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Cash shops and buyer right's
banshe13
Member CommonPosts: 200
Let me first say this dose not effect me anymore since I dont play MMORPG anymore out side once in a blue moon for a week tops if that.
Now that companys have gone balls to the wall on the double dipping with p2p with cashshop where are the buyers right when ingame item's have a $ put on them. Lets say a account gets banned with items of a value of lets say 200$ so such and such items from there vary own cash shop.
I think there needs to be laws put it place where if a account is banned for something the game company should be forced to allow the person the sell the items to others from there account or have the company pay you for them . Since it is now to a point where game items are worth real money now I find it wrong that the can steal your money from your hardwork or you item buy.
If you get fired from your job you clean out your desk or your things well how it it any diffrent with a account with like I said 200$ for a example to me this screeems theif my the companys own set cash shop. This I think will be need to be put in the court room vary soon for laws to be put in place. With diablo 3 having a AH with items for real cash for game items and taking a cut on top of this it is going to be vary hairy.
What do you think to be this is theft of personal items just like stealing a phone or a wallet.
Yes many spelling errors im sure so sue be mmorpg has no spellcheck.
Comments
Sorry, but buying items ingame is still the game maker's property. You don't own anything ingame except the box it came in. You get banned for doing something against their RoC or terms, then it's your loss. Period.
Anything else is ranting of self-entitlement and not adhering to their terms and conditions when you started playing.
Don't be a tard and get banned. Easy.
Interesting premise. Not being a lawyer, I'm completely unsure how the legal ramifications of your idea would play out OP. If this idea pans out, reading EULA will get much more interesting.
I can see it now, "I was banned for calling the moderator an asshat, but I meant it in the nicest way, you owe me $200!"
He does have a fair point. Many a time in F2P games i've seen items bought from the cash shops going completely to waste, disappearing etc through server problems and the player has no recompense.
The way the industry is set up means that the publisher/developers cannot be held responsible but now that cash shops are starting to be more main stream i would hope that some sort of regulation would eventually be put into play. As it stands right now, worst case tin foil hat scenario, there is nothing stopping a company simulating a server crash wiping half of everyone's bought items in order to encourage them to purchase more. As I said, that is tin foil hat country, but it does hapen unintentionally with no come back for the consumer. Not something you would see or be allowed in normal commerce.
Yeah, you have zero rights to anything you have purchased in a MMORPG, it's all, more honestly, rented. You own nothing.
Should there be a refund situation if you break a game's user agreement and are banned from the service? No. You agreed to the contract.
Should there be a refund given if the service closes down for reasons beyond your control? Yeah, probably, especially in sub + CS games where the price of the client and ongoing use already been covered.
Should they be forced to highlight in their shops the fact that you are RENTING no more then the rights to use their pretty pixels and the 'product', and all rights extended to you, are temporary and remain 100% under the control of the provider and that you OWN nothing? Yes, for sure.
In fact, legally cash shops should be forced to label themselves as 'Rental Shops' in the name of clarity.
Agree. People need to read the End License user agreements before hitting the accept button. There has been couple court cases involving intellectual properties staying with Game companies. If I remember correctly...The EQ incident comes to mind where the guys sold $21,000 of game property on ebay and the game company sued him and won. Use cash shops at your own risk!
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All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
Lol yeah, or "I'm quitting now, so the shining magic flying pony I bought can be sent to my mailing address if you don't mind. Better not ship it c.o.d or I'll sue!"
MMOs are like gym memberships, just because you pay the fees doesn't mean you own any part of the gym.
And cash shop are just like paying extra for fluffy towels at the gym rather than using the complementary scratchy towels, you pay for the use of the towel, you don't own the towel.
Others posted this, but I think it bears stating again, because it keeps coming up.
You don't actually own the characters on whatever game account you're using and you don't own anything the characters on that account are using. You do not actually own anything...you are not purchasing any property at all. All you have purchased is a revokable right to play a game using the game publisher's or developer's servers. They can charge you for whatever they want in the game, and if they revoke your right to play the game, you lose access to everything.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Here lays the issue EULA the cmpany is able to put any thing in it and can change it on the fly and the have been brain washing people to think that there as some of you put it renting the items and its theres. Yet who was the ones who payed with cash or time I can tell you one thing it was not the company it was the person AKA buyer/grinder.
Now times have changed since ingames items are worth real cash game companys know this love it and sell it all the time hideing behind a one way EULA knowing thay can be a casion with not 1 cent lost and keep taking the money.
Best case a player/buyer/seller dose something the dont like they dont brake a hand they just sue you and put you in jail.
They are not hiding behind anything. It's their property. You don't actually 'buy' the item, you purchase the right to use said item ingame, and ingame only. You can't walk away with it.
You should know the risks of buying anything ingame, as even if the game goes belly up as it did with TR, you still have no right to anything made to be ingame. Even your if lifetime subscription goes bye bye.
