to use a service they are providing not the game itself.

put every piece of the game on your hard drive, remove client, try to play offline.

you have the game why wont it work?

you need the service to turn the key.

thunder and lightning going off right now (thank my UPS for still being on)

I think our best course of action as both consumers and members of a highly successful community is watch out for each other.
Spread the word about the danger of such devious sellers/schemes and buy copies only from the places that can be trusted...the shops!

I'm sure if we all do our part to tell people, we will all benefit. Not only do people avoid getting scammed but it also helps ArenaNets profits (to quote Gaile "Quite a lot of money a day" ), which they can turn into future entertainment for us.

At least with threads such as these, anyone reading them, before buying Guild Wars will make sure it's a legitimate copy and not be snake-charmed by the attractive but deadly price tag. Anyone doing so afterwards is a fool.

Some aren't born with common sense so let's extend an olive branch people.

Excerpt from Guild Wars EULA

"Subject to the terms of this Agreement, NC Interactive grants to you, for your personal use only, a non-exclusive, revocable, nontransferable (except as permitted in Section 4(a)) license to use the Service, and a non-exclusive, revocable, nontransferable (except as permitted in Section 4(a)) license to use the Software in connection with the Service, without charge except for new Chapters which will be charged on a prepaid basis according to Section 5"

That's why you can't transfer it. They state their right to revoke your account when you do. They have the legal right to do that because you agree to it. Can you go to jail for doing so? No...because EULAs aren't a legally binding contract. However...you still have to play by their rules.

Ok this is where it gets into a grey area for me, and i cant be arsed to google so feel free to for me.

This is what the EULA says, but is this what the law says? Lets look at another part of the eula.

Most of them have a part that say that they take no responsibilty for any damage that the program does to your computer.

Now if i was to buy a TV, and it was faulty and caused a fire. The manufacturer would be responsible, putting a sticker on the TV saying its not my fault if this blows up just dosnt work.

So why should putting a similar note in a game and calling it a EULA make it law?

Now piracy ect is illigal, lets get it straight that the law agrees on this.

So the question is

When the law says you can re-sell something you have purchased (Sell NOT lease in regards to games, cds ect), can they create an EULA saying otherwise?




Software publishers claim the first-sale doctrine does not apply because software is licensed, not sold, under the terms of an End User License Agreement (EULA). The courts have issued contrary decisions regarding the first-sale rights of consumers. Bauer & Cie. v. O'Donnell and Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus are two US Supreme court cases that deal with copyright holders trying to enforce terms beyond the scope of copyright and patent, but calling it a license.

the above is an extract from my link posted earlier

I am quite intrested to see if anyone can see if ive missed anything, as i only had a quick scan on the net.
Ill quote this part again as its the strongest argument for the EULA, they provide a service. (A VERY GOOD SERVICE)

But is this what the Law says or the EULA, if the law does not agree with the EULA then i would imagine it makes it worthless.

My point was that I think that the whole EULA or at least these parts are not really enforceable. I am not really sure about online games, but I am pretty convinced that EULAs aren't worth the paper on what they are written for any other kind of software.

As Gaile mentioned Arena.net does care about cases like this. Credit Card Fraud hits them right in the wallet. When someone makes fraudulent charges the merchant is out the money, often times with no way to recover the funds. If someone steals your credit card, goes to Best Buy, and spends $1000 you are only liable (by law) for $50. Most credit card companies will not even hit you with this $50 as they don't want to lose your business. The charges are reversed and Best Buy doesn't get the $1000, but are out the merchandise. In this case you can bet Arena.net would be happy to get their hands on this guy.

that's a well thought, out incredibly, insightful educational post..however...it's wrong

It doesn't matter what the Law says....they provide you with a service, it's their right to deny you that service EVEN IF you bought a license key. The License Key gives you the privelage to play the game...however just like anything else in life, if you don't play by their rules they can deny you that privelage. That has nothing to do with law...in that case the EULA is valid. The EULA governs how developer can act...not how the user can act. Purchasing software does not give you a RIGHT to use said software...it gives you a PRIVELAGE to use said software. A Privelage that can be revoked at any time for any reason.

Fantus: They're not...to be short and blunt EULAs are bullshit

Nonsense. You always buy the RIGHT to use the software. In online games, there is also the matter of the servers they run, which IS a service that may be terminated of couse. When you buy GW you ALWAYS will have the right to use it because you OWN the right to use the software. In the case of GW it just might happen that this right won't do you any good if ANet decides to shut down the servers.

yes, that was in short what I tried to say...

See this is where it all turns grey for me, what you just said is what the EULA says.

I mean practicly its tought titties, they can just deactivate your account.

But do you then legally have the right to demand your money back or reactivate your account? This is why i highlighted the first sentence, as if the law disagrees a judge can simply say sod you EULA. But then whos going to go to court over a £30 game.

This is where i cant find anything to say whethers its enforcable or not.

Lawers must make a heck of a lot of money on all these legal grey areas, regardless of whos right.

Usually we won't even know who's right, because right is whoever's got the better lawyers...