Curse Gaming, one of the large clearinghouses for WoW addons, announced their premium service today. According to Curse, for $2.45 to $4.16 per month (depending on the plan you choose), you can get:
- Premium Curse Client – Update all your Addons with one click or let the Curse Client update automatically for you. Enjoy an ad-free experience.
- Support the Addon Author Rewards Program – A part of your subscription will go to addon authors, helping them develop and maintain the Addons you love.
- Ad-Free Curse.com Experience – No more annoying or intrusive ads.
- Support Curse – Help us develop new features for the client and website. Allow Curse to keep providing safe, secure Addons.
- Premium-Only Beta Key Giveaways – Get access to Key Giveaways available only to premium subscribers.
- Faster Addon Downloads – Get in the game sooner with lightning fast download speeds.
I don’t know how this is any different than an addon author charging for its use. To me, it sounds like curse is flying directly in the face of Blizzard’s new addon policy.
I don’t like how they are calling it a “Premium” service by nerfing back the normal service that was originally free. It should provide services that would go above and beyond the service that we have been using. It’s like having diet coke just like normal coke, but then adding extra calories, sugar, and other fatty stuff into normal coke, just to make diet “better” in comparison.
Curse is really starting to annoy me.
I’ve been tracking the “automatic addon updating” issue for some time. I was a long time user of the WoWAceUpdater (WAU) and discovering it several years ago was what prompted me to attempt to build a user-interface using just addons available from WoWAce at that time, so that I could enjoy the nice easy life that WAU provided.
When the bandwidth usage of WAU became so great that it was bankrupting WoWAce and they eventually tucked themselves under the wing of Curse.com, it was made fairly clear to users of WAU that WAU would be replaced by the (at the time) embryonic (read: flawed) Curse Client and that eventually there would be two modes of usage for this client – free and simple and paid and ‘complete’.
I’m also now an addon developer and my addons are all hosted at WoWAce. This is because they’re the only game in town to really put together and end-to-end solution for us developers. I can develop my addons and manage the code-changes via their SVN repository and then, when a new release is available, I simply mark it as “release” quality and their servers copy it over to Curse.com and it propagates out to the community via both the direct “download from the webpage on Curse” route and via the “update via the Curse Client” route.
Lots of the recent talk has been quite emotionally charged because many people were very attached to WoWMatrix. It did a reasonable job – not a great one but a reasonable one – of updating lots of addons from lots of different sites/sources. However, it was a parasite application that enabled its developers to make a profit on the back of the expenses incurred by Curse.com and other sites.
A lot of the criticisers of WowInterface and Curse.com’s actions in blocking WoWMatrix from their archives has made light of the cost of the bandwidth a program like WoWMatrix incurs. Yet we all know that real bandwidth costs real money. As listeners of podcasts like “The Instance” this issue should not be such a foreign concept to us.
Almost every reasonably popular podcast I listen to has either a group of adverts from sponsors that have paid for (primarily) the cost of the bandwidth that enables me and all the other listeners to download the podcast as well as its various production costs. As a listener, I do not want to have to pay to listen and the show’s producers have found a way to make that possible by inserting adverts into their shows.
Similarly, as an addon author I do not want to have to pay to be able to share my addon with the community and if I had to pay to do so, those addons I developed would not be so widely available. Equally, as an addon user, I want to be able to download the addons I like to use without having to pay to do so. Sites like WoWInterface and WoWAce/Curse.com provide a platform that I as an author can use to freely distribute my addons to the community and that I as a WoW player can use to freely download other people’s addons from within the community. They do this but it costs them money and time and effort to keep those sites/platforms running.
To cover such costs, their websites incorporate advertising and in addition, Curse.com for example has a membership program now as well which they are calling “Curse Premium” which offers some upgraded functionality in their otherwise freely available client and an advertising free experience on their website/s. There have been several criticisms of the Curse Client that I have seen over recent months that I can concur and agree with.
- At the beginning and until recently it was buggy and flawed.
