I can't speak for others, but I clearly understand that I do NOT own my characters, items, housing et al in a virtual world. I never once felt like I did. To me, I am "renting" use of the game world at so many dollars per month. This is also one key reason why I object to item shops. I can never own the items in question and yet I am expected to buy them like a loaf of bread or an automobile? Renting on a monthly basis, with the option to end this relationship at any time retained by both parties, I can understand. But once you start selling me individual items at a set price, I feel cheated because these items are never really MINE.
No, I don't mean Hacking or identity theft, what I am talking about are these things in a virtual setting, like the worlds or islands of second life. Like somebody hunting on your vitual territory being a poacher. Etc. The protection of intangible assests like insider information and such is covered by law because it represents something of value, something that the law understands. It's this 'virtual currency' that only carries a value based on its exchange rate with Linden Lab itself, directly or through others involved with this virtual world, that lies in this hazy limbo.
Actually, there is no haziness. LL actually set this up a long time ago by making the mistake of not just setting a cash shop value on buying Linden (the in-game currency of SL), but in establishing a conversion value for Linden back into USD (dollars). In doing so, they put a real currency price tag on every piece of virtual property in the game, and stated that it had a real money value that could generate income. From this, the US Government originally toyed with taxing the internet, but so many other countries said they wouldn't allow their citizens to have their income from virtual games taxed by foreign countries, and no one could agree on how to handle it, that the problem was shelved. Now this lawsuit is threatening to bring all of that back. The haziness doesn't exist. But a certain degree of legal murkiness is present. The law is quite clear: if you make money, the country in which you earned that income has the right to tax you. The problem is getting all the countries to play nice with one another and allow other countries to tax their citizens. When that happens, you can expect a massive wave of new taxation laws to go into effect and for a lot of sites, among them SL, to either shut down completely or change radically. Either way, you won't be earning money from them for long.
I used to think that I knew the difference between "owning" and simply renting some database space until the first time I went to close a UO account. Suddenly, on a purely emotional level, I had the "I'm losing something" reflex and I felt like I was being blackmailed by the threat of my virtual house falling. It was a very disturbing and unwelcome reaction which forced me to look long and hard at my relationship with MMOs.
The other game that gave me pause was Spore. Ok, technically it wasn't an MMO (and as it sadly turned out, not really a good game), but I think there are a lot of elements of its design that will eventually find their way into an MMO. I usually took the "we own everything you create" as just legalese cover against any lawsuits claiming losses due to server accidents. But when suddenly EA announced plans to create spinoffs in other media using content people had created, I was taken aback - it wasn't just a technicality, they were seriously claiming for-profit copyright over everything users created.
I think the next battlefield will come over transfer of user-created content between games. What happens if I create some custom dungeon or other content in one game and then copy it to another game based on a compatible underlying engine? If the companies have copyright over everything I enter into the game then they would be able to sue me for transfering my own work to another game. That thought really unnerves me, as there is no way that I could ever accept such a restriction.
No, I don't mean Hacking or identity theft, what I am talking about are these things in a virtual setting, like the worlds or islands of second life. Like somebody hunting on your vitual territory being a poacher. Etc. The protection of intangible assests like insider information and such is covered by law because it represents something of value, something that the law understands. It's this 'virtual currency' that only carries a value based on its exchange rate with Linden Lab itself, directly or through others involved with this virtual world, that lies in this hazy limbo.
Actually, there is no haziness. LL actually set this up a long time ago by making the mistake of not just setting a cash shop value on buying Linden (the in-game currency of SL), but in establishing a conversion value for Linden back into USD (dollars). In doing so, they put a real currency price tag on every piece of virtual property in the game, and stated that it had a real money value that could generate income. From this, the US Government originally toyed with taxing the internet, but so many other countries said they wouldn't allow their citizens to have their income from virtual games taxed by foreign countries, and no one could agree on how to handle it, that the problem was shelved. Now this lawsuit is threatening to bring all of that back. The haziness doesn't exist. But a certain degree of legal murkiness is present. The law is quite clear: if you make money, the country in which you earned that income has the right to tax you. The problem is getting all the countries to play nice with one another and allow other countries to tax their citizens. When that happens, you can expect a massive wave of new taxation laws to go into effect and for a lot of sites, among them SL, to either shut down completely or change radically. Either way, you won't be earning money from them for long.
