Tuesday, June 23, 2015

R2/proficient city refuses to ban people violating their Terms of Use

As I have addressed in the past, each time you create a character in any type of game, you have to agree to terms of use.  In return, I demand and expect that the gaming company fully enforces the Terms of Use to the fullest extent.  And, I claim that people who are following the TOU to the fullest extent are being scammed by the gaming company when they are not taking any action against players that are not following TOU to the fullest extent.

I recently came across this form post on r2 wartune forms regarding sharing their account.  R2's terms of use specifically states:

"You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and are responsible for any harm resulting from your disclosure, or authorization of the disclosure of your password or from any person's use of your password to gain access to your account or account name. At no time should you respond to an online request for a password other than in connection with the log-on process to the Services. Should it be determined that you did reveal your password to any third parties, R2Games reserves the right to disable the account."

And when people post things in the form that players suspect accounts are being shared by other players, the moderators seemed to be "conditioned" to say, "file a ticket with screenshots or other proof you may have."  I say this is ludacris.  Back when I was a administrator and a tournament director for a league over in  myleague, anytime a player registers for a tournament, their IP address is logged.  They had a nice system where it would flag accounts of multiple people would enter tournaments because the system tracked IP addresses.  If myleague can do this, why can't r2/proficient city automatically do this?  Oh, they rather scam legitimate players and waste time of legitimate players by filing tickets where it seems that r2/proficient city won't do anything about it. 

At the end of that form post, someone posted a link about player reporting and in it, it states the following:

"Someone is piloting another player's account. Piloting is definitely not encouraged and is against our Terms of Service. Piloting can be dangerous because an account has its purchase history under the "My R2" tab and many players decide to link their financial information, leaving their credit card open to unauthorized purchases.

Piloting can also result in unwanted deletion or changing of a character, per the "piloter". Personal quarrels can arise, which may result in them deleting the entire inventory, or completing an event that the owner is unaware of are common problems. This could mean that the "piloted" account isn't being handled in the manner the owner wishes.

As we don't actively seek account sharers, it is up to you to keep your information confidential. We may temporarily or permanently ban an account if we find conclusive evidence of sharing, but generally account piloters are not sought out. This will mean, however, that assistance will be minimal should the safety of an account be breached by sharing sensitive information."


I will make an argument that if this is indeed R2's intention not to actively seek account sharers, it NEEDS to be placed in the terms of use and it needs to be in there.  Just because your "billing" information is in there is not a good enough reason not to share your account.  Until the statement is placed in the Terms of Use (or they actually start enforcing the Terms of Use to the fullest extent), here are some tips I would recommend on doing:

1. Stop cashing, period.  All you are doing my spending any amount of money into the game is rewarding gaming companies like r2/proficient city to continue their lack of terms of use.

2. Share your account.  Find someone trustworthy on your game to pilot your character when you won't be around.

3. Purchase a mouse macro program.  I am not going to endorse one but the macro program will basically tell you where your mouse should click.  This is perfect to use in a game like wartune because it is a 2-d game.  Only downfall is that it will take time to set up, but once it works it can save you alot of time and possibly money (better spent money).  Some programs can tell your mouse what color pixel it should click (hint: you could create your own bot!) Note: I would encourage people to use bots in wartune because in this post, nothing is being done to players that are using it.

4. Contact a lawyer.  Figure out what rights you have and if you can file a lawsuit against the game for damages Terms of Use violators has done to you.  And if you are considering to file a lawsuit, please contact me so I know if you have a case or not.  (I have considered filing a lawsuit against R2 for damages but I really don't want to pay a lawyer to consult my case)

5. If you are planning on contacting a lawyer, I would recommend recording all of your gaming adventures so that if you have encountered TOU violator you could seek damages.  (Heck, I would go as far as estimating how much money your character is worth and sue for that amount).


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