Activision bullies Enemy Territory Fan made website

[CptStern]

enemy-territory.com admin:

"Our wonderful freinds at Activision have shown how they treat customer loyalty. After over 3 years of maintaining one of the largest ET Resource sites in the world at www.enemy-territory.com and hosting
2,535,390 downloads of Win and Linux ET files, not counting maps, tools etc, and initially having Edward Stern (ID software) and Caryl Law (Activision) both telling us that they like the site and wishing us luck, we got this e-mail":

Dear Mr. Martin:

I am the Online Manager for Activision Publishing, Inc. Our company publishes and distributes the successful WOLFENSTEIN: ENEMY TERRITORY™ game and the new ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS™ game, both of which were developed by id Software. Note that ENEMY TERRITORY® is a registered trademark and WOLFENSTEIN: ENEMY TERRITORY™ and ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS™ are trademarks of id Software, licensed to Activision.

It is our understanding that you have registered the domain name enemy-territory.com and are using it in connection with a website devoted to our games. Our company and id appreciate greatly your interest in the games and your efforts in creating and maintaining the site. It is loyal fans such as you who make our efforts in this field worthwhile.

I am writing to explore the possibility of purchasing the enemy-territory.com domain name on behalf of Activision. In exchange for the transfer of the domain name, our company would be willing to pay $250 to you and provide a copy of any one of the published Activision games. Of course, you would be free to continue to operate your site, but would have to use another URL.

In view of the fact that your domain name includes id Software trademarks and thus could be transferred without charge, I believe that this is a very fair offer. If you agree, please contact me so that we can work out the details of the transfer. I appreciate your consideration, and look forward to receiving your reply.

"so, it seems while ET was free, it was ok for us to promote their game for free for them and help make the game what it was, now that et:qw will be a smash commercial success our contributions have been deemed irrelevant and we can have our domain name just taken away from us essentially killing our website, We have almost 400,000 members who associate our domain name with our site.

now delays wouldn't stop me from buying the game, but this kind of heavy handedness certainly will, and could also have me advising our members by mass mail to boycott Activision games.

Hopefully this won't get deleted immediately, but I advise anybody else with a site that uses ANY of the names to expect an e-mail from the Activision bean counters wanting to use all the work and goodwill you've developed without any effort on their part.

All this crap really pisses me off, they should remember it's the community that made ET the game it is and therefore helped develop the fanatic devotion to the gameplay aspect that has been shown in these forums

sorry if this is too off topic for here, but I needed to rant IN the community"


http://www.splashdamage.com/index.p...opic&t=15096&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

Thats naaasty.

$250 and a free game. WTF?!


Thats not even funny.

 

[Warbie]

Very poor show by Activision.

 

[gick]

Bastards. $250? Thats a ****ing joke.

 

[Saketi]

Tha website URL in talks has changed to http://enemy-territory.4players.de:1041/news.php, appears they either got the cash or were forced to give in.

 

[Asknoone]

Disgusting.

 

[JNightshade]

That's pathetic :|

 

[sinkoman]

I dunno, $250 sounds like a good deal to me (when you look straight towards the transfer), but when you contrast the gain with the ammount of traffic he could lose, it may not be worth it : /

Besides, Activision already has enemyterritory.com, wtf do they need a hyphen for?

 

[CptStern]

so it wont be confused with the fan site ..it'll just re-direct to the official site


I guess this would be like Valve demanding Munro give up HL2.net out of the blue ..worse still because he doesnt host his site on any of Activision's servers ..it's all out of pocket

 

[Slacker]

*Shrug* as crappy as the whole offer is, it beats them shutting down the site without any warning or "reward." Plus, the reasoning is somewhat logical.

 

[CptStern]

they couldnt do that it's not their servers ..all they could do is take him to court ..and if it wasnt in the US they couldnt do jack shit

 

[DreadLord]

I dunno, $250 sounds like a good deal to me (when you look straight towards the transfer), but when you contrast the gain with the ammount of traffic he could lose, it may not be worth it : /

A domain name like that is worth FAR more than $250. Not to mention one with an already developed fan base and successful community. Do you have any idea how much a website like that would "properly" sell for?

Let me tell you, $250 might get you Enemeh-Territry.com, but nothing better.

 

[Maxi]

Wow, low blow from activision. I'll definatly remember this when waving my card around in a shop selling games...

 

[sinkoman]

A domain name like that is worth FAR more than $250. Not to mention one with an already developed fan base and successful community. Do you have any idea how much a website like that would "properly" sell for?