Go Go Legal System!
I see. Well, at least when that happens they'll allow me to gamble for money at online casinos that are located overseas. Actually, no. To be honest, and a bit paranoid perhaps, this sounds like nothing but trouble for the internet as it stands today. I mean, once the internet becomes a source of revenue for the government can't we as such expect more law enforcement in the interest of protecting that income?
Internet cops, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you.
Wait a sec... what implications would this have on EVE?
OH MY GOD. EVERYONE WOULD BE TOO AFRAID OF REAL LIFE LAW SUITS TO ATTACK OTHER PLAYERS, SINCE PLEX IS RMT!
:O
Since Pilot License EXtentions(?) are about $17.50 each (I think $35 for 2, from CCP), and usually sell for about 250,000,000 in-game currency, suddenly, in-game currency is worth $35 for 500 million.
Or about $1 for 14.3 million ISK. If you lost a several billion ISK ship (including modules, etc.) - you could perhaps sue for thousands of dollars! CAH-RAAAZY!
To the matter at hand - the guy got banned from the game. What did he do to violate the EULA or Terms and Conditions agreement? Idiot... now he's trying to make a buck and possibly ruin all MMORPGs forever or something.
Then no game will ever make risky business like EVE again forever, and CCP will likely close shop. SADFACE
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
People forget that it is a game, your character, properties, and other stuff is like a "save game". often people accidentally destroy their save games. likewise there have been known times when developers have accidentally lost save games of players. This is a process that is quite annoying, but is as much of an issue as your dog running in and knocking the monopoly set across the board. It is a game.
I have no problem with developers owning the rights to my stuff in a game, i can work like hell to get it, but really i am not paying for tier 5 super tank armour. I am playing for the game play. A lot of people across the internet sit there and say how much they think game play is the most vital thing in a game, then they complain because they lost some item. I question if those people care so much about a fictional item that they worked hard for, cant they get a real item by working hard in the real world? Not only will it be REAL, it would also be YOURS!
Dont argue about a made up item, it is just a waste of time.
I wonder if this could ever have any impact on character creation in the future. Graphics and customization might become extremely detailed as hardware improves. When games allow you to actually create your character in a manner similar to SPORE but in realistic detail I can see someone actually wanting to own the right to the likeness of that character. It might be a long ways off till our characters look like digital masterpieces like Golem in the Lord of the Rings or the Navi in Avatar but I would understand people wanting to protect the work that goes into making a character that has a unique look.
People seem to think that just because a company has a conversion of a made up currency into a real world currency it suddenly means there is a defendable value. However, the company is the one setting the conversion, and any real world value can easily be removed by changing from e.g. 10 made up currency for 1 real world currency to 10 billion made up for 1 real.
The company I work for has a program which gives out credit for various reasons (monthly, certain milestones reached, a.o.) which can be exchanged into real world goods such as tickets, subs, meals etc. If I quit my job the credits are deleted, it's not something I'll get a check for.
People seem to think that just because a company has a conversion of a made up currency into a real world currency it suddenly means there is a defendable value. However, the company is the one setting the conversion, and any real world value can easily be removed by changing from e.g. 10 made up currency for 1 real world currency to 10 billion made up for 1 real.
The company I work for has a program which gives out credit for various reasons (monthly, certain milestones reached, a.o.) which can be exchanged into real world goods such as tickets, subs, meals etc. If I quit my job the credits are deleted, it's not something I'll get a check for.
Value in 3d virtual playgrounds is highly Intrinsic you can't just slap away a persons logic without knowing the entire fact behind how he or she feels about this situation.
This has serious implications even if they settle out... I think its a bad deal both ways.
Second Life really dropped the soap though.
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
I wonder if any game company would consider sanctioning their own ways of allowing players to auction off their characters to other players through each others accounts and taking a small cut of it (1-5%?).
Afterall, its the players time that is also spent and as a player I do personally feel invested into my character over time. At least if a player no long wants to play their game, they can sell their characters to someone that might want them and make a little extra on the side for a sub loss.