Just like investing, you take chances and roll the dice, but you should have at least some form of knowledge on how things operate before you venture forth into those waters.
the next step would be to demand the two years of payments back as lost investments!
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https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I don't think anyone misunderstands this, we're all well aware of how skewed the EULA's are towards the games companies, removing all and any rights the consumer has.
I wish there was some way to put the screws to game companies who participate in double-dipping, but as mentioned already, we're only ever buying temporary licenses to use property owned by the developers. The only right we consumers have is the right not to consume. Pity that so few of us are capable of exercising it.
Great analogy.
I always thought of MMOs as theme parks like Disney, Six Flags, etc. You pay to get into the park, and then you may have to pay to ride some of the rides. But at the end of the day, you're not leaving with a roller coaster in your pocket.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Once this becomes more known thing and overall value of item shop sales , and especially ideas like D3 RMAH will be more common , Tax Offices and goverments will take a look there for taxes. I guess consumer's organisations might take a look at that in future as well.
Once that happens game companies might write anything they want in EULA's but countries law always override EULA's laws , well at least in EU it does. If it will state that in game item is property of layer then it will be irrelevant to what's in EULA.
Goverments won't miss to tax all of this I assure it. I see Vat on all item shop sales and income tax from RMAH sales, at least.
Maybe even having to write virtual items assets value in yearly tax reort but that's more in future if ever.
Until such time as players are actually taking ownership of some sort of property (virtual or otherwise) there will be no taxes other than income taxes and sales taxes.
People keep coming back to this idea, that the government is going to tax virtual items or the sales of virtual items...but it's not going to happen in games, the way they are structured now.
There is no transfer of property, at all. You're simply giving the company more money. The company earns more money, and so (in theory) pays more taxes. You've already paid taxes on the money you've earned to pay the game company. The only thing that could happen is a sales tax. The company is making a sale, and so it's taxed...somewhere. In the U.S. there is no national sales tax and state sales taxes are very hard to collect across state lines...so...yeah...not going to happen any time soon.
Blizzard's Real Money Auction House is the only version likely to create more tax revenue, because there is the possibility that individuals will earn enough money to have to pay taxes on money made from selling virtual items.
** edit **
Game items will not be the property of the player because there is no property there for an ownership transfer to take place. The entire thing is services and licensing.
Should probably ignore my first three paragraphs as they may not be relevant.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Dont play such games like me its so SIMPLE:)
A link to the second life example http://www.informationweek.com/news/196604327
You take your stuff. Not the data you typed into the database. That is of course, if we are going to actually compare the job you are paid to do and resources you are paid to use at that job with some virtual items in a game that you bought with unrefundable points paid for with real life cash.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
In some games, ingame items may have a value equivalent to a certain sum of real money, but since players usually cannot "cash out" (not legally anyway), there is no real money value. In other words, under normal circumstances the value of your virtual items never realise (if I now use the term correctly). Every cent you've put into that game, you have lost the second you pressed "I accept the transfer". You pay for a service, not for a virtual product.
It will be a cold day in hell before we get any rights to the items we own virtually. It is as likely as gamers getting a refund because of broken promises and poor quality. Not very likely.
My opinion? I'm against any property laws extending to virtual property. Common sense is so rare these days...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
But the SERVICE was RIGHT TO ACCESS THOSE ITEMS. If I rent a vehicle at an airport for a week, I realize that I don't OWN that vehicle. However, I do have the right to expect access to that vehicle for the rest of the week. That is how a contract works. If the rental company decides to take back the car early, I have the right to get a refund. If I'm paying for the service of getting access to cash shop items, that's ANOTHER contract- this time between me and an online MMO publisher allowing me use of these items for the duration of my online account. Unless we specifically agree otherwise beforehand, they cannot legally cut off access to our items for no reason whatsoever.
Services like Steam are a great example of this, the only reason Valve can do things like ban accounts or limit access to games without getting the pants sued off of them is because they make us agree to their long Steam Subscriber Agreement beforehand.
Contract? Renting? Virtual items? Now, if you paid for 90 days of an item and you only got 30 days, then I can see your point, and games do reimburse for that if the termination of service was not due to a violation of EULA/TOS. However, if you paid for an item, the use of that item is only for that system as long as the system is live. Do you expect reimbursement for the expansion packs you bought? Refunds for your gender/name changes? When a game shuts down, are you suggesting the developer mail you the pixels? Would you like a Ziploc of 1s and 0s or does hexidecimel work better for you?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I am now hoping the government does step in and start treating ingame currency as "revenue" since it obviously does have a real life street value or there wouldn't be goldsellers and buyers. I'd love to see all the cash shop fanbots start screaming when they, or their parents, start getting bills from the I.R.S.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Yeah. Good luck with that.