Whose line?
March 14, 2018 5 Comments
A couple of weeks ago a WoW player created an addon to inject a little pizzazz into quest giver voiceovers. You can read more about it here and here, but the basic story is this:
The player created an addon that substituted player-created voiceovers for standard Blizz voice-acted quests. The community was invited to upload their own voice renderings of quest dialogs, and these could be added to the repertoire in the addon. I did not use the addon, nor did I submit any voiceovers, so I cannot speak with any authority about the details of how it worked in practice. But the bottom line was, this was an attempt to inject some player whimsy into the game.
Predictably, Blizz shut the project down pretty fast. Here is the Blue post explanation, courtesy of MMO-C:
Hello TioMiklas,
I’m Josh Allen, from the World of Warcraft Community Team. We came across your Voice Acted Quests project, and I have to say, the work you’ve put into it is very impressive!
Unfortunately, I’ve been told that this project infringes on our intellectual copyrights in a way that we can’t allow. You may recall a similar situation with an addon called “Warcraft Tales” a few months ago. While your project is slightly different, it’s still considered a re-performance of our established works.
Because of that, we have to ask you to stop production and distribution of the Voice Acted Quests project. Rather than going straight to delivering a legal notice, they’ve asked me to contact you directly to deliver the news and answer any questions you may have. Like I said, it’s a very impressive project and we recognize the amount of work you’ve put into it, it’s just not the sort of thing we can allow to be created using our copyright.
Sorry for the bad news.
Hey again, sorry for the delay in getting back. I managed to sync up with the higher-ups here again with your questions.
The issue isn’t about any potential monetary gains. The issue is simply that Blizzard doesn’t want third parties to create in-game story content for WoW, and creating a vocal performance for existing lines falls inside that. No one here thinks you’re trying to be malicious – I’m being completely honest when I say we found your work impressive!
That’s about the extent of what I can comment on myself. Anything further would need to come from our legal team.
I am completely with Blizz on this one. The addon does seem to me to have been an infringement on their copyrighted intellectual property. I suspect they were more or less amazed to find out such a project could be created using their approved API. I think there was some back and forth between the author and Blizz about the author making money off the project, etc., but I believe Blizz when they say the main issue was copyright infringement. And it appears that they handled the whole thing with understanding and finesse — they simply told the author to cease and desist, they did not bring any legal proceedings against him, did not ban him for life.
Having said that I support Blizz in this, I can’t fault the addon author for giving it a try. Perhaps I am being naive (it would not be the first time), but it strikes me that his project was exactly what he said it was: a chance to inject some community fun into the game. Maybe he was trying to make a few bucks off it, maybe not, but it doesn’t feel like he was deliberately trying to infringe on Blizz’s copyrighted material. He saw that the addon interface made the project possible, and he went for it.
Couple of thoughts on this. First, it is clearly a gray area that Blizz did not anticipate. I suppose that is one of the reasons they have an army of lawyers on staff. But when you think about it, the project was really only a tiny step over the line that represents Blizz’s intellectual property. For example, anyone engaging in RP is essentially adding to Blizz’s copyrighted story line. Same with some of the fan fiction. And addons like DBM and Bigwigs inject additional voice drama/warnings into the game. The difference, of course, and the part that put this particular project over the line, is that none of the examples I cited actually alter existing game art or story. But the Voice Acted Quest project did.
The other thing that strikes me about this affair is that it shows how engaged in the game some of the community remains, and how attracted they are to enhancing whatever escapist fantasy the game represents to them. This desire is not something Blizz should treat lightly. We have seen it manifested time and time again. It is the foundation, I think, for such things as:
- The desire for player housing
- Tailored music (the WoD jukebox)
- Individual interpretation of “class/spec fantasy”, and how Blizz implements it
- The push for classic/vanilla servers
- Much of the dissatisfaction with WoD’s “time wrinkle” story
- The not-yet-dormant question of flying
All these examples, in one way or another, have their roots in how each player perceives the fantasy of the game. Of course, it is not possible for WoW to be all things to all players, nor is it possible to allow every player to configure major aspects of the game as they wish. Each small player option has the potential to bring the game to a halt by virtue of the cascading complexity of permutations it introduces. I get that, and I can see why Blizz is often reluctant — if not downright mule-headed — about allowing more player options. Still, I wonder if they truly understand the almost-primal desire many players have to make the game their own, to put their personal stamp on some part of it. That is a powerful force, and Blizz would do well to heed it whenever possible.
So yeah, Blizz was right to put a stop to the Voice Acted Quests addon. And from a personal standpoint, I am not big on listening to any kind of long drawn out NPC speeches no matter whose voice it is. But you gotta admit, it was kind of a cool idea.