Just a thought and idea that crossed my mind that could benefit both parties. In regards to this Second Life thing, that's a toughh call especially if they marketed themselves as such. I really hate when people start using convuluted language to re-assert themselves in a more favorable position (that counter previous thoughts) when things like lawsuits come up.
CCP kind of do this, although they charge a flat $20 "transfer fee", and they only allow character sales for in-game currency, not real life money.
Wait a sec... what implications would this have on EVE?
OH MY GOD. EVERYONE WOULD BE TOO AFRAID OF REAL LIFE LAW SUITS TO ATTACK OTHER PLAYERS, SINCE PLEX IS RMT!
:O
Since Pilot License EXtentions(?) are about $17.50 each (I think $35 for 2, from CCP), and usually sell for about 250,000,000 in-game currency, suddenly, in-game currency is worth $35 for 500 million.
Or about $1 for 14.3 million ISK. If you lost a several billion ISK ship (including modules, etc.) - you could perhaps sue for thousands of dollars! CAH-RAAAZY!
To the matter at hand - the guy got banned from the game. What did he do to violate the EULA or Terms and Conditions agreement? Idiot... now he's trying to make a buck and possibly ruin all MMORPGs forever or something.
Then no game will ever make risky business like EVE again forever, and CCP will likely close shop. SADFACE
No, because losing assets to other EvE players is an intrinsic part of the game. It has long been illegal to run up to someone and physically take their property by force, yet there are no problems with football players getting sued for doing this. Boxers dont get prosecuted for assault. Poker players dont get accused of fraud for bluffing.
People seem to think that just because a company has a conversion of a made up currency into a real world currency it suddenly means there is a defendable value. However, the company is the one setting the conversion, and any real world value can easily be removed by changing from e.g. 10 made up currency for 1 real world currency to 10 billion made up for 1 real.
Second Life exchange rate isn't just an arbitrary figure. The company doesn't set it. It is totally market driven, like RL foreign currency exchange rates, and is what people are prepared to pay for the Linden dollar (stabilized on about 270L = $US 1)
So assets in the game do have a totally defendable value.
Secondly, someone above mentioned taxing income from SL sales. Well, that already happens. It is not quite income tax (yet!), but countries (some, not all) that have VAT (a sales tax) have an agreement with Linden Labs and monetary conversions are subject to VAT. So it is already happening - even be it across borders.
I foresee Linden Labs being at fault for this happenstance it's not something they'll likely get away with.
In a typical MMO you pay for a service the service being access to their servers to Play on them.
Second Life is a different bird altogether you're paying for a Second Life LITERALLY I know people with Legitimate Businesses inside the game that make RL $$$
If Linden Labs were to take that away then I hate to inform them that here in the U S A It's a big crime to steal from another business. (hopefully it'll stay that way but who knows what Years 2 - 4 will bring)
I'm no lawyer but I can flat out tell you this garbage they're pulling won't fly...
I foresee Linden Labs being at fault for this happenstance it's not something they'll likely get away with.
In a typical MMO you pay for a service the service being access to their servers to Play on them.
Second Life is a different bird altogether you're paying for a Second Life LITERALLY I know people with Legitimate Businesses inside the game that make RL $$$
If Linden Labs were to take that away then I hate to inform them that here in the U S A It's a big crime to steal from another business. (hopefully it'll stay that way but who knows what Years 2 - 4 will bring)
I'm no lawyer but I can flat out tell you this garbage they're pulling won't fly...
I know SL is a different bird from other games, but just because you operate a business within its confines does not mean you have the same protections and a normal business who had to fill out paperwork, apply for permits etc. Gold sellers are "businesses" too. I think it comes down to the fact that is was LL that decided to give a real world value to in game items, and as far as i know the players nor LL sign any binding contract saying that at any time LL could stop allowing that conversion. I look at it as LL was providing a service to the players that the players could optionally partake in, but LL was under no obligations to keep it that way. If you wanted to risk real life money having an untaxable, un-licensed business (you know, opposite what you need to have a RL business, even internet based ones) then you have to suffer the penalties of you screw up. I don't know why he got banned but from experience it seems that the biggest voices attacking MMO companies are the ones that broke the most rules. Look at the lawsuit against blizzard by the company that made Glider, they were in the wrong in a million places and just wanted some money.
