Never been to playdip and have no desire. But I must say, as long as their subscription fee is for the additional features that aren't part of the boardgame anyhow, then they aren't technically charging to play the boardgame. I'm no lawyer and will let one of them weigh in with more authority. But it seems if your dues get your upgrades beyond the boardgame, then that is what is being charged for and not for playing diplomacy.

wow what a sophist...
Draugnar how could it be possible than an upgrade to has nothing to do with the board game itself?
That would be like suggesting that an upgrade to a copyrighted board game has nothing to do with it but concerns a not copyrighted board game (like one they thought of themselves).
This is highly unlikely if not impossible and irrational.

Draugnar how could it be possible than an upgrade to A BOARD GAME has nothing to do with the board game itself?

more simply it's like I m suggesting that I have created an upgrade to firefox that has nothing to do with it (therefore no copyright steal) but makes it a totally new and different browser.
If I could do that then I would do it in a form of a new browser not in a form of an upgrade of an existing one.

It's that it has nothing to do with playing the actual game. Viewing the statistics for the site are more site-related than game-related.

Well, I must admit this is the first time I've unintentionally started a shit-storm of rage.

@hellalt - As long as they allow the basic boardgame to be played for free, I would see this as charging for access to variants/options. I can't speek for either legal system (Greece or US) with certainty, but it would seem that by providing access to the base game to anyone, they are in a legal grey area at worst and might be OK. But I would still be concerned it could draw Hasbro's attention and Hasbro could shut down all free sites by arguing it devalues the boardgame and reduces the number of purchases of said boardgame. so it's kind of a slippery and yet sticky question and area of contention.

I didn't know they provide the basic game for free.

"But I would still be concerned it could draw Hasbro's attention and Hasbro could shut down all free sites by arguing it devalues the boardgame and reduces the number of purchases of said boardgame" yeah that's true in every legal system...

Technically, the actual boardgame is not provided for free. 24 hour phases are the minimum for unpaid, which is not the boardgame's phase length.

the original boardgame is supposed to be played with 5 mins before turns, which is better cause it forces people to make diplomacy fast and to be on spot. I hate it when I have to chat with the same person 5 times a day...

I thought it was 15 or 20 minutes on movements phases and retreats and builds at the table without delay.

Just to clarify on the history thing: We have no problem with playDip users, or playDip making money however they like. PlayDip currently comply with the terms of our license and are doing nothing illegal, I'm glad your preferred site is back online, and I'd be happy to see more users enjoy both sites to diffuse the (pointless) tension and mix things up a bit. :)


I have to say though that the story only changed from webDip being "used for inspiration", "partly based", "I paid for lots of changes", etc, to "we were unknowingly sold stolen code", "we've had programmers fired over this", etc, much later.

I wish Avalanche/Julien would stop pretending to be the victim, but that's between me and him. We both want you to enjoy our sites and neither of us benefit from an us vs them mentality

+1 kestas well said

I agree: well said Kestas! I do not know of any means for holding fby.ro accountable, but that seems like it would be a good thing. I would be surprised if Ava were able to set aside the hurt/alienation/defensiveness/history/baggage/whatever and see clear to evaluate whether you would be the right one to hire to develop the site (or whether you would be able to work with Ava), but perhaps that would be a sign of full repair.

Actually, I believe our site technically violates the law, and so does Playdip (more obviously). We are infringing Hasbro's trademark, the game Diplomacy, by implementing the same game online. I don't think Hasbro cares enough to bother filing a lawsuit for webdiplomacy though; the possible revenue lost is limited.

i do think the revenue will actually increase because of the continued existence of the sites. Because it is a good way of discovering the game diplomacy and i do think a lot of us also own a board real life.

Personaly, i had the board game first, but i think it is the other way around for other people.

I agree. Fan sites such as webdiplomacy and playdiplomacy are free promotion for the board game. If Hasbro thought they could make worthwhile money from promoting an official commercial online site then we would see legal issues, but I really doubt there is any money to be made from online diplomacy. I think playdiplomacy has a greater need to charge money because the site creator is not actually a programmer. Any development that he wants to do beyond Kestas's original code, he has to hire professionals, and programmers don't come cheap.

Okay, but we have Scrabulous being shut down, so why not webdip and playdip?

Scrabulous was very successful, and much more popular than Diplomacy. I suspect the success of Scrabulous made Hasbro think they could make money from online Scrabble. Diplomacy is too niche. Thankfully.

Gobbledydook is right.
Hasbro owns a copyright, and this site does not.
This site is stealing the game hasbro has copyrighted and distributing it to the public...which is NOT legal, regardless of wether or not the players get charged $$ to play, and regardless of how that affects hasbro's sales.

That being said : Thanks for building this sweet ass illegal site!

My only complaint is that there are no skilled players (extremely few) who play world diplomacy....

i'm with victorious, i think Hasbro is well aware of the online play and quite happy with it. The more people play online, the more people will want to buy the boardgame. Personally speaking, i used to play the boardgame, years ago, and only recently rediscovered it online. Now i want to find and buy the board. Speaking of, does anybody know where i can buy a decent board? Are there boards with metal pieces?