What's the deal with overwolf

[Duffle-earthen-ring]

@Ràlph-barthilas

I also tried to make a few searches out if curiosity and have yet to find anything that is actually malicious and not a false positive.

Uh huh. From last nights thread.

@Dreadsurge-sargeras

[Omedon (omedon666) ]

@PrimeDamage @Ceredor @Wowhead It was part of a patreon only post that went out. Overwolf said “join us or die and WoWUp turned around to the patrons and said yeah, sorry guys. He’s still working on the project, but it can’t be what was pitched originally now.”

[7:09 PM - 9 Oct 2020] https://twitter.com/omedon666/status/1314774406665834497

I’m not a [wowup.io] Patron so I can’t personally corroborate this information, but if this is in fact true there’d better be some proper uproar over this.

@Wirt-stalagg

It’s true, its now posted openly on their patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/overwolf-42560453

We all knew from the beginning that one day the powers that be would be coming one day. That day was yesterday. Yesterday I was approached by a member of the Overwolf team who essentially told me I could either join them by embedding WowUp into their framework or stop using the CurseForge API.

Nothing has been finalized yet, but I can guarantee there will be no embedding of WowUp into the Overwolf platform, that is the entire reason WowUp was created.

What does this mean for the app?

Well, as I am sure many of you can guess the CurseForge API accounts for over 90% of installed addons at this time. So unfortunately if Overwolf does decide to kick us off their API entirely most addons will not be updated through them.

This post is unfortunate in timing but the plan was always to separate from them at some point but that day just came sooner than hoped.

What’s next?

I completely understand that you signed up for an app that just worked out of the box for all your addon needs without the ads. That will no longer be the case for the time being and I thank you for what your support was able to create. WowUp will not be quite as useful as it was before, but I have been and will continue working on my replacement for CF using a community/developer focused approach just like the app. Most of the top used addons are already available outside of Overwolf and I would like to tap into that.

Creating our own source for addon updates could be a step up from what we currently get from CF, such as Patreon/funding links out of the box, change logs built in, easy use for developers on their already existing workflows so no major migrations.

Again, I understand if you would like to pull your support as the app likely wont do what you signed up for depending on the outcome with Overwolf, but im still happy to work on an alternative if the people want it.

@Aeste-maelstrom

They actually track your app usage and sell your data to third party companies. For example, right now Overwolf is selling data that is being used by NewZoo, which is a market research firm tracking PC video game usage.

You can see here in their help article:

The PC games data available within the Newzoo platform covers a variety of metrics and insights into the engagement of PC players and the performance of games.

The core PC game metrics are obtained through our partnership with Overwolf. Overwolf is a tech company based in Tel Aviv, Israel. They developed an overlay software that allows gamers to install apps that can be used in-game. They have 300+ specific apps for specific games. The Overwolf data sample best represents the male core PC gamer aged 15 to 35.

Source here: http://help.platform.newzoo.com/en/articles/4345617-pc-engagement-data-methodology#:~:text=The%20PC%20games%20data%20available%20within%20the%20Newzoo,a%20tech%20company%20based%20in%20Tel%20Aviv%2C%20Israel.