Until you sign somthing that specifically states you "OWN" that piece of virtual property, you cant say your entitled to value from it. I feel sorry for people that put tons of real life money into this, but they screwed up by assuming.
I never feel I own anything in my MMOs, because I don't.
Unlike other people who just think "Well the CoC/EULA wouldn't hold up in court so I'll ignore it" (It will hold up in court just fine, that's why they have lawyers who write them), I read the agreements and realize I own nothing and they can ban me from all of my stuff if I break the rules.
It's amazing to watch people who get banned for breaking the rules they agree to, try to fight against everything they clicked I Agree to when logging in. It's always the ones who break the rules who then want to try to find a way to use those rules to their advantage in legal battles.
It's simple really, don't break the rules and you will never have any issue. To my knowledge there hasn't been a single major MMO who has banned someone/deleted their characters and stuff, without cause. So follow the rules and your characters/stuff that you hold so dear, even though they are essentially imaginary, will still be there for you to access.
But don't be that guy who breaks the rules, gets banned, then cries so hard he decides he needs a legal battle. It's pathetic.
Damn. It's news like this that makes me wonder how long it will be before i have to start looking over my shoulder for a real-world L. Bob Rife. (If you don't know who that is, read "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson. Any good gamer should.)
I'm not really sure what a gamer would get out of Snow Crash, considering is has very little to do with gaming and everything to do with the virtualization of technology, politics, religion, and society. First read what should be considered the prologue to Snow Crash: In the Beginning Was the Command Line by the same author. Then read anything by Terrence McKenna and learn about the impending apex of infinite novelty called Timescape Zero. Then go back and read Snow Crash and you just might be getting somewhere.
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -Winston Churchill
I have a lease that allows me to use several different software packages. Games are no different, we simply lease them. Second Life has over the years made claims that you can buy virtual property, but they would charge you for server space for that virtual property. As I see it they had the stupidity to use the term “Buy” when they should have said Lease. In short, if you can’t hold it or touch it, you don’t own it. Which is one of the reasons why I don’t do Second Life anymore. Yeah, I played it for about six months total.
What i would do if i was SL company is print all the items that thies people are trying to say they own in binary code and give it to them.
There, they get what they want, and can do with it what they wish.
But really think about what most people are saying. Just cause you play a game and creat items does not mean you have a right to own those items.
It's like saying i have a right to own the items i create in Spore(EA) useing thier creature maker.
The problem is no one reads the EULA, and never want to accept the fact that they don't truely own what is there.
Now, i can see if you create something in Maya, 3D Max, or one of the other many modeling programs and submit it to the company for them to place into this virtual world. But even then, if it says that appon submitsion you give all rights of ownership to the company than hell.. you have accepted that.
Even if it has real world value, once you accept that the items belong to said company. Than you have given up your rights of ownership.
No... I do not support any idea of a user owner any virtual items created ingame. I think if you do not like this then don't play that game. If you do not like the idea of someone else owning what you create, invest you life/time into making. Than make your own game and play that.
Hell.. if this can be squized out of a court for a win for the user, then i'm gonna rebox my copy of Oblivion with my saved game data and sell it as my own. Because i spent the time to lvl out the toon and make the spells and items he has on him within the game world.
(P.S.) i'm not talking about useing TES-construction kit to build mods. Or your own programed scripts and add-ons. i'm talking about ingame items useing in-game tools.
I've created my own full set of armor and weapons (models and textures) useing Maya 2009 and Photoshop CS4. I Used a (third party) program to convert these models and textures into code that can be imported into Oblivion and worn them on my Avator. I own full registered lisenses on both my copies of Photoshop and Maya 2009, giving me legal right to create and sell visual content. Now this I do own. It is mine and no one elses, and even Bethesda does not have a right to what i created.
Now as far as my legal ability to sell these items on the open market as a plug-in for the game Oblivion, i'm not 100 percent sure how that stands. But i do beleive that I have the right to sell it. I'm just not sure if Bethesda is legaly able to claim some or all of the profit.
I just don't beleive that if an EULA states that owner ship of all items created with-in there client is the property of them (the company) that the user should have any rights to it at all.
