Terms of Use for Blizzard's Websites

 

Thank you for visiting this website (this “Site”). This Site is provided to you by Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., a Delaware corporation, 1 Blizzard Way, Irvine, CA 92618 (referred to herein as “Blizzard”, “we,” or “us”).

 

THESE TERMS OF USE (THIS “AGREEMENT”) CONTAIN A BINDING ARBITRATION AGREEMENT AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER IN THE SECTION TITLED “DISPUTE RESOLUTION.” THIS AGREEMENT AFFECTS YOUR RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO ANY “DISPUTE” BETWEEN YOU AND BLIZZARD AND MAY REQUIRE YOU TO RESOLVE DISPUTES IN BINDING, INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION, AND NOT IN COURT. PLEASE READ THE DISPUTE RESOLUTION SECTION AND THIS ENTIRE AGREEMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS WEBSITE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU MAY NOT USE THIS WEBSITE.

 

LAST REVISED: March 19, 2024

 

Use of the Site

You may only use this Site and any materials found in this Site (including, but not limited to, any images, logos, designs, insignia, marks, pictures, sounds, text, messages, tools, software, technology, products, files, information, data, demos, promotional materials, audiovisual and multimedia works and any other items or expressions) (collectively, "Materials") in accordance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, and you agree to comply with these terms and conditions at all times.

 

Limited License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Blizzard grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license, to access and use this Site for your personal use only. Such license is subject to this Agreement and does not include: (a) any commercial use of the Site or the Materials therein; (b) the distribution, public performance, public display, making publicly available, or other unauthorized exploitation of any Materials; (c) modifying or otherwise making any derivative uses of the Site or the Materials, or any portion thereof; (d) downloading (other than the page caching) of any portion of the Site, the Materials or any information contained therein, except as expressly permitted on the Site; or (f) any use of the Site or the Materials other than for their intended purposes. Any use of the Site or the Materials other than as specifically authorized herein, without the prior written permission of Blizzard, is strictly prohibited and will terminate the license granted herein. Such unauthorized use may also violate applicable laws, including without limitation copyright and trademark laws and applicable communications regulations and statutes. Unless explicitly stated herein, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as conferring any license to intellectual property rights, whether by estoppel, implication or otherwise. Blizzard may revoke this license at any time.

 

User Conduct. Your use of the Site, including the forums made available on the Site, is strictly subject to your compliance with Blizzard’s Code of Conduct (“Code of Conduct”), which is available for your review here . While the Code of Conduct describes certain actions Blizzard may take against your account for failure to comply with the Code of Conduct, such descriptions are not exclusive or exhaustive, and are intended primarily for informational purposes. Please be aware that your failure to abide by the Code of Conduct at all times shall constitute a violation of this Agreement, and may terminate your license to access or use the Site.

 

Your Obligations

Blizzard reserves all rights in and to the Materials not expressly granted herein. Subject to Blizzard’s policies governing the use of its intellectual property, as applicable, you may not: (i) use or transmit any Materials on or to any other Website or network; (ii) modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on any Materials; (iii) reproduce any Materials other than as specified above; (iv) distribute, license, rent, sell, lease or otherwise transfer any Materials; or (v) remove, obscure or alter any notice of copyright or other proprietary notices present on or in any Materials.

 

You represent, warrant and covenant that: (i) you will comply with all applicable laws, regulations and orders of any governmental authority in your use of this Site and the Materials (including, without limitation, all export control laws, regulations, and orders); (ii) you are not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of any country to which export of any Materials is prohibited by U.S. law, regulation or order; and (iii) you will not upload or otherwise transmit to this Site any software or other materials that: (a) contain any viruses or other harmful code; (b) violate, misappropriate or infringe any patent, copyright, trademark, trade name, trade dress, trade secret, right of publicity, right of privacy, moral right, right of attribution or integrity or any other intellectual property right or proprietary right (collectively, "Proprietary Rights") of any person or entity; or (c) contain any material that is libelous, defamatory or portrays any person in a false light.

