The End of Ajour - Overwolf Announces New API Roadmap to Restrict Third-Party Addon Managers

Posted 2021/11/14 at 6:07 PM by Archimtiros

Ajour will no longer be maintainedoutlined in Overwolf's newsletter

Casperstorm, Ajour

I started working on Ajour in summer 2020. The goal was simple: I wanted the easiest and fastest way to update and download all of your addons for World of Warcraft. The timing was good; Curse had just been sold to Overwolf, Shadowlands was about to be released, and Classic was popular.
I spent many hours building Ajour, and luckily @tarkah and @mlablah joined to help me early in the project. Together we created what I believe is one of the best addon managers ever. And on top of that, I made some new best friends.

In late 2020 Overwolf posted about their stance on third-party addon managers. The short version is that since Overwolf earns their money from ads and user data, they wanted the users to use their application rather than third-party addon managers. However, they weren't sure exactly what their plan was, so for the time being, they kept the API open as it always has been.

Fast forward to the present time. Overwolf now knows what they want to do. They will deprecate the current API and create a new API where downloads do not count towards the CurseForge Reward Program—essentially splitting the community by turning addon developers against third-party addon managers. In addition, they will rate limit third-party addon managers if one becomes too popular oh, and not all addons will be available over the API.

What does this mean for Ajour? Well, it kills my motivation, and it kills my vision for Ajour. I don't want to fight with Overwolf (anymore). It's not worth it. Overwolf has all the data which makes Ajour work, and currently, they are pulling the rug under us.
We had a good run, but now it's time for the team and me to pull the plug rather than obey their new rules and turn Ajour into something worse.

Thank you all for helping shape Ajour into what it is today. Users, supporters, contributors. To every one of you, thanks.

What happens now?

Nothing. Feel free to use Ajour until it breaks.

What should I do?

Ajour will work until the current API is turned off, when is unknown. The other third-party addon managers is relying on the same API but some might take the on the fight, so make sure to check them out: WowUp by @jliddev, Instawow by @layday or CurseBreaker by @AcidWeb - all good friends of mine. I hope the best for them, but the future is not bright.

Overwolf's acquisition of Curseforgeincrease addon author profitsdata collectionunofficial cease and desistthird-party tools hurt both their business and addon creators

Updates from the Overwolf-CurseForge Team

The API is, at heart, a service that allows the community the ability to create more tools and expand the modding workspace. We love to see the ingenuity of the community and look forward to see what you come up with next!
In the future, there might be certain rate limits or costs for edge cases, but the API is not a paywalled service and will be available for all qualified projects.

Curseforge Rewards Program

Updates from the Overwolf-CurseForge Team

So far - authors weren't given a choice if their projects are accessible through the API or not - we felt that the new API also created an opportunity to respect author intellectual property more.
While the License option sometimes covers distribution as well, we are adding a UI to emphasize and clarify the authors choice.
This simple toggle controller under 'License' in the project management area. The toggle will only be viewable to the project Owner, or the project members that received permissions to access this tab via the Membership section.

submit a formOverwolf's 3rd Party API Terms of ServiceMinecraft

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Comment by LenweSaralondeThey did almost no vetting of their ad networks so it frequently would run crazy high resource intensive flash ads or crypto miners etc.Their overlay software also supports running overlay'd ads while you're playing other games (for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/HearthArena/comments/j39na8/is_the_overwolf_app_showing_an_ad_after_each_game/).https://www.reddit.com/r/HearthArena/comments/j39na8/is_the_overwolf_app_showing_an_ad_after_each_game/g7biftu/Overwolf is a FRAMEWORKComment by WanderingfoxOverwolf is a framework that's sole purpose is to make money by injecting advertisements into other running games. That is how they advertise themselves. That they have a unique engagement base because they can uniquely advertise to users while they are playing games.

Shunting the blame onto an app (that uses said framework to send ads) doesn't magically make it okay. I will not support a company that enables real-time targeted advertisements in such an invasive manner. Just because curseforge doesn't *currently* do it does not some how make the company of a framework *explicitly designed and marketed to do it* free of any responsibility. Add to that they've historically pushed very poorly curated ads across their framework, have historically had very poorly performing code, and historically have had very poor interactions with the community and it's perfectly understandable why people hate them.Comment by LenweSaralondeOverwolf is a framework that's sole purpose is to make money by injecting advertisements into other running games. That is how they advertise themselves.Comment by Wanderingfoxhttps://brands.overwolf.com/

Big letters: Overwolf connects your brand with games

"reach hidden audiences: Engage gamers authentically by advertising in-game"

Big infographic about how they can engage your ads better than other services.