AND IF SOME STUPID COURT SAYS THAT THEY DO, as i said before. I hope they *the company) prints it out in binary code and give them (the user) that. Because in the end. Thats what it is anyways.. it's all 1's and 0's.
virtual ownership is can of worms. better leave it out of the games.
Too late.
When game companies start selling virtual items, on top of a sub fee, they are the ones opening up the can.
Something can not be considered both a good and a service under the eyes of the law.
It was only a matter of time before this kind of thing went to court, when the money became big enough to bother.
And as I mentioned before, S.Korea already considers transactions for virtual items just as legally enforceable as selling real items, according to their supreme court, so in that place, RL cash for virtual is already recognized by the law.
In a way, this discussion is much simpler for me, since I have always assumed that I pay for the priveledge of playing on something owned and created by the gaming company. I have never assumed anything is really "mine" or that if I leave or get banned I somehow still have a right to any of it. Second Life sounds more complicated since, like the author stated, some of those things have a real world value. When you think about it, a lot of your stuff has real world value since you can sell your items or game gold for money, or even your account for money if you wanted to (though I'm pretty sure that is against the TOS).
It will be interesting to hear how the courts come down on this one.
Currently playing: Rift Played: SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot World of Warcraft, AoC
This will be very interesting to see how it turns out.
As a former sim owner and a long time store owner I have been around SL off and on for over four years now. I am one of the more rare types who only cashes out from it. So I have always had that worry hanging over my head of "what if" they just pull the plug on it. Especially at times when I owned the sim + had big piles of $$ onhand that i had not yet cashed out. I won't lie I always have felt some relief when everything is moved over to Paypal then onto my bank, lol.
I do like Second Life, it is entirely you what you make it but I personally barely login on it anymore. I also get the feeling that Second Life is going to at some point get trumped by something newer and more ethical. Linden Labs has repeatedly shown no ethics and no honor in how they handle land in their world. I am one of the one of the lucky ones who turned a profit on my sim. Also lucky that I only owned 1 sim and not 40 or more like some people did when Linden Labs arbitrarily lowered the sim costs from $1700 to $1000. Utterly destroying peoples investments and costing them 1000s of dollars due their whims.
I guess I could say I like Second Life but I do not much trust Linden Labs.
Raph Koster, the former game developer that has worked on "Ultima Online" (Origin Systems) and "Star Wars Galaxies" (Sony Online Entertainment). Has been vocal in years past in favor of players having virtual property rights.
Here is an article from his blog site dated Dec. 12th 2006:
Comments
I can't speak for others, but I clearly understand that I do NOT own my characters, items, housing et al in a virtual world. I never once felt like I did. To me, I am "renting" use of the game world at so many dollars per month. This is also one key reason why I object to item shops. I can never own the items in question and yet I am expected to buy them like a loaf of bread or an automobile? Renting on a monthly basis, with the option to end this relationship at any time retained by both parties, I can understand. But once you start selling me individual items at a set price, I feel cheated because these items are never really MINE.
Actually, there is no haziness. LL actually set this up a long time ago by making the mistake of not just setting a cash shop value on buying Linden (the in-game currency of SL), but in establishing a conversion value for Linden back into USD (dollars). In doing so, they put a real currency price tag on every piece of virtual property in the game, and stated that it had a real money value that could generate income. From this, the US Government originally toyed with taxing the internet, but so many other countries said they wouldn't allow their citizens to have their income from virtual games taxed by foreign countries, and no one could agree on how to handle it, that the problem was shelved. Now this lawsuit is threatening to bring all of that back. The haziness doesn't exist. But a certain degree of legal murkiness is present. The law is quite clear: if you make money, the country in which you earned that income has the right to tax you. The problem is getting all the countries to play nice with one another and allow other countries to tax their citizens. When that happens, you can expect a massive wave of new taxation laws to go into effect and for a lot of sites, among them SL, to either shut down completely or change radically. Either way, you won't be earning money from them for long.
Go Go Legal System!
I used to think that I knew the difference between "owning" and simply renting some database space until the first time I went to close a UO account. Suddenly, on a purely emotional level, I had the "I'm losing something" reflex and I felt like I was being blackmailed by the threat of my virtual house falling. It was a very disturbing and unwelcome reaction which forced me to look long and hard at my relationship with MMOs.
