We have been recently served with a DMCA complaint signed by John Cook owner of Zygor Guides of Zygorguides.com
John Cook claims that Zygor Guides have bought the rights to the public addon TourGuide which we used as the based addon for our leveling guide viewer. And they are demanding that we remove the modified TourGuide addon that we use from our website to Which we must comply. This news came at a very short notice for us to react.
As for our history with TourGuide, we have written permission from the author of TourGuide known to us as Tekkub Stoutwrithe to sell guides for the addon, he was also aware that we distribute a modified version and he was fine with that. As far as we know he is not affiliated with Zygor at all. We have also been donating money to Tekkub to support the addon, but recently Tekkub have stopped updating his TourGuide and removed it from his public github and website such curse and wowinterface. He has also stop responding my emails regarding TourGuide.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Tekkub have received a large sum of money from John Cook (Zygor) and signed some sort of agreement to not disclose any information regarding this hand-over to anybody, as he didn’t leave any statements anywhere.
We’re still waiting to see the proof documents regarding the hand-over of TourGuide to Zygor before we will fully comply with their demands.
It is strange that Zygor acquired the rights to TourGuide when they have already developed their own leveling guide addon, my guess is that the sole purpose of all this is to eliminate all their competition that use the TourGuide addon (Dugi, TeamIdemise, Spugnort, Penns, Gavin)
I am amazed and disgusted that Zygor would go into such length of actually investing money in an effort to eliminate competitors and monopolize the market. I guess this is what they call ‘healthy competition’. My definition of ‘healthy competition’ is sending more time & money into improving the product and marketing, not by attempting to sabotage your competition.
I’m dissapointed that this was the mentioned ‘Atom Bomb’, I actually though they were finaly going to release a Daily Quest guide that they promised their customers almost a year ago.
Coincidently we have already begun building our new addon from the ground up before John Cook filed his DMCA complaint, so we’re not too stressed about the whole situation. Our aim is to make it better that TourGuide with a lot of new features that I wish we had previously, we’re hoping to release it by next week. So its official that Dugi’s Guide v4 is coming soon!
Our Customer FAQ
- Will there be a charge for the new update?
as always updates to the addons will be free of charge to all our current customers. - Is this a free addon, will it comply with Blizzard’s Policy?
yes this will be a free addon and it will comply with Blizzard’s Policy, but the files will only be hosted on dugiguides.com - What are the new features?
at the moment we’re focused on getting the addon working 100% with new ui design and also better guide selection menu. Then we will focus on new things like Auto Translation and linking chain quests.
A message to Zygor, I hope your investment and reputation is worth it.
50 replies to "Zygor Guides Review Anti Competitive Business Practice"
I’ve been a customer of Dugi’s for a long time. I bought a Zygor guide ~2yrs ago when I first started leveling Horde, but didn’t like it. Very little actual information in the steps.
I just went back to the Zygor site for the first time since and read through the marketing. I can tell you that just by reading the tone of that site, it’s filled with G R E E D! Not to mention BLATANT LIES! (no one is getting banned from using a leveling guide! besides, it would be the author in trouble; not the player.) Fear shouldn’t be a marketing tool.
I’ve ALWAYS been impressed with Dugi’s professionalism and ease of manner. Why people in here find it so easy to bash him makes me wonder if you share Zygor’s sense of greed.
Dugi, to me, represents all the good people being screwed by those w/o a conscience! Keep fighting the good fight, Dugi. We’ll keep right on supporting you!
On a side-note, I support Tekkub fully and believe he develops some of the best addons one could ever hope for. He rocks! It’s Zygor’s attitude and penchant for distortions that I don’t trust.
BTW, I’ve been aware of all the TG addons out there because since the first day I downloaded it from Tekkub’s site, I won’t use anything else. TG and Carbonite = LEVELING BLISS!
Dugi’s is the BEST TourGuide-based addon out there! BAR NONE!
-Neville
Zygor completely contradict himself with this which is the whole issue that we frown upon in our forum statement here Dugi vs Zygor
Their front sales page are filled with ‘scare tactic’ that you’re account will be banned unless you buy zygor etc, then on his own forum he says no you can never be banned for using an addon. The original thread in his own forum have been deleted (of course) but someone copied and pasted it right here. http://www.wow-pro.com/node/2400 stating that players would never be banned for using a wow addon.
