A private server of World of Warcraft is now undergoing the process. Whether this means the end remains to be seen.
What has happened? A few hours ago, it turned out that Blizzard filed a lawsuit against Turtle WoW. This is a private server for WoW, sometimes also called a “pirate server.” These are mostly a thorn in Blizzard’s side because they often offer World of Warcraft for free or because other individuals profit from WoW by operating these servers.
Why did the lawsuit come now? There are some pirate servers for World of Warcraft, but most are rather small and inconspicuous. In the case of Turtle WoW, however, it must be said that the name has come up more frequently in the community in recent months – it was no longer a small “secret project”, but a project with multiple realms that even aggressively marketed and advertised itself. As soon as a WoW project attracts this much attention, it is usually only a matter of time before Blizzard is essentially forced to intervene to protect its copyright.
After all, Turtle WoW and other private servers represent a clear financial loss for Blizzard. Because even if not all more than 50,000 players would switch to the official servers, we are still talking about potential subscription revenues of around 650,000 euros per month that Blizzard would lose.
What is Turtle WoW? Turtle WoW has set out to provide something like “real Classic+” – that is, new content in the style of WoW Classic, such as new dungeons or areas. Therefore, the server was quite popular among parts of the community, especially since players could play for free on the private server and did not have to pay subscription fees.
Blizzard knows the real names of the operators
Will the lawsuit be successful? That remains to be seen. In many cases, the mere pressure from legal consequences has already helped to shut down such projects. However, the operators of such servers often sit abroad, for example in Russia or Kazakhstan. There, these individuals may feel quite safe due to limited western law enforcement, allowing them to continue running the servers.
However, Blizzard has listed the real names of some key figures of Turtle WoW in the indictment as part of the lawsuit (courtlistener.com). It seems that Blizzard has already conducted a lot of research to find out who the people behind the server are. This could increase the pressure further and ultimately contribute to the shutdown of such servers.
In the past, Blizzard has already prompted the shutdown of some private servers. However, this has not always been something fundamentally negative. The end of Nostalrius, at the time the largest server of its kind, led to the birth of WoW Classic, which then led to new game modes like the Season of Discoveries.
What do you think about this lawsuit? Is it a clear case of “self-inflicted” if you aggressively promote a private server and even run advertisements for it? Or should Blizzard just turn a blind eye and let such projects exist?
While Classic is popular, modern WoW is continuously evolving – and now even brings official addons as part of the game.
