Good day everyone,
So the EULA for players under the umbrella of WG NA is having a few revisions and being tied in with it’s Terms of Service. There’s nothing particularly new in it, however the World of Warships community on Reddit have pointed out a few items of curiosity that some of you are undoubtedly familiar with, and will be interesting to see debated in the comments. Now, being the EULA for WG NA, this applies to World of Tanks, WoT Console, Warships, Warplanes et. al.:
- Change to ownership
“5.4 Ownership of Your Account. NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY HEREIN, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOU SHALL HAVE NO OWNERSHIP OR OTHER PROPERTY INTEREST IN YOUR ACCOUNT, AND THAT ALL RIGHTS IN AND TO YOUR ACCOUNT ARE AND SHALL FOREVER BE OWNED BY AND INURE TO THE BENEFIT OF WARGAMING. YOU FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO CLAIM, RIGHT, TITLE, OWNERSHIP, OR OTHER PROPRIETARY INTEREST IN THE ADDITIONAL FEATURES (AS DEFINED BELOW) THAT YOU UNLOCK OR ACCUMULATE, REGARDLESS OF ANY CONSIDERATION OFFERED OR PAID IN EXCHANGE FOR SUCH ADDITIONAL FEATURES. FURTHERMORE, WARGAMING SHALL NOT BE LIABLE IN ANY MANNER FOR THE DESTRUCTION, DELETION, MODIFICATION, IMPAIRMENT, HACKING, OR ANY OTHER DAMAGE OR LOSS OF ANY KIND CAUSED TO THE GAME CONTENT OR ADDITIONAL FEATURES, INCLUDING THE DELETION OF GAME CONTENT OR ADDITIONAL FEATURES UPON THE TERMINATION OR EXPIRATION OF YOUR ACCOUNT.”
Now, unlike the linked Reddit post, most of us know this has always been the case, and has been for digital goods for some time. Though with the recent announcement of changes to PMM tanks in the future, it’d interesting to hear your opinions on it.
9.3.6 the Fansite will not post material that is disparaging, illegal or infringes on the rights of any third party or that damages (or that might damage) the reputation of Wargaming or of any of the Games;
9.4 If you fail to comply with any of the terms set out in this section, we reserve the right to terminate your license over the Fansite Content and also to close your Account.
EDIT: For clarification- a ‘fansite’ in this case is a site designed with a WG provided package of designs and other content. Things like Reddit and this blog aren’t included in this definition. Apologies for any confusion.
Now, we all know a certain development team in WG NA’s area that pushes the line over something like this, but it is interesting to see something like this in writing, especially with users being hit by unfair moderation across WG’s game forums, and NA chirping in with little idea of what was going on during the whole mess with SirFoch last year.
So what do you all think? With some of the changes being announced in World of Tanks, and WG’s lack of grace in handling negative feedback in the past, these sorts of things are pretty relevant again. With EULAs being a bit of a grey area, with certain states here having firm stances on these sorts of things not being legally binding in any way, this could be an interesting topic for discussion.
For those interested in reading over the full EULA, take a look here.
For further clarification, yes, none of this is anything specifically new, as stated in the opening. This is merely meant for discussion considering recent changes announced for testing.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? How can WG get away with this sit. Any idea when this mess is going to take effect?
When article 13 does
This isn’t new information. It’s what you agree to everytime a new update rolls out and you once again blindly agree to the EULA and ToS. Even says it in this article “For further clarification, yes, none of this is anything specifically new, as stated in the opening. This is merely meant for discussion considering recent changes announced for testing.”
Stalinist with a corporate imperialist twist (of the nuts). Ironically WG are doing more to damage the rep of WG than all the users could combined.
Unironically they will find why Communism didnt work. Again~
More sanctions to the Russian market pls~
“More sanctions to the Russian market”.
Because sanctions to Russia will be so unbelievably hard on a company that was founded in Belarus (yes, it’s a different country!) and has been for years registered in Cyprus (i.e. EU).
So… if I don’t own any of my premium tanks, why in the he’ll would I ever buy another one? Oh I know I will not. Anyone want to buy an account on SEA?
