Dislike the latest trend in EULAs that ‘force you to read them’ by checking to see if you scroll ALLLLLL the way to the bottom before clicking “Yes, I agree to everything you put in this tiny dialog box, including having no virtual property rights, you can ban me at will, installing this game means you actually own my computer now, I’m now forbidden to have children until I unlock a tier 5 dungeon YES YES YES LET ME PLAY”?
Irked that World of Warcraft makes you do that every patch, even though the turgid legalese that actual humans are discouraged from reading hasn’t changed since 2005?
Well, Warhammer Online makes you do it EVERY TIME YOU CONNECT.
Get knocked off the server for whatever reason? You get to read the EULA again!
Oh, and there’s two. A EULA *AND* a Code of Conduct. So the installing this game means you actually own my computer is in the first dialog, and the forbidding you to have children until you get realm rank 17 is in the second dialog. And you have to scroll down, then click accept *every time you log in*.
No, really. This is a feature!
This is intentional for legal reasons. Each time you play WAR, you’re actively using a service and must therefore agree to the terms of that service. Adhering to the EULA and COC is not a once-off flare; it is a continuous commitment. So why not make the procedure of accepting these terms more user-friendly, such as having the ‘agree’ box checked by default? One answer to this is that the less effort required to agree to something, the less is its juridical weight.
Whereas being annoyed about this feature is understandable, it may be useful to put things into perspective. It takes me some two seconds to scroll down, check the box and press the button. Repeating this for both the EULA and COC is a five second procedure. Repeating this a couple of times a day and even crashing a few times still only adds up to half a minute of your day. A small price for hours and hours of glorious WAR I’d say.
Personally, I thought my subscription fee was a small price to pay for hours and hours of glorious WAR.
In most enterprises open to the public, since the public contains Bad Actors by definition, there is a constant war between security and usability. Password security is a good example of this. If you have no password policy set, your accountant upstairs will keep using “sexy” as his password, never change it, and then three years and five unamused secretaries later, someone will clean out your bank accounts. If you have the Bastard Operator From Hell managing your servers, you have a password security policy that requires it to be at least 16 characters long, contains mixed-case letters, at least three numbers, and at least two punctuation characters, thus ensuring that the only way you can actually get a valid password is using BOfH’s secure password generator keyfob that he ordered from ThinkGeek along with the Darth Maul nerf light saber, and also neatly insuring that no one ever logs into the servers (thus saving the BOfH a lot of time better used playing with his new light saber).
The point being that when you institute a policy clearly concieved and approved by lawyers, you forget that the purpose of your product isn’t to make your company safe for lawyers, but to actually deliver a fun experience for your customers. Forcing 100% of your customers to suffer continued poke-in-the-eye level inconveniences like wrestling with a ha-ha-made-you-scroll EULA boxes every time they connect to your servers on the off chance that when the one pinhead who thinks he can unleash his brother the patent lawyer to litigate back your Cloudsong from that ninja looter comes calling, you’ll have 23% more chance to quash his frivolous lawsuit? That’s just bad math. And bad service.
Although not as bad as EA’s current poke-me-in-the-eye annoyance of sticking ad banners in games without even bothering to disclose it any more. Mercenaries 2, I’m looking at you. I’m pretty sure Venezuela does NOT have a cult of personality revolving around the latest Al Pacino flick, but you wouldn’t know it from turning a corner in Caracas and seeing 5 billboards for the same identical movie. Luckily, in Mercenaries 2 I can blow up those billboards with my tank. To date, I have not been able to burn Warhammer’s EULA with my Bright Wizard.
Update: “Hey, let’s only poke the customer in the eye ONCE.”
First, let’s start with a change to our Code of Conduct. After reviewing the CoC, we’ve decided that it is not necessary to have you click through it every time you enter the game. However, you will need to continue to scroll through the EUALA for the foreseeable future. While we are making it easier to do that it will remain as it is. I’m truly sorry that it is necessary but for now, due to legal reasons, it will still need to be scrolled through and accepted when you enter the game.
Emphasis in the original. Clearly, the law treats EA Mythic MMOs different from Blizzard MMOs, and due to those very real legal reasons, you will continue to have to pretend to read the EUALALALA every time you pretend to kill orcs.
Also, apparently I am a whinybutt.
#1 by glasseye on September 17th, 2008
DAOC did the exact same thing, as I recall. So at least they’re consistent.
