Well holy shit. Now that is harsh.

Wow, indeed. This person, knowing quite well running a private server was a no-no to begin with, also piles on the burden with microtransactions? She is lucky Blizzard didn't press criminal charges for fraud and extortion.
Oh she will appeal, but if successful it will only trim down the penalty a little bit. Face it lady, you are stuck with debt for life.

Slightly very harsh >.<. Very good example. Feel sorry for her though, that is one large debt.

Whilst that's an incredibly harsh verdict, and perhaps a bit extreme in terms of the award, I have to agree with what Blizzard have done. At the end of the day, they have every right to protect their product, especially whilst it's still running.

Her best bet would be to not appeal and file Bankruptcy. Let the Bankruptcy Court fight it out with Blizzard.

Looks like someone's going to be spending many hours raiding for gold now :P

Couldn't they at least have sent her a cease and desist letter? Well, maybe they did, but still- WoW!

Overkill

0__O Holy balls. As though they needed the money...why did they have to be dicks? What happened to "stop doing that right now or we'll take all your money. And then some"

No word of warning?

Agayek:
This whole lawsuit seems aggressively unnecessary. One would think they could just issue a C&D and call it a day, instead of ruining someone's entire financial future over a, to be frank, irrelevant issue.

Actually, if I remember correctly, they DID issue a cease and desist to at least one private server that was very well-known, as well as several others. Unless I'm in the wrong (which I may be) Scapegaming was issued one of these orders.
No matter what happened, though, it was going to happen eventually. The profits he took in from Blizzard's property is just insane.

I don't even really LIKE World of Warcraft, and Blizzard did the right thing, but eighty eight million dollars? I'd like to see what happy fantasy land they live in where they were actually deprived of that much money due to one server/set of servers. The three million in "disgorged profits" seems much more reasonable.

Now this is harsh. Sure, private servers are illegal, but taking in consideration that WoW has 11.5 million people playing it on the official servers, I wonder why they are starting to attack private servers.

That'll teach her for hosting a server with a crappy economy, I can't stand private servers.

ouch, do I now have the right to play this:

they already have enough money to buy saturn and all of its moons why did they do it

As if they didn't have enough fucking money already.
Corporate greed makes me want to punch someone in the face.

I don't really think it's that unfair. It's like how they used to cut off your hand for robbery. It's not about proportionate punishment, it's stopping anyone else from even thinking about committing the crime.

Tom Goldman:
Snip

Do you know how long was she running this, how many players and how much money she made?

Depending on the amounts, this could be either be justified or overkill.

SnipErlite:
0__O Holy balls. As though they needed the money...why did they have to be dicks? What happened to "stop doing that right now or we'll take all your money. And then some"

No word of warning?

Like others have said, they're sending a message. Personally I'd rather end up in jail for three years instead of having that debt but they did have the right to do that.

I hope she made some money off the players on her server.

Tom Goldman:
...and a paltry $63,600 in attorney's fees. The attorney's fees seem paltry next to the $85 million in statutory damages, anyway.

This part is really bugging me. It sounds like one of them should have been removed. I'm no expert on grammar, but this sounds really bad.

I've got a course in wilderness survival under my belt. If by any long-shot chance Reeves and I have that in common, she ought to quit her job(s), say "Fuck yas' all. I won't bother working, as I'll never keep enough to make it worth my while", then drop off the radar for a year.

Turn up as far from home as possible, assume a new name, use a homeless shelter as a base from which to get any job you can and start living again from scratch.

Good luck Reeves.

You cannot do much else but laugh when judges pull such absurd numbers out their arses in cases like these.

Holy balls. Personally I think she'll appeal, and any reasonable judge will probably grant that it was an excessive amount. And then only charge her 60 million. So, whatever she does she's screwed.

I'd advise her to declare bankruptcy and then move to Florida (a very debtor friendly state). Or failing that, move to a non-extradition territory and live in exile.

Like they are ever going to get any of that money.

Not G. Ivingname:

Do you know how long was she running this, how many players and how much money she made?

Depending on the amounts, this could be either be justified or overkill.

She made $3,052,339, disgorgement means you pay the cash you made illegally. She will just declare bankruptcy and walk away from the civil debt.

mad825:

I hope she made some money off the players on her server.

thats the exact reason why it is so high. Not only was it ILLEGAL she also had micro-transactions in place to make money off it. It is probably also why it was HER they went after and not someone else.

Seeking to shut the server down and protect their financial assets from others "stealing" money from their IP? Fine. Ruining someone's entire financial future and even life so that they may as well start living on the street or kill themselves now? Not fine, that's just a dick move, and sounds exactly like the sort of thing that stems from having someone with the mentality of Kotick as your CEO.

Its not that much from their point of view, just few more milimeters on official Blizzard money pile.