- All users got full functionality, now only “premium members” do.
It also got some critcisms which I do not concur with at all.
- It’s clearly a keylogger, produced by evil people.
- It’s part of Curse.com’s world domination strategy.
- Etc etc etc.
I tried to use the Curse Client when it was first available and it was buggy back then for sure. It deleted addons I’d installed from other websites (because it didn’t know about them) and it was a bit flaky in other areas. However, the current version works flawlessly for me. It’s been developed and it now works as it should. Next point.
Until Curse were ready to release their premium programme, everyone got to use the full functionality of the Curse Client and now only “premium” members do. Principally the main feature most people will want to have access to is the “update all” button – the single “fire and forget” button on the client that updates all addons at once. And now that the client is robust and stable, it’s the feature most people who choose not to pay will miss most. Expect some wailing and gnashing of teeth from this one. But if this “magic button” is valuable to me because it saves me so much time, it’s fair and right that this is the thing I’d be willing to pay for.
As for people claiming the Curse Client is a keylogger, I’d have far more distrust of WoWMatrix. The developers of the Curse Client are widely known in the WoW Addon community, they comment on the on-going development issues and respond regularly (as in “daily” commonly) via the WoWAce/Curse forums on matters related to both the Client, their own addons and other matters related to the WoWAce/Curse world.
On the other hand, the WoWMatrix tool is available from a website that could so easily be nefarious in nature, offering little more than some basic “brochure-ware” claims about the software whilst giving no feedback or reassurance on the software, the company or the people behind either. As far as trust goes, WoWMatrix is the tool that gives me most concern for “is there a keylogger in this?” fears. Thousands of satisfied users are probably not wrong and it’s probably perfectly fine. But if you’re willing to use WoWMatrix with its complete lack of assurance from its makers, please don’t try and use the issue of trust to suggest that the Curse Client is any more of a risk. It’s clearly far more open and honest about its development and you can interact with the software guys that write it. (And those guys are making some pretty fine addons by the way which many of you are probably using!)
The one issue I’ve seen raised against the Curse Client guys that I think is fair is that early versions seemed to “pre-select” an addon for installation that comes from Curse and is used to allow you to upload information to their version of WoWHead – I think it’s called WoWDB if I remember correctly. This is not ideal behaviour and I don’t think current versions do this anymore but all that was required was to untick the box to have this addon installed and the matter was finished. It’s no worse than “Skype” installations asking me if I want the google/yahoo/whoop-de-doo browser toolbar installed when I install skype. I simply tick “no thanks”, move on with my day and neatly skip having a paranoid coronary.
As far as Curse having a “World Domination Strategy” goes, well there you’ll have to ask them. I’d settle for them saying “we’d like to make a successful business venture from Curse.com” and I’d wish them every success in doing so. I get a lot of good stuff from them for free as a user of their website and addon archives so all good to them. Plus, I think world domination requires a white cat and a secret island base. I’ll let you guys do the legwork on that one!
Anyway, this comment, overly long as it most definitely is, does I hope provide some balance to the “addon updating” issue. I fully understand the desire of people who “just want their addons to be updated automatically without fuss” and I fully understand the disappointment many will have. But as far as things go, I would rather support people who do good things and provide me with value (ie: Scott/Randy for The Instance, Kaelten/CK for the Curse Client etc etc) than throw salt in their eye when I get a little advertising (or “premium membership programmes”) thrown in front of me to support their endeavours.
-B-
It’s a “premium” service because they are charging a premium. /sarcasm
And Curse Client still contains spyware, so anyone using it is being tracked by the profiteers behind Curse.
Didn’t Carbonite just get into trouble for this?
HA! see i knew they were going to pull something like this
THIS is the real reason they tried to kill WoWMatrix
cant say i didnt call it.