The other game that gave me pause was Spore. Ok, technically it wasn't an MMO (and as it sadly turned out, not really a good game), but I think there are a lot of elements of its design that will eventually find their way into an MMO. I usually took the "we own everything you create" as just legalese cover against any lawsuits claiming losses due to server accidents. But when suddenly EA announced plans to create spinoffs in other media using content people had created, I was taken aback - it wasn't just a technicality, they were seriously claiming for-profit copyright over everything users created.
I think the next battlefield will come over transfer of user-created content between games. What happens if I create some custom dungeon or other content in one game and then copy it to another game based on a compatible underlying engine? If the companies have copyright over everything I enter into the game then they would be able to sue me for transfering my own work to another game. That thought really unnerves me, as there is no way that I could ever accept such a restriction.
"While few companies actually go so far as to abuse their penultimate power over their players,"
Teensy nitpick: "penultimate" doesn't mean "super-ultimate", it means next to the last. For example, Kuja is the penultimate boss of Final Fantasy IX.
I see. Well, at least when that happens they'll allow me to gamble for money at online casinos that are located overseas. Actually, no. To be honest, and a bit paranoid perhaps, this sounds like nothing but trouble for the internet as it stands today. I mean, once the internet becomes a source of revenue for the government can't we as such expect more law enforcement in the interest of protecting that income?
Internet cops, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you.
Wait a sec... what implications would this have on EVE?
OH MY GOD. EVERYONE WOULD BE TOO AFRAID OF REAL LIFE LAW SUITS TO ATTACK OTHER PLAYERS, SINCE PLEX IS RMT!
:O
Since Pilot License EXtentions(?) are about $17.50 each (I think $35 for 2, from CCP), and usually sell for about 250,000,000 in-game currency, suddenly, in-game currency is worth $35 for 500 million.
Or about $1 for 14.3 million ISK. If you lost a several billion ISK ship (including modules, etc.) - you could perhaps sue for thousands of dollars! CAH-RAAAZY!
To the matter at hand - the guy got banned from the game. What did he do to violate the EULA or Terms and Conditions agreement? Idiot... now he's trying to make a buck and possibly ruin all MMORPGs forever or something.
Then no game will ever make risky business like EVE again forever, and CCP will likely close shop. SADFACE
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
You all need to learn to spell.
People forget that it is a game, your character, properties, and other stuff is like a "save game". often people accidentally destroy their save games. likewise there have been known times when developers have accidentally lost save games of players. This is a process that is quite annoying, but is as much of an issue as your dog running in and knocking the monopoly set across the board. It is a game.
I have no problem with developers owning the rights to my stuff in a game, i can work like hell to get it, but really i am not paying for tier 5 super tank armour. I am playing for the game play. A lot of people across the internet sit there and say how much they think game play is the most vital thing in a game, then they complain because they lost some item. I question if those people care so much about a fictional item that they worked hard for, cant they get a real item by working hard in the real world? Not only will it be REAL, it would also be YOURS!
Dont argue about a made up item, it is just a waste of time.
I wonder if this could ever have any impact on character creation in the future. Graphics and customization might become extremely detailed as hardware improves. When games allow you to actually create your character in a manner similar to SPORE but in realistic detail I can see someone actually wanting to own the right to the likeness of that character. It might be a long ways off till our characters look like digital masterpieces like Golem in the Lord of the Rings or the Navi in Avatar but I would understand people wanting to protect the work that goes into making a character that has a unique look.
People seem to think that just because a company has a conversion of a made up currency into a real world currency it suddenly means there is a defendable value. However, the company is the one setting the conversion, and any real world value can easily be removed by changing from e.g. 10 made up currency for 1 real world currency to 10 billion made up for 1 real.
The company I work for has a program which gives out credit for various reasons (monthly, certain milestones reached, a.o.) which can be exchanged into real world goods such as tickets, subs, meals etc. If I quit my job the credits are deleted, it's not something I'll get a check for.
People seem to think that just because a company has a conversion of a made up currency into a real world currency it suddenly means there is a defendable value. However, the company is the one setting the conversion, and any real world value can easily be removed by changing from e.g. 10 made up currency for 1 real world currency to 10 billion made up for 1 real.
