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"
All is fair in love and war. Stop whinning and bitching and just move on. Businesses do this all the time, how do you think Microsoft has gotten to where they are? By being Mr Nice Guys? No way, no room for the weak in this cut throat times.
IMO, your daily guide is decent but I feel the leveling guide needs more work, I prefer Zygor. I use both, yours for dailies and zygor for leveling.
Hmmm I don’t know, but it looks to me like Zygor acquired the license honestly and Dugi did it without Tekkub’s permission.
Here it is on Tekkub’s website:
http://tekkub.net/
please refer this blog regarding tekkub response
https://www.ultimatewowguide.com/blog/2010/02/re-tekkub-response-clearing-the-air/
To be honest I’m interested to see the guide wars escalate to the next level as it will bring further features to both that will set one apart from another.
Honestly I’m glad to see tourguide go and to be honest between trying the trials of Zygor and Dugi’s I eventually settled on Zygors (primarily due to tourguide). I do however like the idea of Dugi offering guides for each of the seasonal events but again it came down to the viewer and not the price.
Zygors guide do not work i hate the zygor guide they are just being babys it is just a addon for wow the make of the addon is the own not zygor and sorry to here about the bad news dugi
I have had both your’s and Zygor’s guide quite frankly when i had Zygor’s guide it was while you didn’t have the in game one up and running yet, but that guide was still a huge hassle every time you took two steps you had to click the check box. then when he shut it all down to make a new version he required me to pay again and at a higher price. about that time you came out with yours and I was amazed at how easy yours was to use and it worked extremely well.
Make a guide that puts his to shame.
I’ll admit its a pretty **** tactic to do but such is life in business as I’m sure stuff like this goes on day in day out. While I really don’t see any legit motivation (alternative light weight viewer my *** John) to acquiring the viewer I do see it as forcing the competition to do as Zygor has and make their own viewer which John and his team has spent so much time creating. Honestly John is a business man and he definitely saw an opportunity to set back (he hasn’t eliminated anyone but the lazy guides that aren’t interested in making their own in game viewer). I’ll admit I don’t see the need for John to acquire the rights to another guide viewer beyond the need to eliminate some and set back the others.
If I were the rest of you I’d band together all your talents as individual guide creators and come bang on Zygors door one last time =)
I’ve used both leveling guides (thank god I didn’t pay a dime for Zygors) and this one is by far my favorite.
I can’t wait to see what you guys come out with in v4. In the end this will all most likely make your guide even better in the long run.
the fact that money changed hands between you and the author of tourguide for both its use and support and for him to sell the rights without notice especially if hes was stil taking your money when this deal took place is definatly imoral if not bordering illegal.↲↲
Also if the version you had was released under the gpla then as long as ur sticking to that i dont think theres anything tgjat can be done by him. Personly i think he tried to have a whos got the biggest **** competition and when it came down to it all he could muster was a chipalata.↲i rekon we should all boycot zygor. Infact if im allowed ill set up a pettion doing just that.↲↲your guide rocks mate. By tomorows end i will have my 3rd lvl 80. My only issue now is wat class next!
I once tried Zygor’s guide … and really disliked it. I wouldn’t dream of spending a single penny for it.
In contrast, I’ve loved Dugi’s guide since the first day I used his trial leveling guide, and I now own every single one of Dugi’s guides. Not only are the guides excellent, but if I ever do have any questions or problems, Dugi responds quickly to answer or fix the issue.
Sad that someone like John Cook feels he has to try to eliminate his competition by such devious methods, instead of improving his own products and/or services.
Dugi and team,
Zygor has shot himself in the foot here this stinks, now when i’m asked yours is definatly the best, ***** tricks will only bring a downfall in the end.
You’re completely right. But it still was a sneaky, underhanded, ***** trick to play in the corporate world. In a way this is a sort of politics, and I wish it would just get the heck out of this.
I say to you Zygor Staff if you are out there that you have no decency in any of you! You should all be ashamed of yourselves!
I say give it ’em back twice as hard! Show them that you are much better, they deserve anything you throw at them, and don’t worry about it coming back at you. They can’t catch =)
It is on Tekkub’s website that he sold it, on the front page.
http://tekkub.net/
“First and foremost, Dugi (ultimatewowguide.com) has never had my permission to modify, sell, or distribute, my addon. Over the past year I have talked to the owner of this site a few times, and he has made a few voluntary donations through TourGuide’s pledgie campaign. However, we have never had any formal, legally-binding agreement regarding TourGuide.”
