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Following the case, associate law professor at Beijing's Renmin University of China said that such weapons should be deemed as private property because players "have to spend time and money for them".

But a lawyer for one Shanghai-based internet game company told a Chinese newspaper that the weapons were in fact just data created by games providers and therefore not the property of gamers.

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Buying and selling gaming artefacts such as imaginary weapons is a booming business on the web.

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If it is the property of the game developers, then are they legally allowed to sell it on Ebay?

And

Posts: 2756 | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged | 

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You should never, ever, ever pay for an ingame item with RL money.

I'm fairly certain it will eventually come about on my game that people will do this, but I will fight it. Pay for it with in game money, not RL money.

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Much love bro .

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I think the game companies mainly don't want to deal with the inevitable "EnderRulz001 sold me a Mythic Warhammer of Justice on eBay and stiffed me!" support requests.

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While maybe this is part of the issue, I think selling in game items for RL $ presents a number of other problems for game companies.

1. The in game economy
MMO developers put a great deal of effort into creating a dynamic and balanced in game economy; if one can simply pick up in game money or items via IGE (which is a company that makes a great deal of money selling in game items) or Ebay (individuals or smaller "businesses"), the integrity of the entire system is compromised.

2. The in game community. The community makes the game fun and engaging and keeps people paying their subscription fees. Think of it this way; if hatrack were not the leet cool place that it is, with mods to keep out spam and the worst of the trolls and good regular maintanance, you might visit the boards, get the OSC info you came for, and leave. And the boards would either die or become a haven for the sorts of people you don't want to be around. So...

a. "Farmers" are hired by companies like IGE to obtain the greatest amount of in game money and items to later sell. This is their job. They "camp" certain spawns aggressively and relentlessly, leaving the average player with very little possibility of gaining a single "Sword_01"
for their in game enjoyment.

Dealing with these guys makes the game considerably less enjoyable, to say the least.

b. "Ebay'ed" players, or players who, rather than starting a character from scratch and working their way to higher levels choose to purchase a high level character, are not fun to play with. They don't know what they're doing in-game. This kind of puts a dampner on community spirit *shrugs*.

The same could be said for the players who ebay off their characters; for example, an Everquest guild that has about 80-90 players spends a lot of time and effort outfitting a key player for future success, only to have that player take the items and run to ebay. It's a pretty sickening feeling .

c. Raising the Stakes. Sort of ties in with B, but basically when you have a situation where your time in game is worth RL money, it's a whole 'nother ball game. Whether it's your livelyhood or just some extra cash in your pocket, it invites a myriad of morally difficult situations. What's a guy to do when he has a character worth 800 dollars in a video game, a leaky roof and kids that need braces? This stuff changes people . I'm not saying crazy stuff won't happen when dealing with MMOs, but this raises the stakes to a RL level in a much more obvious way.

3. The property-isn't the simple fact that developers have spent years creating gear, items, in game money, the characters themselves, and so on enough to want to protect those things?

I imagine I could come up with more additions to the list, but you get the idea I hope.

Edit:I wasn't sure how to word this before, but after talking it out I have a better idea of how to explain this concept:

4. The value of rules. Every game has a rule set; when players violate these rules, the game is no longer fun to play. In this situation, it dillutes other player's accomplishments.

Say you are playing monopoly with a group of people. You work your way 'round the board several times and with careful purchases and planning manage to buy the orange chunk of property and put a nice set of hotels on it. Would you bother to continue playing if the person next to you payed the banker RL cash for enough monopoly money to pay your rent? Of course not, what a stupid waste of time.

Make sense?

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Unfortunately the next evolution of using real money for in-game items looks like it's going to hit it's peak with Xbox 360's "Marketplace". Where apparently you can buy a "Mark Echo" t-shirt for your game character with real money. Riiiight....

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There are legal questions on it, most auctions I've seen for game items have a disclaimer like:

"All items are the sole property of Blizzard and you are only paying me for the time invested in finding the items."

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Buying/Selling in game items for RL $ is in direct violation of the End User License Agreement of every MMO that I know about. Unfortunately, I don't think the weight of the law has really been tested in this regard, so it's hard to say how well the EULA would hold up in court. For me personally, it's an issue of integrity.

Edit:Maybe the hatrack lawyers would have something to add to this, but according to my own legal buddies, the EULA meets the qualifications for a legally binding contract. Meaning if you click the "I agree" button and then violate the EULA, you are in breech of contract.

Right now, companies seem to either be banning players they catch selling/buying, ignoring the problem and thereby condoning it, or deciding to line their own pockets. I chose to play games that do the best they can to stop this problem, though it seems hopeless sometimes .

Did I mention that this is a multi million dollar industry? I could dig up more on IGE and exactly how much like Satan they are , but I suppose I've been on the soapbox long enough and think I've addressed the things that concerned me in this thread.

On a final note, a couple of games give me hope for the future of MMOs, but if something doesn't happen to end this, I think the genre could very well die . I still don't accept buying in game items for RL cash as the "next evolution", to borrow Kreve's phrase, in MMOs.

Edit: Just talked to a buddy about my post and he thought I should mention a few more things regarding EULA Legality and other reasons selling in game items for RL $ is a bad thing for games.

[ June 08, 2005, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: ladyday ]

Posts: 1676 | Registered: Jul 2000  |  IP: Logged |