In a move that shows their willingness to take all possible actions to protect StarCraft II's multiplayer experience, Blizzard Entertainment has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Los Angeles against three programmers who - allegedly - made and sold hacks for StarCraft II.
Blizzard has already banned 5,000 StarCraft II players who used hacks and trainers while playing online. According to the company, the banned cheaters are prohibited from joining Battle.net forever.
With the new move, Blizzard aims to penalize the programmers who made those tools in the first place. The lawsuit accuses two Canadian programmers, "Permaphrost" and "Cranix," and a Peruvian one, "Linuxawesome", as well as others not individually identified. The suit claims that the defendants have committed and induced others to commit copyright infringement.
"Just days after the release of StarCraft II, Defendants already had developed, marketed, and distributed to the public a variety of hacks and cheats designed to modify (and in fact destroy) the StarCraft II online game experience," Blizzard said in the filing.
"The harm to Blizzard from Defendants' conduct is immediate, massive and irreparable. By distributing the Hacks to the public, Defendants cause serious harm to the value of StarCraft II. Among other things, Defendants irreparably harm the ability of Blizzard's legitimate customers (i.e. those who purchase and use unmodified games) to enjoy and participate in the competitive online experience."
"That, in turn, causes users to grow dissatisfied with the game, lose interest in the game, and communicate that dissatisfaction, thereby resulting in lost sales of the game or 'add-on' packs and expansions thereto."
In the lawsuit Blizzard asks to deprive the hackers from all money earned from the hacks, to have the trainers and hacking tools removed from distribution and seeks damages for itself.