 

Blizzard Ownership

All right, title and interest in and to this Site, the Materials and all associated Proprietary Rights are owned by Blizzard or its licensors, and no ownership of any of the foregoing items is transferred to you by virtue of this Agreement or Blizzard's permitting you to use the Site.

 

User Submissions

While Blizzard welcomes your comments and feedback regarding its products and services, Blizzard does not accept or consider any materials for use in any of its products or services which have not been specifically requested by Blizzard. In the event that you post or upload any content to the Site (“User Content”), including but not limited to Blizzard’s forums, you understand and agree to the following terms:

 

You hereby grant to Blizzard a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, fully paid up, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, right and license to exploit the User Content and all elements thereof, in any and all media, formats and forms, known now or hereafter devised. Blizzard shall have the unlimited right to copy, reproduce, fix, modify, adapt, translate, reformat, prepare derivatives, add to and delete from, rearrange and transpose, manufacture, publish, distribute, sell, license, sublicense, transfer, rent, lease, transmit, publicly display, make publicly available, publicly perform, provide access to, broadcast, and practice the User Content as well as all modified and derivative works thereof and any and all elements contained therein, and use or incorporate a portion or portions of the User Content or the elements thereof in conjunction with or into any other material. In the event you upload or otherwise transmit to Blizzard any concepts, ideas, or feedback relating to Blizzard’s products or services, you shall not be entitled to any compensation for any such submission, unless expressly agreed between you and Blizzard, and Blizzard may freely use any such submission in any manner it deems appropriate. Any such submission by you shall not create any contractual relationship between you and Blizzard. Except to the extent that any such waiver is prohibited by law, you hereby waive the benefit of any provision of law known as "moral rights" or "droit moral" or any similar law in any country of the world. You represent and warrant that the User Content does not infringe upon the copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret or other intellectual property rights of any third party. You further represent and warrant that you will not use or contribute User Content that is unlawful, tortious, defamatory, obscene, invasive of the privacy of another person, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful, racist or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate. Blizzard may remove any User Content and any related content or elements from the Platform at its sole discretion.

 

Disclaimer of Warranties

THIS SITE AND ALL MATERIALS IN THIS SITE ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND ALL USE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, BLIZZARD DISCLAIMS, AND YOU HEREBY WAIVE, ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES AND LIABILITIES OF BLIZZARD, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARISING BY OPERATION OF LAW OR OTHERWISE, WITH RESPECT TO THIS SITE AND ANY MATERIALS IN THIS SITE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY: (A) IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE; (B) IMPLIED WARRANTY OF NON-INFRINGEMENT; AND (C) CLAIM IN TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE). WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT BLIZZARD DOES NOT REPRESENT OR WARRANT THAT THIS SITE WILL BE ACCESSIBLE WITHOUT INTERRUPTION OR THAT THIS SITE, ANY MATERIALS IN THIS SITE, OR THE SERVER THAT MAKES THIS SITE AVAILABLE ARE FREE FROM ERRORS, DEFECTS, DESIGN FLAWS OR OMISSIONS OR FROM VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS.

 

Limitation of Liability and Indemnity

To the extent permitted by applicable law, in no event will Blizzard be liable, whether in contract, warranty, tort, product liability, strict liability or other theory, to you or any other person or entity for any damages (including, without limitation, any indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages) arising out of or in connection with any use of, inability to use or results of use of this Site or any Materials on or in this Site, even if Blizzard or its representative has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

 

You agree to defend and indemnify Blizzard, its parent, subsidiaries, licensors and affiliates against and from any third party claims, liabilities, losses, injuries, damages, costs or expenses incurred by Blizzard arising out of or from your use of the Site.