This is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard! Curse is now milking people for a service that was free, and hopefully Blizz will step in on this, and maybe WoWInterface will step in and make their own addon manager. This is just like having someone give you a desk filled with stuff, everything you need, then the next day, stealing those things and putting them in the vending machine (The Office reference), leaving you with nothing but a desk and making you pay for the rest that you initially got for free.
wow this is stupid
Any support I once had for Curse is now completely GONE. I can’t wait for Blizzard to come down and slap the hell out of their operation for it’s blatant violation of WoW’s TOS. The greedy mod makers and their pimp, Curse, have somehow decided that Blizz owes them for their work. WRONG! The UI is open for people who are passionate about making tools and enhancements to be used in game – NOT for them to go profit mongering! TO HELL WITH YOU CURSE!
LONG LIVE WOW MATRIX! All mod creators who have sense and agree with the spirit of the game should support Wow Matrix!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve heard about this one for years. This was Curse’s plan long ago when the client was still in early beta. It has been very buggy for a long time, and I only recently started using it again because WoW Matrix was severely nerfed. I will never pay for a program that simply allows me to more easily install and update my addons, that’s just rediculous. I guess I’ll just find me a good RSS reader and start following updates that way.
I honestly started off as a strong supporter of Curse, back in it’s earlier days, but since then my opinion of them has fallen sharply.
yea, i DL for curse, AKA Crude. but i have it set so i dont see ads, so they dont make money.
im all for supporting addon devs, and often throw some money via paypal at em. but NEVER gonna support curde
I reported their nerfing of the free version of Curse Client as a bug… still waiting on a response… in the meantime, I just don’t use curse client or any of their sites. Had this come along at any other time, it wouldn’t be a big deal… but to follow SO closely after the deal with WoWMatrix just makes them look like huge jerks and very underhanded businessmen. Also, if their ads aren’t paying for their expenses, what makes them think that offering an “enhanced” client for subscription is going to fix things? Doesn’t the lack of ad funding just mean they aren’t getting enough traffic to begin with?
“Any support I once had for Curse is now completely GONE. I can’t wait for Blizzard to come down and slap the hell out of their operation for it’s blatant violation of WoW’s TOS.”
How is it a violation of the TOS? They aren’t charging for the download of addons, they are only charging for faster download rates and the ability to one click update. You are still getting the same addons as you were before and they are still free. Carbonite only got in trouble because they were charging for the addon itself, Curse is only charging for faster bandwith and an easy button.
I downloaded the Curse client about 18 months ago and within three days my account was hacked and I was talked to Blizzard support to get it fixed. That was the only change/addition to my system for a least 2 weeks so I blame Curse directly for the hack. I tried to report it but never heard anything from them.
I unloaded the client, cleaned up my system and haven’t looked back. I found WoWMatrix and have been using it trouble free ever since I installed it.
I have been to Curse only once since that problem and in no way will I ever support them. I’m perfectly happy using WoWMatrix to update what I can and will do the rest manually from any site except Curse.
I understand that hosting site like Curse want to cover their costs and Mod writers want recognition, if not a cut of the money that might be made. But when it really comes down to it, WoW can be played without mods and I for one would be fine with that.
Maybe blizzard should just prevent any mod except ones that are approved by them and hosted at a Blizzard approved site, something like the Apps store Apple has. I would sooner pay a few bucks for that and get approved, working mods, then I would support anything like what Curse is trying to do.
This slaps me right in the face. I was supporting Curse during the Matrix thing, but then for them to fire back with this? A few days ago, I could click update all on Curse gaming client. I told matrix fans to try it, support the community and the sites directly. I even posted that here.
Now I cant click update all. Now I have to pay curse. Adding new features for premium would be fine. Giving us a way to better support the addon arthurs is fine. Taking away features I already had and forcing me to pay curse directly is not fine. My curse banner is down now. I think it was a terrible move and there were better ways for them to do that, but trying to get us to rally under them against Matrix and then do this… laaaaaame. I’ll probably still use it, but I’m open to alternatives now. Curse premium is not premium, its Curse as we had it before. Curse premium does not support addon authors, it makes it harder to get their addons and get them updated.
Failsauce!