Hi all, this the yearly check-in on the status of this topic. We saw the cycles came back to display on Blizzcon so perhaps this is a sign of the coming of the deathwheel? Would be fitting for long-awaited mount for it come back after 10 years.
For those coming with the law mumbo-jumbo: no; in the past 10 years no one was able to point out which law would prohibit the redistribution of a “reward”.
For those on blizz not owning the concept: stop the guessing game. They own the bike and the digital asset. “Owning” the ‘concept’ or not is irrelevant.
Please blizz. Bring it back when it turns 10. #pray
Due legal issues because it is given away as a promotional prize it cannot be redistributed for money or ingame currency as that would potentially violate real life laws about giveaways etc.
Edit: Because this was given out internationally, due varying countries promotional giveaway laws just makes it harder or impossible to give it away to only one country and not to the other with restrictions imposed with individual countries.
In the EU Giveaway laws are not unified and has a super huge amount of restrictions on how it should be given away, whether it needs to be taxed or not, private information to be shared with agencies and so on.
Germany
Giveaways in Germany are governed by the Criminal Code, the Interstate Treaty on
Gambling, and the German Act Against Unfair Competition. The collection of data
usage is limited only to the contest.
France
Until recently, contests in France have been more difficult to run and have seemingly not followed EU guidelines and laws. Recent changes include not needing to include
reimbursement instructions, and not needing to submit rules to a huissier before contest promotion. However, tighter data laws require filing with the CNIL a necessity.
Italy
Giveaways in Italy must be in partnership with the specific social media platform,
although popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter refuse to be
associated with giveaways. Therefore, Italy requires giveaway hosts to include a
disclaimer stating that the giveaway is not associated with the social media network.
Italian law also requires that collected data must be hosted on an Italian server, which is not possible on social media. The only exception is that the giveaway prize must be
worth less than 1€.
Spain
In Spain, random drawings to determine a winner must be conducted in the country.
Sponsors must pay a gambling tax of 10% of the value of the prize. Terms and
conditions of the giveaway must be in Spanish and available to participants before entry.
Poland
In Poland, all games of chance, including giveaways, are regulated heavily. Every
aspect of the giveaway must take place in Poland. Permits and bank guarantees are
required.
Netherlands
The prize value of giveaways in the Netherlands must not exceed €100,000 per year.
There is a maximum of one game of chance per organization a year, with a maximum of 20 drawings per game of chance.
Again, the argument stands: no one yet (even in that famous blue post) was able to point out the law that prohibits the redistribution of a “price”/“reward”.
E.g, Tyrael’s charger was also a FOMO and part of a promotion, yet it - finally; thank you blizz! - it came back.
Yes, a bit different dimension as the Deathwheel was a “prize” for a contest” and not a “reward” for a “promotion”, but same FOMO and again - no one was able to point out which law would handle these things separately on a way where redistribution would be prohibited. E.g if there is a contest where you can win a t-shirt, there is nothing about not being able to give out more from the same t-shirt in another contest or in some other circumstance. I also digged up the code at the time and found nothing on it. Someone once here in the forums brought up a semi-related finding, which again did not mention anything about the redistribution would be prohibited (rather that that if a contest is time-limited, it must be made sure everyone is informed properly). So there is nothing (so far) that would prohibit this.
It is either a grey area in terms of law, or blizz is unsure how to “compensate” the alliance reward. Tbf, they could just take the alliance mount off the vendor and add both to the Trading post.
It wasn’t a fomo reward though. I wanted the Alliance to win so I’d get the Alliance bike and they lost. However I was later able to buy the Alliance bike for 100k.
It was reverse fomo for me, Alliance lost making it seem like we’d miss out then Blizzard made it buyable from a vendor.
These quotes are very much irrelevant in this argument; still these are not saying anything on the possibility of the redestribution of the rewards. Try to see the actual problem.
I wasn’t there, I don’t have either bike, hey and I just simply don’t care either. I got loads of cool stuff from the times I have played WoW. Why would I ever want something from an event I didn’t take part in.
Generally Blues do not handle the legalese or discuss with the public about this, it is not surprising then that they did not quote the specific laws as that is not their job but the Legal team which also do not correspond with the public but only with other Legal professionals.
The point stands until proven otherwise other then a “no u” as that is not deemed a valid source.
FOMO here is the idea to log in in a given time period to get the price. Btw, this also means that you were able to get the reward even if you didn’t participate in the contest; and similarly, you became ineligible for the reward even if you participated in the contest. FYI I already raised this as a hole in the entire picture, a few years ago in another post. This was clearly not your regular contest with every rule being followed for it to be a definitive “contest”, so it is also debatable if any contest-related law can really be enforced upon it (if there is any - note that we still don’t know this).
Not sure what you refer to. As I already pointed out these sayings that it is a “legal issue” is not a satisfactory or useful answer to the problem. They say “legal issue” but they have no idea of the specifics. The fact is, no one seems to know the exact details which makes one question “is there really such detail at all?”. This “legal issues” kind of answer is the equivalent of “just because” type of answer; when you don’t know why but it just looks good answer (which in this case is not even good).
Thank you for your input tho!
Edit: otherwise yes - I’m indeed challenging the initial idea that it is actually a “legal issue”. If it was, there would be a clear and definitive answer to this topic. “Legal issue” is neither.
This has been discussed many times and despite a legion of armchair lawyers with a law degree from Wikipedia claiming they know better than Blizzard’s legal team all loudly declaring it is possible it obviously isnt as has already been shown countless times.
The warlords deathwheel truly is the poster child of fomo.
Exactly my issue. Doesn’t matter which side you are looking at, no one seems to know exactly why this would be allowed or prohibited to redistribute the mount. The reason why there are so many posts about this is because there is no definitive answer on why it would be prohibited. Both sides only seem to tryhard their standpoint backed with irrelevant information in a desperate attempt to give sense to their argument (see instances of this above with people saying “it is a legal issue” again in this thread as well). I get that their answer is trying to help, but the problem is that it being a “legal reason” is not a valid answer. It is like saying that a bench is a bench because it is bench… I cannot emphasize more clearly that the problem with this answer is that it is not answering the question, mainly because it lacks the elements that would make it a valid answer.
My take on this is why are people trying to enforce this “legal reasons” idea when no one is able to bring up the exact details of this answer. At this stage this answer is undecidable if true or false.
Any argument/thought I saw so far being brought up around this why the redistribution should be prohibited is false because all failed on a principal level - and as such, unsatisfactory.
I’d also understand that it is added together from multiple factors, like the law (whatever that is) + the contractual obligations for the contest elements, but this fundamentally fails with the fact that the alliance mount being available still. So the horde mount being available should be purely defined by the law part, but this no one was able to confirm in any way in the past 10 years which part of the law prohibits this.