The company I work for has a program which gives out credit for various reasons (monthly, certain milestones reached, a.o.) which can be exchanged into real world goods such as tickets, subs, meals etc. If I quit my job the credits are deleted, it's not something I'll get a check for.
Value in 3d virtual playgrounds is highly Intrinsic you can't just slap away a persons logic without knowing the entire fact behind how he or she feels about this situation.
This has serious implications even if they settle out... I think its a bad deal both ways.
Second Life really dropped the soap though.
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
CCP kind of do this, although they charge a flat $20 "transfer fee", and they only allow character sales for in-game currency, not real life money.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
No, because losing assets to other EvE players is an intrinsic part of the game. It has long been illegal to run up to someone and physically take their property by force, yet there are no problems with football players getting sued for doing this. Boxers dont get prosecuted for assault. Poker players dont get accused of fraud for bluffing.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Second Life exchange rate isn't just an arbitrary figure. The company doesn't set it. It is totally market driven, like RL foreign currency exchange rates, and is what people are prepared to pay for the Linden dollar (stabilized on about 270L = $US 1)
So assets in the game do have a totally defendable value.
Secondly, someone above mentioned taxing income from SL sales. Well, that already happens. It is not quite income tax (yet!), but countries (some, not all) that have VAT (a sales tax) have an agreement with Linden Labs and monetary conversions are subject to VAT. So it is already happening - even be it across borders.
I foresee Linden Labs being at fault for this happenstance it's not something they'll likely get away with.
In a typical MMO you pay for a service the service being access to their servers to Play on them.
Second Life is a different bird altogether you're paying for a Second Life LITERALLY I know people with Legitimate Businesses inside the game that make RL $$$
If Linden Labs were to take that away then I hate to inform them that here in the U S A It's a big crime to steal from another business. (hopefully it'll stay that way but who knows what Years 2 - 4 will bring)
I'm no lawyer but I can flat out tell you this garbage they're pulling won't fly...
I never feel I own anything in my MMOs, because I don't.
Unlike other people who just think "Well the CoC/EULA wouldn't hold up in court so I'll ignore it" (It will hold up in court just fine, that's why they have lawyers who write them), I read the agreements and realize I own nothing and they can ban me from all of my stuff if I break the rules.
It's amazing to watch people who get banned for breaking the rules they agree to, try to fight against everything they clicked I Agree to when logging in. It's always the ones who break the rules who then want to try to find a way to use those rules to their advantage in legal battles.
It's simple really, don't break the rules and you will never have any issue. To my knowledge there hasn't been a single major MMO who has banned someone/deleted their characters and stuff, without cause. So follow the rules and your characters/stuff that you hold so dear, even though they are essentially imaginary, will still be there for you to access.
But don't be that guy who breaks the rules, gets banned, then cries so hard he decides he needs a legal battle. It's pathetic.
I'm not really sure what a gamer would get out of Snow Crash, considering is has very little to do with gaming and everything to do with the virtualization of technology, politics, religion, and society. First read what should be considered the prologue to Snow Crash: In the Beginning Was the Command Line by the same author. Then read anything by Terrence McKenna and learn about the impending apex of infinite novelty called Timescape Zero. Then go back and read Snow Crash and you just might be getting somewhere.
I have a lease that allows me to use several different software packages. Games are no different, we simply lease them. Second Life has over the years made claims that you can buy virtual property, but they would charge you for server space for that virtual property. As I see it they had the stupidity to use the term “Buy” when they should have said Lease. In short, if you can’t hold it or touch it, you don’t own it. Which is one of the reasons why I don’t do Second Life anymore. Yeah, I played it for about six months total.
I just wanna say that this is kinda stupid...
What i would do if i was SL company is print all the items that thies people are trying to say they own in binary code and give it to them.
There, they get what they want, and can do with it what they wish.
But really think about what most people are saying. Just cause you play a game and creat items does not mean you have a right to own those items.
It's like saying i have a right to own the items i create in Spore(EA) useing thier creature maker.
The problem is no one reads the EULA, and never want to accept the fact that they don't truely own what is there.
Now, i can see if you create something in Maya, 3D Max, or one of the other many modeling programs and submit it to the company for them to place into this virtual world. But even then, if it says that appon submitsion you give all rights of ownership to the company than hell.. you have accepted that.