Well Zygor has the TG but I know u Dave. u can make a extremely better one then the original TG. U will be on top again, and u will have the best guide on the planet no mater what!
zygor sucks i got faster to lvl 80 using dugi lvl guide
I’d seek some legal advice as I do believe if the source code was released in a certain kind of license they cannot revoke it. They can change the license for future versions of the code but I do not believe once a piece of software is released under a certain license it can be withdrawn like that.
I think the thing to do here is to collectively have someone write a replacement and then open source that, thus ruining any kind of competitive advantage Zygor has, along with whatever money he spent on purchasing so called ‘rights’ a big waste.
Exactly! Develop your own addon with your own usage rights and licensing and Dugi’s problems are solved. I believe that is exactly what he is doing…
Forget about “getting back” at Zygor and “ruining” anything for them. Just focus on your own business, make a superior product, and the rest will take care of itself.
You can bet Zygor will be doing the same — welcome to Business 101.
im looking forward to your new guide, what they did was low. they just want to try and captilize so more people only have the choice to buy there shitty guide. hang in the dugi, you and your team are awesome. cant wait to see your new guide when it comes out, bet it will rock.
Keep up the good work Dugi. I don’t appreciate Zygor’s tactics and won’t be purchasing anything from them.
I never had any respect for Zygor and have even less now after all this going on. The price Zygor asks for their rip-off products is unbelievable, and they don’t include festival or the dailies guide. I have used Zygor (someone elses PC) and Dugi’s on mine as I bought Dugi’s but dont intent to buy Zygor’s, and I must say I do like the newest version on Zygor’s addon, the features are great, but when I get to level 68 I would switch to Dugi’s guide to do the quests, because from what I saw Zygors misses so much out and so you lose so much gold and it doesn’t include Dailies, unlike Dugi’s, which does.
I would like to use the Zygor guide for leveling from 1-68 and then switch to Dugi’s on my own PC, but I’m not paying a penny for his guide when he resorts to tactics like this.
Certainly money changed hands somewhere, that goes without saying.
What I’d like to see in V4 of Dugi’s guide is the same features as Zygors has now so that if you have BOA gear, do Dungeons or battle grounds you can still level through them but keep the addon compact as Zygors is to big to use.
If Dugi did what Zygor has implemented and even included some other features on top then WOW Id be majorly impressed and would really like to see something like that.
Im siding with Dugi anyway. I like Zygor’s latest version of their guide, but due to their tactics and rip-off prices Id never become a customer of theirs (Period)…….
ive used both guides and aside from a few superficial things, they both do pretty much the same thing. as for tourguide, tekkub has the right to do whatever he wants with it and zygor is in the right as far as legality goes. how all the parties concerned measure up to each other morally is perhaps a question for another time.
as far as dugi goes, my advice to you is to just **** it up and move on. At the end of the day, whats done is done. no point arguing who opened the barn door to let the horse out. the point is the nags gone and thats what it comes down to baby !!!Try and look at this with a positive spin. this is your chance to start from scratch and to make the best guide that will be the envy of everyone else !!!
(PS) if you think your next guide is truly gonna be the dogs sacks, then do yourself a favour and patent it so no-one can steal it or use it without your permission. peace out.
So to use tourguide you must pay zygor for it now? since its the core addon it must fit with blizz addon polices. the addon still cannot be encrypted, MUST be free (talking core), unless zygor is going to sit on it and never update. 10 bucks blizz is just going to flag it in game to block it from working until its free again like they did with carbonite.
What’s all the huff about? John Cook made a reasonable business decision (although it sounds slimy, good business decisions are not predicated on being a good person) Now we will get a quality addon and that is good.
An important lesson in business indeed. CYA, which of course would include the base of your product. Would you own a home on a foundation that is owned by someone else?
I would not consider a Zygor purchase of competition to be a bad thing. It does not matter how “fair” or “right” one perceives it to be or even how much it inconveniences your business model. How is this any different than if they had simply made a product so compelling that it hurts your business? or if they were to dominate the market in some other way?
But anyway, the end result is that your product will have to have some compelling feature or reason to make people want it over the others. I tried several and ended up buying Zygor’s because at the time it worked better for me. However, I am open to others and I will check back and try your guide when it is released based on the new design.
Look, I’m going to be very honest. I have tried just about every major leveling guide: Zygor’s, Dugi’s, iDemise, Jame’s (lso TourGuide-based). Quite frankly, there is VERY LITTLE difference between any of the guides. In most cases, the same quests are done in more or less the same order. For people to claim that one version is far better than another is quite an exaggeration.