#2 by Kat on September 17th, 2008
It makes the Crash to Desktop issues that much more annoying. If they ever do move the EULA and Code of Conduct to ‘once a patch’ or ‘once per install’, my next campaign is to get them to speed up the time between the logo displays.
That and kindly ask Games Workshop to update their logo. It’s certainly a classic.
#3 by arrakiv on September 17th, 2008
I certainly do hate going through the EULA and CoC every time I log in. I really don’t see the point in making your users go through that each time.
#4 by Rithe on September 17th, 2008
Why not have a checkbox every few paragraphs? Make sure people actually READ the EULA?
Or have a question at the end of the EULA where the user has to type in an answer? Reading != Comprehending.
Hmmmm..
#5 by Amber on September 17th, 2008
DAOC doesn’t do this. When the EULA’s updated or there’s a new patch, you have to scroll. Otherwise you just need to press Enter twice. I think a long time ago they made you scroll through every time, but it didn’t last long. Which of course muddies the waters further. Why is EA’s legal department ok with DAoC’s method, but not WAR’s?
I for one will be complaining about this to EA customer support on Mark Jacobs’ blog…
#6 by Amber on September 17th, 2008
Bah, “to EA customer support” was supposed to be lined out…guess the strikethrough tag doesn’t work in comments. I will be complaining about this to Brokentoys customer support Scott Jennings blog.
#7 by wowpanda on September 17th, 2008
WO! And I thought WOW’s patch EULA was annoying… Thank you Scot you just made me feel much better
I still don’t understand why they have to repeat it, as everyone knows the only people who read EULA is the lawyer who wrote it.
#8 by wowpanda on September 17th, 2008
I take that back. The lawyer didn’t wrote it, he copy and pasted in 2 seconds, /s/g and charged about $1000 for the EULA.
#9 by Meatball on September 17th, 2008
Man…I think they’re actually hurting themselves by doing this. By making it so you have to scroll through it every time (and the Devs even agree that they just scroll through it), people will just scroll through it and miss any changes to the EULA.
I’d bet this is going to hurt them legally as people will just say, “I don’t read it every time, it’s like clicking on the shortcut or clicking enter in the game…”
Stupid…
#10 by Trevel on September 17th, 2008
EA seems to be working with the assumption that their customers are their enemies, these days. An assumption which gets truer each day, mind, but that’s hardly call for congratulations on their part — particularly since their enemies are generally NOT their customers.
#11 by glasseye on September 17th, 2008
“DAOC doesn’t do this. When the EULA’s updated or there’s a new patch, you have to scroll. Otherwise you just need to press Enter twice.”
Okay yeah, so they make you look at the EULA, instead of scrolling through it and clicking a button.
Shrug.
#12 by Jason Ballew on September 17th, 2008
Yeah, the EULA and splash screens are annoying as hell. Why is it that I can’t start a game (any game, any platform) without watching a lot of crap?
I want to hit the game icon, type in my user name and password (if required by the game), and then GO.
All this other crap should be first launch only. With EULA relegated to first launch and patches.
It’s as bad as the enforced commercials at the beginning of DVDs. Quit annoying your customer base, people.
#13 by Jaera on September 17th, 2008
Oh dear god, I thought it was a bug. What kind of idiots make you click through something that annoying twice every time you want to play (or come back from a crash, which for me is about once an hour)? Not to mention the fact that I lag so hard on that screen that it takes me about 15 seconds per box to get the damn scrollbar to the bottom. That is so stupid! I was consoling myself thinking they would fix it.
*weeps*
#14 by Jerid on September 17th, 2008
Unless it was changed since earlier in the Beta (I admit I havn’t logged in for several months) here’s a tip (straight from one of the devs when I complained about it to him):
When you get to the screen, hit tab twice (or mabey three times) and then hit space.
#15 by Moorgard on September 17th, 2008
It wouldn’t be so terrible if the scroll bars were not FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE to click on. At least make them easier to deal with, please.
The other thing is that they obviously didn’t design the login with the thought that the EULA and Conduct boxes would be up every time, because you can see all the character stuff going on merrily behind them. It makes the whole interface look like crap.
#16 by Jack Fool on September 17th, 2008
EULAs are of less relevance now that we know they won’t hold up in court as far as the company suing a customer. They are probably still useful to protect the company from a lawsuit when they mass ban users for violating the agreement with in-game behavior. Since American game companies are still having a hard time wrapping their minds around RMT (and therefore a long ways from crafting the games to work with the unavoidable external market), you can expect this EULA stupidity to get worse, not better. In fact I’d suggest that every time a new behavior emerges, the EULAs will get longer and more irritating since legal has even less of a chance of grasping it than development. Shame there’s no way to force them to start working their way through Clay Shirky’s research.