Let me tell you, $250 might get you Enemeh-Territry.com, but nothing better.

http://www.enemeh-territry.com/ :O??????

I loled.

OMG everybody send me $10 and we'll buy www.enemeh-territry.com and redirect it to here!!!!!!

 

[Iced_Eagle]

http://www.splashdamage.com/index.php?name=pnPHPbb2&file=viewtopic&p=152599#152599

All is solved, we are keeping the domain, thanks to everyone involved

Thanks to the Splash Damage guys for helping On page 1 they said they will look into it, and it appears that they have taken care of it.

Developers > Publishers

 

[63]

SD wins.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Wow, its like asking someone to produce code for a game, and in return getting a sniker's bar and a sandwich

 

[Shakermaker]

Solved in 24 hours. That was pretty quick.

 

[operative x]

You guys are overreacting. It's not a "low blow" at all. It's a perfectly logical concern of Activisions. Although, $250 is pretty low for a domain name.

 

[satch919]

That doesn't sound too bad to me. At least they appeared willing to work with the guy.

 

[Maxi]

You guys are overreacting. It's not a "low blow" at all. It's a perfectly logical concern of Activisions. Although, $250 is pretty low for a domain name.

For the company yes, for their PR? Hell no.

 

[Raxxman]

I think asking for the name and offereing (a lot) more money is fine.

Threatening legal action is stupid.

 

[15357]

No corporate victory? :O

 

[Cormeh]

Activision have a lot to answer for after some of the crap they brought out last year, and trying to now exploit their fanbase is beyond contemptible.

 

[Reaktor4]

I think asking for the name and offereing (a lot) more money is fine.

Threatening legal action is stupid.

It is and it isnt.. If it had gone to court they probably would have lost the case and could have also lost their trademark itself.

 

[Majestic XII]

$250? This site was offered alot more cash than that from Jolt

 

[Asknoone]

$250? Haha, puny.

 

[mortiz]

So http://www.enemyterritory.com/ wasn't good enough for them?

 

[Kyorisu]

I have two thoughts on the subject.

1. Nobody complained when they first took the name.
2. The difference between the two is obvious. Which looks more official the one with good design or the one with annoying arse flash. Sadly the flash.

 

[Dalamari]

lol $250 and a game, WOOOOOOO!

ALL THE GREAT ACTIVISION TITLES TO CHOOSE FROM LIKE....TONY HAWK...AND...

 

[Asuka]

http://www.splashdamage.com/index.php?name=pnPHPbb2&file=viewtopic&p=152599#152599



Thanks to the Splash Damage guys for helping On page 1 they said they will look into it, and it appears that they have taken care of it.

Developers > Publishers

Wow, I was about to go off. Very nice to hear.

 

[Fliko]

so it wont be confused with the fan site ..it'll just re-direct to the official site


I guess this would be like Valve demanding Munro give up HL2.net out of the blue ..worse still because he doesnt host his site on any of Activision's servers ..it's all out of pocket

I thought HL2.net was being hosted under Valve Servers, atleast, that is what I get if I whois

 

[sinkoman]

I thought HL2.net was being hosted under Valve Servers, atleast, that is what I get if I whois

I think HL2.net is on a few VALVe sponsored servers, but the majority munro rents.

 

[Asknoone]

Valve hosts this site.

 

[Unfocused]

They should give him a Quake Wars copy right now.

 

[Link]

They would have had a case if it was cybersquatters that had registered the site since the project went commercial, but as it has been around three years prior, their case wouldn't have stood up to a fart.

 

[Garfield_]

This act by Activision is just insane. At first I thought they were mistaking but no, they're offering $250 and a game from Activision for a website that cost lots of free time and would be worth a hell lot more than what those bastards are offering. Reminds me of EA but they have great support and offer replacement discs for their games if you've damaged it

 

[Gabrobot]

This act by Activision is just insane. At first I thought they were mistaking but no, they're offering $250 and a game from Activision for a website that cost lots of free time and would be worth a hell lot more than what those bastards are offering. Reminds me of EA but they have great support and offer replacement discs for their games if you've damaged it

No, they were offering $250 and a game from Activision for www.enemy-territory.com ...for that name. The website is his, it's the name they (marketing people at Activision) wanted. (Not that unreasonable...Valve has the domain name www.half-life2.com) Someone higher up heard about it, and now there's no problem (you'll notice there's now a link to the official Enemy Territory site...that was the primary concern Activision had, and the reason they wanted that domain name). What it boils down to is the admin guy should have contacted someone higher up at Activision to begin with instead of freaking out and overreacting.