Is it possible to sue Anet

First off, I'm not some 12 year old pissed off kid that threatens EVERYONE TO SEW THEIR ASS OF IF THEY DONT GET WHAT THEY WANT TAKAKAKAKA.

I KNOW It's Anet's game, and they can do whatever they want, bla bla bla.

But now on a serious note, I know that by "installing" GW, and thus agreeing with the EULA, you're pretty much signing a contract.
It depends on the country you are in, but here in Belgium, we have certain "buyer's protection", which is a "law" with certain clauses that protects buyers again certain abuse by the sale's company, even tough stated differently in the contract.

Coming to mind here is the infamous: "How long do I have guaranteed on XX item" discussion. (This is not related to GW, but I'm just giving an example to sketch what I'm talking about)
So, in Belgium, even IF the contract states you only have 6 months guaranteed, the Belgium law forces the company to give XX (I think it's 2) years of guarantee on items.

So you get the idea, just because the EULA says something, doesn't mean it's necessary law and order.


Now on the main topic:

Can one sue Anet for "banning" you, and thus ending your agreement, even tough you handled according to their rules? (I know, sueing over an acount is dumb, but it's the idea that counts)

So if they ban you for a reason which is not stated in the EULA, and thus can't be concidered "against the rules", is it legal? And if their EULA states they can ban everyone, whenever they want, with or without reason, is that a legal clause?

Thanks

You can sue them , I am pretty sure you can sue any company/person if you have a grievance , whether or not it is advisable to do so is another matter

Well, that's kinda my question.

Is it achievable as a regular person to "win" a legal fight, IF Anet breaks their own EULA, by banning you without a grounded reason?

You're more than welcome to try. Three Texans suing Microsoft comes to mind. Of course they've sought legal representation in their EULA and I'm almost certain you'll lose. At least you'll be famous for a day for trying.

I believe it states some where in EULA that your account can be terminated for any reason at anytime. And by agreeing to the EULA you basically signed that you will lose any case in a court of law.

You can sue them,you can sue your cat for eating your peanut butter..but i dont think you would have much luck at winning..if they banned you they had a reason.

I guess it depends on how clear the offence is, and if the offended person is offended on a personal level to such a degree that s\he cannot fucntion like normal in the society x)

No really, i don't know.

What would you be suing for? Financial loss due to being banned unjustly?

One thing is for sure...you would most certainly have to endure financial loss attempting to sue them.

However if you have unlimited resources and feel you have been wronged then I don't see why you couldn't take them to court

I would guess it really depends on what civil rights you have in your country, Belgium I believe you said? I'm not a lawyer, however, in the US we are enabled with rights to bring lawsuits if there was some form of harm to ourselves, family members or property. I would imagine that you would also have to prove something similar, or that the company perpetrated some form of fraud or other malicious act, taking into consideration what they are legally obligated to do. If you can prove some of these, and you have the time and money, go for it. Otherwise, you have a frivolous suit and are just wasting precious time and need to move on.

Well, the claim would obviously be the money/times wasted on the game...

Don't think I'm planning on taking legal actions, I'm merely wondering IF it achieveable. The day I'm going to waste money on sueing Anet is the the day they can put me in my grave.

It's more a "IF" situation...

if you are someone more powerful than ncsoft and arenanet combined, then you'll win your case. if not, then don't even think about it. they can just drag the case on until you go bankrupt from court expenses.

Ok, but is this a legal clause? Is it legal for a company to put a clause in a contract of there that states you CAN'T sue them, even if THEY themselves break that very EULA?

If "you can't sue me" was a valid exclusion clause, we'd see it everywhere.

The same applies from the product/service. Telecommunications companies, for example, can't simply switch off your services out of the blue without being able to justify doing so or reimbursing the customer.

I'm no so sure about that. Even if you are talking about "at-will," there still needs to be justifiable reasoning behind banning an account. These contracts have to have not only seller protection but buyer protection, otherwise it would be a complete waste of time and money for Anet/Ncsoft to invest in a EULA. Its NOT as simple as saying...they can ban your account anytime for any reason.

Killed u man --> Your question is really irrelevant at this time due to the lack of information you provided. The real issues are
#1 Did you infact do something that is against the EULA.
#2 Contact Anet to find out why exactly you were banned.
#3 You have to be able to defend yourself if you did something unknowingly against the EULA. Even at this, if you did something...you still did something... then a ban can be deemed "warranted." Thus you tend to be at the mercy of the discretionaries of ANET.

There are chances that this could have been a mistake. If in fact you didnt do anything then theres a good chance that ANET can solve this before you would even think about sueing them.

When it comes to playing games over the internet or doing "certain" things over the internet, I believe you are not protected by your own country's "civil" laws when dealing with companies of another country. (i could be wrong) Basically Anet must adhere to State/federal civil law (per say of the United States)...It would legal nightmare to write up eula's based off of each country presumed to have potential or existing buyers.

By all means if anyone has anything different in their head..please add if you feel im wrong.

Again I am no expert but if they put it in and you agree to it then that makes it a binding contract , one rule to rule them all.......read the small print!!!

I read most of your post and a couple of posts that said yes so I am here to tell yoy something. Yes you can sue anet but anet's name will not be on the suit. NCsoft will be since Anet is owned by NCsoft you are goign to sue the top dog. Just like PG(procter and gamble if you didn't know) owns Iams and Eukanuba if that dog food killed rover then You sue PG not Iams...Get it..Got it...Good. However, you won't win. Simply because big company with 2 dozen lawyers>you. Not to mention that like you said the eula is a contract and you sign it. Do you really think anet didn't*ncsoft rather* didn't check into laws like this belguim's buyer's law or whatever. Yes, they did.

Probably a normal person wouldn't have the wealth to outlaw the laywers a corporation like Anet can afford. Also most corporations have some kind of law-insurance. On top of that, the costs of suing is more then the gains, so you might not even get a lawsuit at all, unless you can convince a lawyer to take such a job (which enough money probably will =)).

this ^
They just send you 10k pages of paper go go go read it all. I dont think it is possible to sue them for anything tbh. Then they have to steal/sell bank info or something like that

Would be awsome to sue them for banning you through, go for it !

Well in response to your guarantee laws, and applicable to any warranty really, I'd have to say there are some cases where you can void your warranty or guarantee. For example, if someone bought a computer, and paid for extra warranty. Then got mad one day and shot their computer. The warranty is voided. So, if you broke the eula, and thus got banned, dude i think you're pretty much screwed. And I'm not sure, but don't you have to do something really bad to get perma-banned. And if you feel you don't deserve this, email support (i know it's crappy and slow) and see what happened, and what can be done. (side note: don't mention legal action, this will effectivly end any conversation you can have with ANYONE you deal with...you threaten to sue, they send you to their lawyers)

What they consider as an offence can be anything they want, a guild of mine that into law read the eula (one of the old ones) and noticed that since anet didnt define what an offence was, just the fact that you used textmod or that you farmed or that you stayed afk too long could get you banned.
By signing it you were agreeing to obey their rules with everything that concerns the game and one of their rules is ANET and can rape you ingame in any way they want.
Most mmos do that nowadays to prevent mother from suing them because their kids died playing wow while taking E to stay awake for 7 years in a row.