Jagex: Nuking Bots, Suing Cheaters, Sends Official Warning

Yesterday was bot nuking day at Runescape, and according to Jagex it has been an overwhelming success not just in cleaning up the game, but disabling 98% of the bots and gold farmers. Something has come to my attention from another player about receiving an email claiming to be from Jagex, offering amnesty and a last chance if the user no longer cheated. If the player continued botting, however, the email threatened to add their name to a list of defendants in Jagex Vs John Does, a pending lawsuit in the District Court in California.

The email is real, as Jagex confirmed on their forums. Check it out below:

Dear Player,

We have strong evidence that you may have purchased and used botting software in the past, specifically ibot software.

Botting and the cheating it brings is destroying your game, violates Jagex’s rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and any player that continues to engage in botting activity has no place in our community.

As part of bot nuke week we are offering you a 1 time amnesty and settlement lifeline, which is a chance to reform and change your ways. We’d like you to contribute to the community in a positive way, to compete on a level playing field as everyone else does and play in the true spirit of the game, with integrity. All of your accounts, main and otherwise, are now on our watch list and will be monitored for the use of ibot and all other inappropriate third-party software. Regardless of who you are or how long you’ve been with us, if you decide to cheat and bot ever again we will have no hesitation in: (1) permanently removing your account from our wonderful community in order to protect Jagex’s rights under the DMCA, and (2) naming you as a defendant in Jagex Limited v. John Does, which is a lawsuit based on DMCA violations that is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Civ. Action No. SACV11-00969-CJC).

Please note that this amnesty and settlement offer is protected under Fed. R. Evid. 408. If you ignore our offer and instead continue use botting software, we reserve our rights to pursue statutory damages against you for between $200 to $2,500 per act of past, present, and/or future botting in accordance with 17 U.S.C. 1203(c)(3).

We do hope you make the morally sound and lawful choice of turning your back on bots. We look forward to seeing you in game having fun in a way that is true to the spirit of fair play and respectful to your fellow players.

Yours sincerely,
Mark Gerhard

You can find the thread confirming this at: 14-15-831-63310676 (Enter this into the “jump to thread” form on the forums itself). But wait! There’s more! Mark Gerhard promises yet another update today in Project Clusterfutterer (they’re going to keep making me say that, aren’t they?) with more updates later this week to combat the remaining 2%.