#17 by dartwick on September 17th, 2008
Mark is a fucking lawyer and he doesnt want us to forget it.
Thats the only plausible reason I can see for the asinine Eula clicking.
#18 by darwick on September 17th, 2008
Mark is F–king lawyer and he doesnt want us to forget it.
The the only plausible reason i can see for focing us to use that unholy EULA form.
#19 by Moose on September 17th, 2008
I don’t know what a judge would think of the company lawyer having officially told customers to read the EULA in two seconds
#20 by D-0ne on September 17th, 2008
Wait.Wait. People actually pay $50 for a box and then $15 a month for this harassment?
WTF is wrong with you people?
#21 by Wilhelm2451 on September 17th, 2008
If they could come up with legal precedent that substantiated the need to have me scroll, check, and click twice every time I log in, I might be a bit mollified. I could blame it on the runaway legalism of our society.
But to get that sort of, “It’s not so bad” excuse from a dev as a response, well that’s just BS. Annoying the customer every time they log on should be on the list of things to fix.
This isn’t the sort of thing that starts a one star review campaign on Amazon, ala Spore DRM, but it does link Mythic in my mind with some choice profanity every time I launch the game. And with crashes to desktop, that gets reinforced over and over again.
#22 by Brandon Reinhart on September 17th, 2008
I’m sorry you bought Mercenaries 2.
#23 by Trevel on September 17th, 2008
You know, if they actually want people to read it?
Use a random point from the EULA for each load screen. The perfect time — you’re staring at the screen … waiting… waiting…. Huh! So I’m NOT allowed to find out where the company is based and set random people there on fire if I don’t like the class balance. Good to know! Thanks, legal team!
#24 by D-0ne on September 17th, 2008
Trevel it’s pretty obvious based on Mythics statements to the public that they do not expect anyone to read the EULA or the COC on game load. It comes up every time because Mythic/EA doesn’t give a shit about quality.
“It takes me some two seconds to scroll down, check the box and press the button. Repeating this for both the EULA and COC is a five second procedure. Repeating this a couple of times a day and even crashing a few times still only adds up to half a minute of your day. A small price for hours and hours of glorious WAR I’d say.”
#25 by Jeff Freeman on September 17th, 2008
Personally, I thought my subscription fee was a small price to pay for hours and hours of glorious WAR.
Hey, yeah… only Tobold should have to click that every time.
#26 by Zubon on September 17th, 2008
D-0ne wins.
#27 by Jeff Freeman on September 17th, 2008
Moose, it’s boiler-plate, click it, just skim it, stop, hey, just skim it, click, CLICK IT! JUST CLICK GODAMMIT! STOP READING THAT!
#28 by Apache on September 17th, 2008
if its like daoc you can just enter a command line via a dos prompt to enter if you want
#29 by Sullee on September 18th, 2008
It is pretty easy to pick on this but WAR isn’t the only game with an initial experience that blows. WoW forces you to type in your account names over and over to switch between accounts (if you have more than one)rather than populating a combo box.
Most games do not let you pre-pick a server\character and rather have an annoying staged login. I mean really, who’s the moron who thought playing with a new character was the 99% case compared to a known server\character? Let the cafes flip a bit for a kiosk mode.
#30 by The Alien on September 18th, 2008
Speaking as an actual BOFH, when you care about security the ridiculous password policies are counterproductive. Too many of your users will just keep their password in writing at their desk. The worst ones for that are the policies that require you to change your password every (short interval). Those pretty much assure half the desks in the company will have a post-it somewhere with the resident’s password.
So you refrain from that, no matter how tempting it is when users tell you that numbers in a password are hard to remember and why can’t they just use their kid’s first name like they have at every other job…
#31 by ravious on September 18th, 2008
Mark Jacobs and Lawyers, Inc. really think this protects them more?
Think about this. We now don’t know when the EULA changes. A judge is not going to expect a reasonable person to read through a click through license EVERY time they use the service. A judge is going to expect a reasonable person to read the changes to the EULA every time the EULA changes. So if the changes are hidden, as the case will seemingly be with WAR because you would have to read it every day to see if it changed, I feel they are in a much weaker position than if you clicked through ONLY when it changed. YMMV.