Even if it has real world value, once you accept that the items belong to said company. Than you have given up your rights of ownership.
No... I do not support any idea of a user owner any virtual items created ingame. I think if you do not like this then don't play that game. If you do not like the idea of someone else owning what you create, invest you life/time into making. Than make your own game and play that.
Hell.. if this can be squized out of a court for a win for the user, then i'm gonna rebox my copy of Oblivion with my saved game data and sell it as my own. Because i spent the time to lvl out the toon and make the spells and items he has on him within the game world.
(P.S.) i'm not talking about useing TES-construction kit to build mods. Or your own programed scripts and add-ons. i'm talking about ingame items useing in-game tools.
I've created my own full set of armor and weapons (models and textures) useing Maya 2009 and Photoshop CS4. I Used a (third party) program to convert these models and textures into code that can be imported into Oblivion and worn them on my Avator. I own full registered lisenses on both my copies of Photoshop and Maya 2009, giving me legal right to create and sell visual content. Now this I do own. It is mine and no one elses, and even Bethesda does not have a right to what i created.
Now as far as my legal ability to sell these items on the open market as a plug-in for the game Oblivion, i'm not 100 percent sure how that stands. But i do beleive that I have the right to sell it. I'm just not sure if Bethesda is legaly able to claim some or all of the profit.
I just don't beleive that if an EULA states that owner ship of all items created with-in there client is the property of them (the company) that the user should have any rights to it at all.
AND IF SOME STUPID COURT SAYS THAT THEY DO, as i said before. I hope they *the company) prints it out in binary code and give them (the user) that. Because in the end. Thats what it is anyways.. it's all 1's and 0's.
virtual ownership is can of worms. better leave it out of the games.
Too late.
When game companies start selling virtual items, on top of a sub fee, they are the ones opening up the can.
Something can not be considered both a good and a service under the eyes of the law.
It was only a matter of time before this kind of thing went to court, when the money became big enough to bother.
And as I mentioned before, S.Korea already considers transactions for virtual items just as legally enforceable as selling real items, according to their supreme court, so in that place, RL cash for virtual is already recognized by the law.
In a way, this discussion is much simpler for me, since I have always assumed that I pay for the priveledge of playing on something owned and created by the gaming company. I have never assumed anything is really "mine" or that if I leave or get banned I somehow still have a right to any of it. Second Life sounds more complicated since, like the author stated, some of those things have a real world value. When you think about it, a lot of your stuff has real world value since you can sell your items or game gold for money, or even your account for money if you wanted to (though I'm pretty sure that is against the TOS).
It will be interesting to hear how the courts come down on this one.
Currently playing:
Rift
Played:
SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft, AoC
This will be very interesting to see how it turns out.
As a former sim owner and a long time store owner I have been around SL off and on for over four years now. I am one of the more rare types who only cashes out from it. So I have always had that worry hanging over my head of "what if" they just pull the plug on it. Especially at times when I owned the sim + had big piles of $$ onhand that i had not yet cashed out. I won't lie I always have felt some relief when everything is moved over to Paypal then onto my bank, lol.
I do like Second Life, it is entirely you what you make it but I personally barely login on it anymore. I also get the feeling that Second Life is going to at some point get trumped by something newer and more ethical. Linden Labs has repeatedly shown no ethics and no honor in how they handle land in their world. I am one of the one of the lucky ones who turned a profit on my sim. Also lucky that I only owned 1 sim and not 40 or more like some people did when Linden Labs arbitrarily lowered the sim costs from $1700 to $1000. Utterly destroying peoples investments and costing them 1000s of dollars due their whims.
I guess I could say I like Second Life but I do not much trust Linden Labs.
Hello All,
Raph Koster, the former game developer that has worked on "Ultima Online" (Origin Systems) and "Star Wars Galaxies" (Sony Online Entertainment). Has been vocal in years past in favor of players having virtual property rights.
Here is an article from his blog site dated Dec. 12th 2006:
"Arguing About Virtual Property"
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/12/12/arguing-about-virtual-property/
Don't forget back in 2003 a Chinese gamer won through the Chinese courts his stolen virtual winnings.
Article link:
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/32441.html?wlc=1274303464
There is some case law, albeit not here in the West.
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The Older Gamers