Blizzard locks you out of account if you don't agree to new terms; no ownership, forced arbitration

It kind of blows my mind that forced arbitration is legal at all.

"Maybe if Activision gets bought by Microsoft, Blizzard won't be as scummy."

Hahaha, nope.

Between the company rape culture and enabling internet & gambling addiction, Blizzard is dead to me.

Support your local private servers.

First Roku did a quick force TOS change before a beach disclosure, now Blizzard is mysteriously forcing a change to their TOS. I have no idea what's coming next. Seems like it's going to become part of the breach playbook to minimize financial loss. Maybe there will be a law against it in... oh...15 years?

If I don't own the product after purchase, the button shouldn't say "buy/purchase" it should say "rent".

Fuck Blizzard. Haven't used them since the censorship bullshit they pulled over Hong Kong.

This is not unique to Blizzard, and has nothing to do with their latest EULA changes. Binding arbitration has been part of their EULA for years, long before the latest one arrived. (The earliest copy I've found is from 2018, and I don't think it was new even then.)

For reference, here's a diff showing the latest changes:
https://rentry.co/yuu78kqd

Both that and the unilateral changing of terms post-sale are horrible practices that we should all pressure our legislators to make illegal, and perhaps reject by voting with our wallets, but singling out one company for it takes attention away from the larger issue: It has been widespread in the software industry for a long time.

Hopefully the lesson people are slowly learning is to walk away from these systems.

I understand why Louis likes privacy.com so much. But he really needs to stop telling people to use them as a means of stopping payment with scummy vendors and companies so frivolously without having a disclaimer that it can open that person up to getting their credit dinged for non-payment.

Maybe he doesn't care about such things, but his viewers might.

To get around the Blizzard dark pattern the "right way", agree to the EULA, login, cancel subscriptions, remove payment details, close account (if possible), stop using Battle.net, done. Now the EULA is irrelevant. This also has the knock on effect of being the path that Blizzard/Activision/MS will actually notice since it will cost them money at scale in a way they can't explain away as childish internet trolling.

Edit: a word (irreverent > irrelevant)

The funny thing is by forcing you to agree to the new terms, the contract can be challenged since one side was coerced to sign it (and didn't get a chance to sign in voluntarily!).

US courts tend to favor corporations over end users, so there's still a strong chance a judge will throw the case out anyway, but because this is such an act of bad faith in US contract law, a judge might also rule in the end-user's favor just to make an example out of Blizzard for being such a dick.

PS: Steam did this a long time ago. I've never had any disagreements with Steam but some folks have. I don't know if anyone's had the account bricked, which Blizzard, EA and Ubisoft have done.

This seems to be the new norm, first Roku, now Blizzard.

Worthless company. Hope they go bankrupt.

I have less reasons to feel bad about pirating everything day by day

How can they "force" anything if you dont sign? By not agreeing to new terms.. you dont agree to the terms. Wouldnt having it any other way just be insanity? Like i could write "contract" here that by viewing it you agree to it and if you dont agree, i could still claim that some part of it applies because it reads so in the contract. Or I have some other contract that is agreeable and someone signs it, then I change the terms and other party can't reject them all because of something in the first contract.

This doesn't affect me, because I stopped buying Blizzard's shit games after the BnetD lawsuit.

k, I'll continue to not ever buy their games

hopefully a class action lawsuit in the making. i wouldnt think doing this would hold up in court would it? INAL tho

Common Blizzard L

Let your House of Representative member know that you do not want forced arbitration.

That's very Roku of them

Don't buy games from such vultures

I don't have time to check a video, but isn't it true for any service that it you don't agree to the new ToS, your contract is terminated?

What makes this case so special?

Edit: or is it that people only found out now that the games they bought were online-only and that they're at the mercy of the publisher?

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/5YU8xw_Q_P8?si=-tfKQX43lds7yGBE

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Hmm, now if they were forced to export your data, if you don't agree.

Btw, there should really be some sort of legal "usage license" you can use with other providers, since you don't own the game you buy. If not, it's just a scam.

I haven't watched Louis' video, but I do have a Blizzard account, and up until a couple of days ago I had an active WoW subscription (ended because I wanted to play other games, not to make a point).

I didn't get presented with any new terms recently, presumably I will in the future should I decide to sign up again, or even dip in on a free trial account.

I did look up the terms though. I'm not in the US so it's not clear if I'd be bound by it anyway but not only do they have an opt-out clause (11.A.vi) they're actually less egregious than some EULAs, allowing opt-out via email, rather than requiring a mailed in letter (Roku) and being prominently highlighted at the top.

Lot of folks here dreaming about them going bankrupt, I have to say, I think that's wishful thinking. The current WoW expansion has been very successful with the highest signups and retention in a long time as they've apparently figured out what players actually want. Even without their other IP's they're doing ok.

Nothing of value will be lost when Blizzard files for chapter 13 ;)

OMG, Blizzard?! How could they?!? -.-

Darth Vader would be proud...

Praise Microsoft

Well you don't own the games and they are just games