A lot of you have had questions and we've been reading! Thank you for taking the time to offer us feedback and share your thoughts, ideas and suggestions. I'm including this FAQ to elucidate on some of the statements made.

QUESTION: Are you banning the auto-petter because you didn't make yours first?

ANSWER: This is not true. Many forget the auto-petters were made using our scripts and requires the users to manipulate our content to obtain them. They were stealing our content in order to make their own. Statements like "Malevay studios is making banning it because they didn't come up with it first" is unfair, and those making these statements are essentially advocating content theft, ignoring that this content was made by stealing ours.

QUESTION: First you said it was okay and no one would be punished. Now people are being punished?

ANSWER: This is another incorrect assumption. We never punished anyone but the original creators of the Auto Petter when they refused to remove it from circulation and cease distributing our content. We didn't ban anyone, we didn't take any adverse actions against anyone using an autopetter. We felt that they user were as much victims as we were. We had to take time to determine what was best for our community and our core game. Once we decided to ban the autopetters that used or manipulated our own content to change the mechanic of the game from the way it was intended to be played, we made the announcement that they were now illegal. Still, no one has been punished. We're asking people not to use them at this point and making provisions to our EULA to prohibit the usage of them.

QUESTION: You said you were making your own autopetter, did you ban the current ones because you were angry you didn't make yours first?

ANSWER: The current autopetters were using our content to function. They were illegal, by Second Life terms, from the start. They were unauthorized and utilized stolen content. Keep that in mind. Our auto petter that we had in development did not function in the same way as the free-for-all autopetter. The Wee-Mee had a different operation and was coded to preserve the integrity of the game and the player experience. It appropriately paced players while making the tedious act of petting much easier and not such a burden. It had other functions too. Regardless of anything else, we are banning stolen content, that's how this should be viewed, not as an act of jealousy. If someone stole you scripts to craft their own content to sell to your own customers that had hugely negative implications on the entire bigger picture of your product, you would want that stopped to, and you wouldn't be happy if someone persecuted you for having been the victim of theft.

QUESTION: Will you make an autopetter youself?

ANSWER: We haven't the time to create the Wee-Mee as we intended because of having to extinguish fires of theft, security exploits and attacks. We understand that it is a product many want and we will consider implementing one because of the demand, but it would NOT work like the current auto-petters. It would not remove or negate very critical components of our game in the way the autopetter did. But it won't be what we want it to be either. This is what I mean by having to develop around these attacks, we're having to develop as a reaction to the difficult positions that nefarious people put us in rather than develop the game we wanted to make from the start. The likelihood is that you will see an auto-petter because we acknowledge that is what many of you want. The reality is it will not be in the form or fashion of what we envisioned from the beginning, well before any third party creator stole our content to make their own.

QUESTION: You keep changing your stance, didn't you say they were legal and are now changing your mind?

ANSWER: We never made the statement that the autopetter was legal. Stealing content in Second Life from any creator or developer is NOT legal, and it is a criminal act. We took time to determine the best passage to take because of the sensitivity of the matter. Many, many people purchased this content that used our stolen property. Many more the committed the act of manipulating our own content. It would be ridiculous for us to ever advocate the act of stealing. We said that those who bought it would not be punished and nobody was. Now that we have taken a stances against it, people now know that using this stolen content is prohibited in our game, and it will result in consequences.

It is not appropriate for anyone to think that it's okay to use stolen content. All autopetters required people to break our terms of service by tampering with the scripts from the HUD in order to execute the act. We understand some people are angry with us for defending our content and preserving the integrity of our game and for that I'm tremendously sorry you feel that way. We know that the autopetter alleviated a lot of stresses of petting. We undertand there are people with significant time constraints and disabilities who would benefit from the assistance. We have not dismissed an autopetter. We have dismissed it in the form of the Wee-Mee due to this specific heated issue and the fact that the malicious players who stole our content have leveraged our own community and our own against us.

The bottom line here is this: We had our content stolen. The offenders then asked hundreds of people to assist them in committing the act theft. This caused us tremendous harm to the game, and putting a stop to us exposed us to tremendous backlash for wanting the theft to stop. Instead of being allotted the time or support for us to create the content that we want, we have to hurry to appease the angry customers who are calling us greedy, jealous, and hostile. That is the unfortunate circumstance we're in.