I found this on http://tekkub.net/
Im kind of confused on the matter, but I’m pretty sure Zygor had this as part of the deal when he bought out Tourguide.
(also)
Is the Tourguide addon still available in its earlier forms?
Guess that’s what you do when you can’t beat the competition legitimately.
Fun little story… I’m an affiliate marketer, and the WoW niche has been good to me. Around this time last year, Dugi released the dailies guide, and I was promoting that and Zygor’s Leveling Guide. Was getting between 1-3 sales of each per day, and making pretty decent cash.
Then Zygor decides to redo his landing page to “set himself apart from the competition” and conversions drop overnight. Turns out he’s giving away a free trial of the guide, and cutting affiliates out when they choose to upgrade. Affiliates only get paid on direct sales of the guide. Needless to say, I switched my sites over to exclusively promoting Dugi’s guide.
I’d much rather do business with Dave, who keeps affiliate links intact in his emails, actually responds when you email him, and is an all around classy guy to work with.
@Dave, just registered for Andy Jenkins’ Video Boss, course, I plan on sending many more conversions your way my friend. Cheers.
“Then Zygor decides to redo his landing page to “set himself apart from the competition” and conversions drop overnight.”
“Turns out he’s giving away a free trial of the guide, and cutting affiliates out when they choose to upgrade.”
I noticed this aswell. I was thinking of contacting every affiliate promoting zygor’s guide to let them know of his shady and downright greedy tactics. Not sure how to do this but I’m almost certain it can be done.
We could contact clickbank about this, but all he’ll get is a warning, so whats the point? I hope his business burns for all the affiliates he’s ripped off, including myself.
-Jay.
Well that’s a weak thing to do from Zygor.
Anyways, I wish Dugi and his team the best in their development of the new guide software and am looking forward to see how it’ll work and differ from the old guid.
And don’t stress about it Dugi, you’ve got a lot of supporters and very satisfied customers because of your great software and equally great customer support (and that last one is really very good!).
Regards
Can’t you take any legal actions not that I mind upgrading to your newest guide it’s just that i really hate people who do this
Great to see that you will have a new revised Dugi’s Guide 4 coming out to kick their backsides. Nasty tactics are never a good thing, so they will hopefully see no fruits from their nasty maneuvers.
So good for you all there working on the new guide to show them its fair play and great products that will win everytime!
Zygor playing hard ball with the competition. lol
No matter, he’ll never see a penny of my money.
I agree with you. What he is doing is wrong. He’ll not get a penny of mine either.
isent it a wow addon? your not allowed to make money off addons. just like that guy who used to have the gearchange addon (cannot remember the name) he started taking money and blizzard sued him
Although I hate corporate tactics, this is typical of big business. Find your competitors weakness (I.E. your use of an addon not created by yourself) and either buy it or destroy it.
In the end it may do exactly what they are saying, it will improve your guide to levels you would not normally have achieved without this little “bump” in the road.
Honestly I have use Zygor’s guide and yours. Other than a few anomalies, yours is the far better choice.
I agree + hes selling his now doesn’t that go against the EULA/TOC ? any way . Dugi’s guides are better Imo. How did he get the DMCA complaint to go thu didn’t they help blizz take out wow somethiing a year ago. IF they Know he going to sell his won’t they be breaking the law to some extend by up holding his complaint and he intends to sell trhe guide . need I go on .
That doesn’t make any sense; if Zygor has “bought” the rights of the software from Tekkub, then he’s also stopping a lot of gamers from using the free guides as well?
It would be interesting to see what licence Tekkub applied to TourGuide and whether it would allow Zygor to purchase the rights?!
Theoretically if it was GPL or similar, then that’s a big can of worms to open, so Tekkub would have had to released a specific version with licensing removed in order for Zygor to “purchase” it?
(I could be off the mark on this, just an observation, and it’s late here)
Cutting the head off the snake, a brilliant move by Zygor’s. Here’s what Tekkub has to say about this matter.
http://tekkub.net/2010/02/18/clearing-the-air.html
Those “free” guides will still be free, so no worries. I wonder who’s reputation will suffer, now that Tekkub joined the fray on words. What do you think, Dugi?
Please refer to this blog for my response for Tekkub statements
https://www.ultimatewowguide.com/blog/2010/02/re-tekkub-response-clearing-the-air/