Do you own them thou… Like really, do you own them? Do you keep them in X years when the game is dead and no longer any servers running the game? Do you get an IS-6 in you garage beside your car after the game ends? The answer – No. You never owned them. Just like I don’t own a magical Pandren pet in World of Warcraft. In case you missed it; no matter if these words were ever put in the EULA – You never owned a tank that you payed money for in the game.
As long as the game is “up”, YES you should “own them”, unless they replace with equal or greater value, or you do something “illegal” to cause the loss of your account.
Being a human being doesn’t mean you lose your rights to what you invest in.
WOT you pay your money but own nothing
you buy Premium tanks with Cash money but you own nothing
Wargame having all of there cake to themselves, and saying fuck you now legally if you disagree
always stop playing WOT for a week or two?
see how that changes WG tune, aka risking there €400m a year revenue from just the 1 single product title WOT is all they got
> and this revenue from just 25% of all the WOT players playing worldwide
i want to see the EU ofice reaction or theyre police changes if they think they can aply to the already sold itens they are mistaken , that will not work…
Company gets more scumbag by the day , it’s quickly surpassing EA at the moment.
Company gets more scumbag by the day , quickly surpassing EA at this rate.
The funny thing is that this is, in fact, a very strong indication that WG believes you do own premium tanks. Basically, if you want to sue WG in order to get a refund on a PMM tank… Don’t play the game.
“Company gets more scumbag by the day , it’s quickly surpassing EA at the moment.”
They always were in the EA bracket of customer relations.
i.e. customers are wallets with annoying bits of meat attached.
Not to say it’s correct or anything I’m just wondering why this is getting reported on now. It was part of the ToS updated February 2016
http://legal.eu.wargaming.net/en/terms-of-service/
they can Eula it all they like in 2016 and more
in a WOT screen with a tick box acknowledge button on every major patch update ~ nobody reads that! its in the way of getting to your garage and the battle button
.. WG knows this its a deceit of the highest degree and takes cynical advantage of human nature to go to the fun bits aka the WOT garage
This was already in the NA EULA… nothing has changed. Please stop spreading this silly misinformation.
it is not a silly misinformation, just because NA server didnt cought that up, that doesnt mean that the rest of the world should fall under the same principle that we will not notice those changes,so YOU stop whit the missinformation…
THERE WERE NO CHANGES! The EULA has ALWAYS said the things it says today.
This mass fabricated outrage over something that has been in place for years is silly. And spreading it as if its some sudden change is misinformation.
News flash: Youve never owned your account or any of the tanks contained on it. Not even through youve bought from the premium shop. The EULA has said theis for, literally, years. The EULA has similarly stated the fan sites using official WG assets thats posted disparaging remarks about WG could be sanctioned and prohibited from using those assets in the future. Its said it not only in NA but in EU and RU and SEA too. Because the EULAs were consistent across the regions.
Clearly, not since so far they only change the EULA on the NA server, not on the rest of the world, and EULA aren’t applied equally over the world, they’re are similarities yes , but they for example don’t control EULA on the SEA server since it’s located on china , and there the EULA is done by the Chinese government, and they’re hasn’t been changes on the EULA on the EU server yet , because consumer protections laws , are far more strict, and to be clear the article states the changes they made on the EULA on the NAserver has a eye opener to what may happen to the EULA on the rest of the servers excluding SEA server since WG can only license the game ,because who runs the game there is from the givergover, and Chinese government do what they see fit…
Just to clear it up, the SEA server and Chinese server groups are different. The SEA server group has 2 servers, one in Singapore and one in Australia. The Chinese server group has all its servers in China.
WG does directly control the SEA servers, making it one of the four main WoT server groups, whilst WG leases out WoT to a Chinese company to run, who are under a lot stricter rules under the Chinese government, but I’m preety sure the Chinese government doesn’t write the EULA for WoT, the company WG leases the game to does, but under very strict regulations because it’s China.
The SEA server is not based in China. China has it’s own separate servers with it’s own version of the game and a completely different economic model.
Please read up before talking about SEA and China server!
what good it would be for WG to commit “preferential suicide” just to squeeze a few extra bucks out of EU one last time is beyond my understanding. I am very curious about how they will handle (or rudder back on) this. Losing the (highly) paying part of the WoT community would also kill the WoWp and WoWs titles for sure (IF you could call WoWp 2.x “alive and healthy”) – as well as any future WG projects.