"99% viewability for video ads"

"Overwolf makes sure these ads never interfere with the gamers' experience. This results in industry-leading viewrship and completion rates" (note typo not mine, is how it is on their site)

FAQ:

"What is overwolf"

"Overwolf is a **premium publisher with unique access to a hard to reach audience**"

They are an ad company, and an intrusive one.

They bought the curseforge app as is and have repeatedly stated that they plan to rebuild it to more tightly integrate with overwolf in the future.Comment by AniseIf adds devs only do addons to make money they should rethink their aims.

It is also wow's fault for allowing the game to get to the point where addons are required.Comment by hooplah64I totally understand the money aspect of this - I really do, since I make my living in the same "realm" off a website I own - but when it comes down to it, Overwolf had two options: make an attempt to address the concerns users have with their project (carrot) or force the community's hand to use their product as-is (stick). They chose the stick. They would have won either way but the path they've chosen says a lot about how much they care (or don't) about the users they need for their service to exist.Comment by 306662.Comment by brucek2I am no more in favor of addons being monetized than I am for mages charging for biscuits and time warp in raid. The ability to customize your UI is a nice game feature that should be done for love of the game, or not at all. Just like Overwolf is getting heavy with players, Blizzard should get heavy with them. The existing addon terms always made clear that addons were not to be charged for or to contain advertising, Blizzard should blow away whatever loopholes Overwolf is driving through to do those things on an app instead.Comment by LenweSaralondeI feel like the people complaining about the ads on curseforge.com haven't seen what wowhead looks like without a blocker or premium sub (or mmochamp for that matter)...especially on the mobile version of WoWHeadComment by WanderingfoxI feel like the people complaining about the ads on curseforge.com haven't seen what wowhead looks like without a blocker or premium sub (or mmochamp for that matter)...Comment by RinTheFoxThis is how the community swaps off of Curse and OverWolf entirely. Goodjob! Super clean!
Comment by SorlaqPeople who have no problem with using Overwolf should look up what Overwolf's business model is and what Overwolf actually does. And what it doesn't. (Security. Security is what Overwolf definitely doesn't do.)

Scraping excessive amount user data is the norm, there have been scandals involving Overwolf using users hardware to mine crypto and in addition to that all even when Overwolf isn't straight up malicious they are so incompetent that they had remote code execution exploit going on for who the hell knows how long and didn't even bother to inform their users about the fact that for undisclosed amount of time using overwolf links could literally give third parties direct access to their computers. Say what you want about Twitch's client but at least it wasn't a full backdoor into user's OS.Comment by ChickendruReally sad to read this. I don't want to use overwolf/curseforge, because of all the additional crap that comes along with it. I just wanted a simple add on manager, and felt Ajour did a great job. All the best Casperstorm, thanks for a great addon. Will be reverting to manual updates for add on management.Comment by LenweSaralondethere have been scandals involving Overwolf using users hardware to mine crypto and in addition to that all even when Overwolf isn't straight up malicious they are so incompetent that they had remote code execution exploit going on for who the hell knows how long and didn't even bother to inform their users about the fact that for undisclosed amount of time using overwolf links could literally give third parties direct access to their computers. Comment by Mardux11Mean old Overwolf. Being a business and trying to stay in business. How dare they not want 3rd party apps and their users to try and take advantage of them?

Shame on you Overwolf for not trying to rot and die like freeloaders want.Comment by Mardux11there have been scandals involving Overwolf using users hardware to mine crypto and in addition to that all even when Overwolf isn't straight up malicious they are so incompetent that they had remote code execution exploit going on for who the hell knows how long and didn't even bother to inform their users about the fact that for undisclosed amount of time using overwolf links could literally give third parties direct access to their computers. Comment by taleIt's finally happened. Stopped working a few days ago. RIP Ajour, I appreciated you very much while you lasted.

This whole ecosystem is a disaster from a UX perspective.

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