Yes, there are some differences. Dugi has the daily guides, Zygor has (had) his distinctively shaped quest box, Jame’s version was more like a community-based, co-operatively built version, etc. However, as far as the leveling guides themselves go… pretty much the same.
As for the “war”… c’mon, people. This isn’t even about a game, but about a tiny part of an addon to a game. With all due respect, it is not worth getting all excited and frothing at the mouth over.
And as for the legal issues here… TourGuide is Tekkub’s intellectual property to do with as he sees fit. If he chooses to license it to someone for their exclusive use, then it is his right. The difference between Zygor and Dugi in this case? Zygor had an actual licensing contract established. Verbal contracts are only worth the paper they are written on.
However, email, even though electronic in origin, is written communication. Permission given, payment requested, payment received and acknowledged ~ contract. And though Tek owns the property, does he have the right to sell it, apart from breaking his other “contract” without notice?
Hi Dugi
I hope this misery will be all right eventually. I’m using your guide, whatever happens. It is without doubt the most flexible available. It is designed for users without a lot of unnecessary fuss. This of course also the Daily Guide and the Event guide, which has helped me a lot. Supports you in the decisions you take.
A friend from Sweden
Dugi, I am so happy with your add-ons I would be more than willing to make a donation for v4. I would not blame you if you charged your current customers a small fee for the new version. I use both your leveling, daily and gold guides on a daily basis. I could not place a price on the time your guides have saved me. Keep up the exceptional work.
Just because it is common to use ***** or immoral actions in the business world does not make it right. Regardless of the reasoning behind Zygor’s aquisition of TourGuide, I believe that it is inherently wrong to sell an addon in any manner since Blizzard’s clarification that an addon cannot make money for its owner. So, who knows? Maybe Blizz will get upset with Tek for having made money off of an addon that is derivitive (or is it?) of WoW. I understand that Tek might get upset with Dugi by using the guide in a way he didn’t like, but refusal to communicate never works in the interest of the parties concerned. Plus it’s a bit childish if you ask me. It sounds almost like Tek received a quite substantial sum of money to look away.
I think that using microsoft’s tactics isn’t the way to improve your product. It’s the way to bog it down in bloat and overconfidence that no one can do anything to catch you or beat you because you’re so big you just buy out your competition. Since you buy out your competition there’s no need or reason to improve your product. Until someone or something comes along that can’t or won’t be bought. Some good examples (disregarding privacy concerns) are Mozilla Firefox forcing MS to improve Internet Explorer, and Google putting so much competitive pressure on that they had to actually try to do things better. And all that without “*****, underhanded” tactics. Just better product.
You go Dugi.
As some of the others have mentioned, I myself have used both leveling guides. I started out with Zygors guide first and got my character to level 80. Then I started using Dugi’s Guide because of the ingame Talent Spec templates and Daily quest reputation leveling guides.
I found that Dugi’s Guide is more compact, easier to use, and has daily quest reputation guides. While Zygor’s is only limited to leveling a guide with no daily quest guides and focuses on a bulky interface with flashy animated graphics.
Both guides have there good points, however my personal choice overall is Dugi’s Guide.
I personally use Zygor’s guide and the new, in-game guide is absolutely amazing. The installation is a self-installing file that just works – period. Zygor had trouble with earlier versions, but their latest, professionally developed version is polished and performs.
As for TourGuide, Zygor legally obtained the rights to use and modify this software which is good, legal business practice. If Zygor wants to make a daily guide with a modified version of TourGuide, they can do so legally.
I am impressed with Zygor’s business conduct and willingness to pay money to obtain modification rights from the software owner — even if it means the competition was outfoxed. It’s called free enterprise and it drives competition and product improvement as I have no doubt Dugi’s product is about to get overhauled and become even more competitive.
In the end, customers of both Dugi and Zygor will enjoy greater satisfaction from their products.
I agree with BriWhat, looks like Zygor’s acquisition was perfectly legit while Dugi didn’t have the original code author’s permission to modify and sell his code. Unfortunately it’s a case of “he said / she said”.
Unless someone comes clean and admits to doing something either illegal or underhanded we’ll never know the truth of it. As for me, I’ll keep support John, cos I prefer his guides (personal preference).
I bought your guide but ran into so money problems so i sadly had to ask for my money back but for the short time i used ur leveling guild i made it from lvl 20 to 60 wtih little play time. then i used my friends computer which had Zygors guides on it and i tried using them it took me almost twice the time just to get from 20 to 50.