Anyway, as someone who has spent far too much time and money on WG, I recommend not ‘investing’ another € until WG’s future policy and plans are clearly set, and until they start communicating with us on eye-level.
I love tanks, but I started to hate WG for their incompetence, ignorance and irresponsibility.
From now on, lets treat WoT as the F2P game it is calling itself. Enjoy the tanks you have, get a gun mark or two, or a mastery badge. But do not buy anything for real money anymore, please! It’s the only way to influence their next move.
That is what I am doing from 2016 🙂
SNIP:
“or that damages (or that might damage) the reputation of Wargaming or of any of the Games;”
So if you speak Ill of the game and people stop playing, less people join you WILL have your account terminated. Oh BOI
Not that anyone should ever have viewed their Motor Pool as property of their own, but this makes it pretty damn clear, doesn’t it? WG seems to be hedging their case against the shit-storm generated by the Pref MM debacle.
I’ve always viewed in-game purchases the same as paying for football tickets, or going to a movie – if/when you don’t like it, you get up and leave, but you don’t get your money back.
And, I always have to laugh whenever I hear “I’ve INVESTED hundreds/thousands of dollars in WOT” … Well, that’s your own fault – a fool and his money are soon parted, caveat emptor, etc …
With this clarification, and the Pref MM BS, I’ll be thinking twice before I spend any more real cash at WG, and won’t be logging-in much afterwards.
So I have no ownership over THAT YOU UNLOCK OR ACCUMULATE, REGARDLESS OF ANY CONSIDERATION OFFERED OR PAID IN EXCHANGE FOR SUCH ADDITIONAL FEATURES
it’s about the tech tree tanks not premium tanks!
for example, if i get gold and then exchange it for free xp and get a tech tree tank and the tank gets nerffed, removed or changed I can’t do anything about it!
but when it comes to premium tanks, i did not ACCUMULATE them, I’ve purchased them! As in BOUGHT!
Uh, NO …. If WG folded-up tomorrow morning, you’d still have no recovery.
Spend wisely, and accept that you are simply throwing your money away on entertainment. Not any different than movie tickets, sports tickets, or stuffing G-strings … You are willfully parting with your money for a moment’s worth of entertainment – you OWN NOTHING, and have NO INVESTMENT, period.
#Dreams. And at this point I would not even ask for a refund. WG can get bent.
Good, Wargaming decided to finally smack whiny people across the head, especially those who think it’s legitimate criticism. I’ve missed this since the SuperPershing rework.
And back then, I didn’t OWN a SuperPershing. Bought one after it was reworked to try it. One of my favourite tanks, and one of my best performing today. Interesting to see how it’ll handle once WG decides on a plan for it. And hell, they have a bit more of my business, since it looks like they’ll finally acknowledge things like the Defender…which isn’t as broken as people claim, but I agree is a pain in the neck at times.
it’s funny how people are getting triggered by something that has been in term of agreement for years. You never owned and never will any good in this game.
It was exactly like that two years ago when i was reading EULA for $hit and giggles and it is there now, and it will always be.
It’s your damn fault that you wasted so much money without even reading stuff that they put right into your nose after every patch
Literally nothing has actually changed. Tanks were always ‘rented’. Read the comments on the linked Reddit thread…
WG srsly can do whatever they want with their eula… i dont care I sold my wot account for 400 euro and now i use an eBay bot account.
hmm….maybe i should ask my lawyer contact for his opinion or something..
It really doesn’t matter what nonsense they put in their EULA, if it breaches local laws it’s null and void.
From ToS……….. Changes to the Terms of Service and/or the Forum Rules shall not affect your accrued rights, shall not substantially disrupt the contractual balance between you and us under these Terms of Service and shall not have retroactive effect.
“Hey we want to change the preferential premium tanks that you paid $$$ for. Go agree to this EULA so that our asses are covered.”
It is an interesting thing, this may actually apply to games that are not Free to Play Games like World of Tanks and World of Warships as well. The EULA Wargaming uses is a blanket one for all of their products including say Masters of Orion which you may own through Steam. I wonder how steam will react to people asking for a full refund because Wargaming has denied their customers ownership of the products they paid for.