I completely agree with this move and pretty ashamed not to figure it out myself. It's pretty obvious.
 

I guess EVE Online has done something no other game based on viable player communities has ever done before and somehow doesn't need word of mouth or free PR after all...
 

Interesting.

My iPhone skill ap going away was the beginning of my end with EVE. There was some he-said/she-said and typical forum drama but it was intellectual property related. So IP issues have been swirling for a while.

One one hand, I am very wary with company's and IP and some of their draconian ideas.

On the other hand, this is CCP once again showing leadership in the MMO space.

But then I got puzzled. It has to be about the ad revenue. There is no way that getting $99 from a few ap makers and fan sites is worth the legal fees or backlash.

Luckily for Blizzard, this should distract some of the Egalitarian Police away from the flaming lion. If the city of Philadelphia would charge Tobold $300 for his Coffee button, is it unreasonable for CCP to get a third of that amount?

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2010/08/taxing-blogs-and-hurting-google.html
 

It's a smart thing to do. Should they try to enforce it on small blogs and apps it will harm them. But if they only enforce it on the big players it will be beneficial.

More money in CCPs hands is always good.
 

This is just insane. That means we must kill Gamefaqs if this model spreads. And this breaks the fair use of IP in some countries. And I have even found a nice workaround. Create domain A - get free license and post guides there. Then get domain B. Load domain A in invisible iframe. Put all you want donate and ads around it.
 

3) This project is not about CCP making money.
The lady doth protest too much. While I don't think that they'll expect make a penny of profit on this, it's clear that CCP doesn't want third-party support to be a cost center anymore and are willing to sacrifice the unquantifiable PR and network effect benefits to do so.
 

Simple legal bullying - leaving the ambiguity of whether a court would treat anyones little website as fair use.

Just standard corporate thuggery because...they can and it may be profitable to do so.

Maybe CCP wanted to keep up with blizzards past 'real id' BS, and have their own 'store all my urine in jars' kinda plan.
 

Publicly available game databases interfere with game design by removing discovery as a game play element. So I'll argue shutting them down with IP law could be a good thing.
 

May i quote Terry Pratchett here (and hope it doesent get me into jail :)
Nanny Ogg gave this the same consideration as would a nuclear physicist who'd just been told that someone was banging two bits of sub-critical uranium together to keep warm.
 

I've got a better quote from the Eve-O forums:

"You are charging the people who work for free to make your game better you asshat!"