 

Governing Law; Venue for Non-Arbitrable Disputes

This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, U.S.A., without reference to its choice of law rules. The provisions of the U.N. Conventions on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods shall not apply. If you reside in the United States, for any claims not subject to binding individual arbitration, and which cannot be brought in small claims court in the county in which you reside as set forth above, you and Blizzard agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in Orange County, California, and you and Blizzard consent to venue in and personal jurisdiction before such courts (but without prejudicing either party’s rights to remove a case to federal court if permissible). This paragraph will be interpreted as broadly as applicable law permits.

 

Dispute Resolution

PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT MAY SIGNIFICANTLY AFFECT YOUR RIGHTS, INCLUDING YOUR RIGHT TO FILE A LAWSUIT IN COURT OR TO PURSUE CLAIMS IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE CAPACITY.

 

1. Binding Arbitration and Class Action Waiver If You Live In The United States. We hope we never have a dispute, but if we do, you and we agree to try for 60 days, upon receipt of a Notice of Dispute, to resolve it informally. If we can’t, you and we agree to binding individual arbitration before the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), and not to sue in court in front of a judge or jury. Instead, a neutral arbitrator will decide, and the arbitrator’s decision will be final except for a limited right of review under the FAA. To the fullest extent permitted by law, class action lawsuits, class-wide arbitrations, private attorney-general actions, requests for public injunctions, and any other proceeding or request for relief where someone acts in a representative capacity aren’t allowed. Nor is combining individual proceedings without the consent of all parties.

   1. Disputes Covered-Everything Except IP. The term "dispute" is as broad as it can be. It includes any claim or controversy between you and us that in any way relates to or arises from your use or attempted use of the Site and all matters relating to or arising from this Agreement, including the validity and enforceability of this agreement to arbitrate, under any legal theory including contract, warranty, tort, statute, or regulation, except disputes relating to the enforcement or validity of your, your licensors’, our, or our licensors’ intellectual property rights.

   2. Send a Notice of Dispute Before Arbitration. If you have a dispute with Blizzard that our customer service representatives can’t resolve and you wish to pursue arbitration, you must first notify us in writing at the following email address: legal@blizzard.com, using the subject line “Notice of Dispute.” Your notice of dispute must be individual to you and must include, as applicable, your name, the email address, and your residential address. The notice of dispute also must describe the dispute, explain the facts of the dispute as you understand them, and tell Blizzard what you want us to do to resolve the problem. This Notice of Dispute is a prerequisite to initiating any arbitration. Any applicable statute of limitations will be tolled from the date of a properly submitted individualized Notice of Dispute through the first date on which an arbitration may properly be filed under this Section.

   3. Small Claims Court Option. Instead of sending a Notice of Dispute, either you or we may sue the other party in small claims court seeking only individualized relief, so long as the action meets the small claims court’s requirements and remains an individual action seeking individualized relief. The small claims court must be in your county of residence (or, if a business, your principal place of business).

   4. Arbitration Procedure. The AAA will conduct any arbitration under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. For more information, see www.adr.org or call 1-800-778-7879. This Agreement, including this Dispute Resolution clause, govern to the extent they conflict with any applicable AAA rules. To initiate an arbitration, submit the Demand for Arbitration form available at https://www.adr.org/sites/default/files/Consumer_Demand_for_Arbitration_Form_3.pdf to the AAA and email a copy to legal@blizzard.com. The form must contain information that is specific to you and your claim. In a dispute involving $25,000 or less, any hearing will be telephonic or by videoconference unless the arbitrator finds good cause to hold an in-person hearing instead. Any in-person hearing will take place in your county of residence (or, if a business, your principal place of business). The arbitrator may award the same damages to you individually as a court could. The arbitrator may award declaratory or injunctive relief only to you individually to satisfy your individual claim, but not relief that would affect non-parties.

      The arbitrator rules on all arbitrability issues, including scope, validity and enforceability of this arbitration agreement, except that a court has exclusive authority: (i) to decide whether the parties have complied with the pre-arbitration requirements (including the individualized Notice of Dispute and Demand for Arbitration form); (ii) to enforce the prohibition on class, representative, private attorney-general, or combined actions or proceedings, or on public injunctive relief in arbitration; and (iii) to enjoin an arbitration from proceeding if it does not comply with this Section.