#32 by Laag on September 18th, 2008
Electronic Arts (EA) Q2 2000 Quarterly Report, filed 8/14/2000
Form 10-Q, Securities and Exchange Commission
“We Have Very Limited Experience with Online Games and May Not Be Able To Operate This Business Effectively”
#33 by Chas on September 18th, 2008
This is a bit of a legal mess for online games, and it will only get worse.
If you want the EULA to only appear and be agreed upon only when there’s a change, prepare for the EULA to have the legal enforcement strength of a paperweight: the user will simply state that he never presented the EULA or agreed to it. The result: the user that’s subjected to terms and conditions that he didn’t agree to will win in court.
So… you make an EULA that requires an “I agree” comment. Some schmuck will then claim that he’s ignorant of popular iconography and didn’t know he had to scroll (don’t laugh, the argument’s been made), only read the paragraphs immediately on display, and then clicked the readily-present “agree” to go on. In non-legalese business contracts, there are certain legal protections available to avoid the “fine print” game… ever have to initial each page of a contract, just to prove that it was presented to you and you read it? Works like that. Yes, you CAN do without that, but as the contract preparer, expect that those lines in the agreement will be less likely to survive being challenged, as it’s a shell game.
So now we have “Scroll through the agreement, then agree.” Ironclad, right? Well, not if you’re on record as expecting to skip by in a few seconds…. then you’re just trying to bury hidden clauses in an oversized document you don’t expect people to read. In fact, it could be argued that any changes you make are less enforceable unless you’ve taken time to point out where and when the contract changes. If you make a system that’s unreasonably cumbersome, the end user’s has a potential “out card” too.
#34 by JohnO on September 18th, 2008
Extra points for reference to Bastard Operator From Hell
#35 by Chas on September 18th, 2008
ravious, you are right… but unless an EULA is presented and agreed to every time you enter the game, there’s an even bigger legal out. “I wasn’t the person that agreed to the EULA last time it changed. I share the computer with others.”
…and of course, none of these agreements hold much weight against a minor that can’t legally enter into binding agreements without parents…
… but as we’re seeing more lawsuits involving MMO’s, do you really want to be the one with your defenses so low that you can’t conduct basic account action against, say “gold farmers” or “griefers” without judicial supervision?
Perhaps the better way is to basically put the burden (and the rights) on the account-payer, and tie the EULA into the monthly account-payment. That person, old enough for a credit card, would agree and take responsibility for the account access…
#36 by Ashendarei on September 18th, 2008
“We Have Very Limited Experience with Online Games and May Not Be Able To Operate This Business Efficiently”
Best quote of the year, IMO
I think you could also translate it to:
“We have NO creative experience with our own games, so we go and acquire other gaming companies and then force our tired ideas down their Devs’ throats”
#37 by nerd gone bad on September 18th, 2008
I was only getting my Adventurers in my new D&D 4.0e campaign to sign my EULA and CoC at the start of the campaign…you know, spring it on them after char creation kinda thing. Dang…now I’m thinking I should probably get them to sign it before EACH play session. Guess I should consult with my P&P Lawyers again.
There’s so much FUN around gaming these days…awesome.
#38 by Jeff Freeman on September 18th, 2008
Chas: The result: the user that’s subjected to terms and conditions that he didn’t agree to will win in court.
And on the other hand, there’s reality.
#39 by Staryx on September 18th, 2008
I remember way back in the day, EQ made you do this, and everyone HATED it. Since then, the MMOs I’ve played (DAoC, Lineage 2, LOTRO, WoW, D&D Online)have been less intrusive with their EULA agreements. This is like going back to the “bad, old days”.
EULAs are like the lawyer version of a security blanket. Something they seem to have to have around, but it’s ability to protect is tenuous at best.
#40 by John Moore on September 18th, 2008
So, the game launched. And if you don’t enter your CD key into the system by 7am tomorrow, you don’t get to play.
Given that Amazon shipped my game on the 18th, and UPS says I will not get it until the 22nd, the EULA isn’t the thing that is bugging me about Mythic right now.
I wonder how EA’s lawyers define “grace period”?
#41 by yunk on September 19th, 2008
Personally I think they should have lawyers come to our houses and punch us in the face. We will even like it, it will be like WAR in your living room, it is truly everywhere now!
#42 by DoubleD on September 22nd, 2008
This EULA thing is junk. I do remember some one say that by having to acknowledge it every time it comes up makes it worse to actually detect changes in it. One could argue that the normal layman would never take the time to read it every time and by changing it every so subtle would make it even harder for the end user to know it was updated.
Anyways this is what happens when EA has a good chance at a hit, they drowned it in crap. When will in game adds come?