      If your Notice of Dispute involves claims similar to those of at least 24 other customers, and if you and those other customers are represented by the same lawyers, or by lawyers who are coordinating with each other, you and we agree that these claims will be “Related Cases.” Related Cases will be governed by the AAA’s Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules, as modified by these Terms. For more information, see https://www.adr.org/mass-arbitration or call 1-800-778-7879. Related cases may only be filed in batches of up to 50 individual arbitrations at a time, and those individual arbitrations will be resolved in the following manner: (i) for the first batch, each side may select up to 25 of these Related Cases to be filed and resolved in individual arbitrations under this Dispute Resolution clause; (ii) none of the other Related Cases may be filed or prosecuted in arbitration until the first batch of up to 50 individual arbitrations is resolved; and (iii) if, after that first batch, the parties are unable to informally resolve the remaining Related Cases, a second batch of Related Cases may be filed, where each side may select up to 25 of the Related Cases to be resolved in individual arbitrations under this Dispute Resolution clause. This process of batched individual arbitrations will continue until the parties resolve all Related Cases informally or through individual arbitrations, or unless AAA or an arbitrator appointed by AAA directs otherwise following arbitration of the second batch of Related Cases. A court has exclusive authority to enjoin the filing or prosecution of arbitrations that do not comply with this paragraph.

   5. Arbitration Fees and Payments.

      1. Disputes Involving Less Than $75,000. We will promptly reimburse your arbitration filing fees if: (i) the dispute involves less than $75,000; and before initiating arbitration (ii) you complied with all pre-arbitration requirements in this Dispute Resolution clause, including, if applicable, the Related Cases paragraph. Otherwise, the AAA rules will govern payment of filing fees and the AAA’s and arbitrator’s fees and expenses.

      2. Disputes Involving $75,000 or More. The AAA rules will govern payment of filing fees and the AAA’s and arbitrator’s fees and expenses.

   6. Opting Out. You have the right to opt-out of this Dispute Resolution clause by personally signing and sending us notice by email to legal@blizzard.com. The notice must be sent within 30 days of the date on which you first accessed the Site after these terms were last updated (unless a longer period is required by applicable law); otherwise, you shall be bound to arbitrate disputes in accordance with the terms of this Dispute Resolution clause. If you opt-out of these Dispute Resolution clause, Blizzard also will not be bound by them.

   7. Severability. If, after exhaustion of all appeals, any part of this Dispute Resolution clause is found to be unenforceable as to any claim or request for a remedy, then the parties agree to arbitrate all claims and remedies subject to arbitration before litigating in court any remaining claims or remedies (such as a request for a public injunction remedy, in which case the arbitrator issues an award on liability and individual relief before a court considers that request). Otherwise, if any other part of this Dispute Resolution clause is found to be unenforceable, the remainder will remain in effect (with an arbitration award issued before any court proceeding begins).

Miscellaneous

No failure or forbearance on Blizzard’s part to exercise its rights or insist upon performance of your obligations hereunder is to be construed as a waiver or relinquishment of those or any other rights or obligations in that or any other instance; rather, the same shall remain in full force and effect. If any provision of this Agreement is deemed unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, such provision shall be narrowed in scope or otherwise amended to the extent necessary to make such provision lawful, valid and enforceable while as nearly as possible reflecting the intent of the parties as expressed in this Agreement, or, if such amendment is impossible, severed from this Agreement. No amendment or severing of any provision of this Agreement shall affect the validity or enforceability of any remaining provisions.

 

This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between you and Blizzard relating to the subject matter hereof. Blizzard may, from time to time, change, modify or update this Agreement, and the revised Agreement will apply prospectively. For easier reference, Blizzard will change the “Last revised” date above.