wat happens wen a mmorpg goes out of business

code

i was wondering wat wud happen to the characters u made and all the items u  ghathered and then the mmorpg company say they gona hang their coats does that mean u can sue them or can they delete ur character or items without ur permission and get away wit it ?

Ignorance is Bliss

heartless

You can't sue them. When you buy an MMORPG and pay a monthy fee, you're paying for the right to log on to their servers and play their game. All of the characters you made and phat lewt you gathered is nothing more that their code and is protected by copyright laws. The company has the right to close down their servers at anytime and stop charging you money and there is nothing you can do about it.

I'm not sure whether the characters get erased or not. I guess that would depend on the company and on the circumstances.

eldar

You also need to figure that your contract that thing you sign whenever you start an mmorpg states that at anytime they can terminate your account without reasond. Go back and check. That's so they have a back door if they do drop.

Patrick

ianubisi

The only way you'd have any legitimate rights to sue would be if they took your monthly fee for the upcoming month and then shut off the servers without letting you play. Even then, the contract likely gives them some rights in that regard. Further consider that filing bankruptcy would shield them from collections, at the very least it would make your collection of owed monies very complicated and hardly worth your time.

code

i dont like this much looks like players dont have any rights over this....

Ignorance is Bliss

Omol

Why would they? The players are paying for a service. They are essentially paying for someone elses intellectual property.

----------------------------
Omol da'Ox
The Blooded

Clever_Glove

What rights would you have to someone else property. Nothing about a MMORPG belongs to you. You are renting space in a game companies database, for a monthly fee they give you permission that data to play in their servers memory.

Perhaps there is ground for something since, maybe you paid for a month you did not get to access for since they shut off there severs. You might have legal grounds to sue the company for restoration of your lost funds. But as already pointed out, this would be silly sue for a loss of 12 bucks. Even in the case you buy a years worth, that's still only a 100 (or so) bucks you'd be down. About a hour of a lawyers time. (assuming bankruptcy hasn't protected them, witch it does.)

If your worried, only play large name brand games, and don't buy year subscriptions.

Buyer beware.

 

 

-=-=-=-=-
"The beauty of MMORPGS is the merging of gaming and chatrooms. EQ is really just AOL merged with a fantasy game." - billus8

Bartle: A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% Test learn what it means here.

code

ppl are paying for a service which is not reliable wit lots of loop holes some one should really change internet law system, ppl are using the code to create sumthing of their own.

like loads of game now a days are based on C and C++ does that mean that the guy who made C++ owns all these games.

Ignorance is Bliss

Clever_Glove

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Originally posted by code

ppl are paying for a service which is not reliable wit lots of loop holes some one should really change internet law system, ppl are using the code to create sumthing of their own.
like loads of game now a days are based on C and C++ does that mean that the guy who made C++ owns all these games.

Ignorance is Bliss

---

If you are paying for 'sumtin wit is not reliable, wit lots of loop holes' (whatever this means) Stop paying for it. Your not forced to play or buy anything.  If something isn't up the quality you expect, don't buy it agian. (in this case another month)

There is no internet law system, nor should/could there ever be one. If there was the internet would turn into something you and I wouldn't want to use. And we'd hop ship for some other network that was similar to the current internet.

Companies do have a physical existence. Where they physically exist there are laws, they are subject to those laws just like everyone else.

If you buy a phone card and the company goes belly up what do you do? A magazine? Your cable provider...ect. There is a certain risk you take when you step out the door each morning, you must use your own common sense to minimize that risk.  Governments, make-believes ones or real ones, can not protect you and make your decisions for you.

In this case the company went out of the business and was not trying to deliberately defrauding you out of your 12 bucks. You could try to sue them, for that 12 bucks but it cost you in the neighborhood of 2-10K to get. More if they try to fight. And you still may end up with nothing, they do under. You can't bleed a turnup.

As for your C comments, I have no idea what your trying to express.

-=-=-=-=-
"The beauty of MMORPGS is the merging of gaming and chatrooms. EQ is really just AOL merged with a fantasy game." - billus8

Bartle: A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% Test learn what it means here.

Malkavian

If that were the case, lets look at software companys.

The company markets their products.
Ie. Code.

You buy their products.
Ie. You purchase the right to use their Code.

Therefore you do not OWN the products' code. Your merely allowed to use it.

If the software company wishes to no longer provide the software you already purchased, they have every entitlement to do so. It is their product.

When you play an mmorpg, you using the their services, their products, their code, to create more services, products and code that belong to them.

In regards to MMORPG's or any service providers Online offering unreliable resources and complicated service agreements, "Welcome to the world of Business". Businesses rely on their name and reputation for sales. If they develop a bad reputation - thus a bad name, their business suffers if to the point of failure. If people wish to take the risk and invest in business with such reputations, it is their right. Internet laws should not be changed because of a result in lack of judgement. Terms of Service and Agreement are clearly defined in online contracts required by law.

 - Malkavian

 

"When you find yourself falling into madness... Dive." - Malkavian Proverb

Malkavian

Forgot to also mention,

You take a case to an attorney/lawyer because the software company charges you their monthly fee to use their software, but then shuts down and doesn't reinburse you.

The attoney/lawyer will laugh in your face.

They will not consider any case unless there is a settlement of more than $500.

Anything less and you'll not only be paying for the court fees, but the settlement costs and your attorney/lawyers fees. Not to mention the family embarresment.

I have a lawyer in da house. 

 - Malkavian

 

"When you find yourself falling into madness... Dive." - Malkavian Proverb

higgsboson

If a company goes bankrupt and files for bankrupt protection act, there are not that much anyone can do about it, MMORPG company or non-MMORPG company.

You don't get nothing out of it unless there are third party company willing to purchase the whole remain of the company and wants to keep the service going.

 

|MaguS|

You can look at it also this way. Sony vs Ebay. Sony made it clear that players did not have the right to sell ingame items for real currency because they did not own the items! Anything related to the game is still owned by the company.You are doing nothing more then renting everything, read your EULA.

Malkavian

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Originally posted by |MaguS|
You can look at it also this way. Sony vs Ebay. Sony made it clear that players did not have the right to sell ingame items for real currency because they did not own the items! Anything related to the game is still owned by the company.You are doing nothing more then renting everything, read your EULA.

---

You know what, your absolutely right. Which means anyone on ebay right now selling "ingame properties" are in breech of their user agreements/contracts and are viable to be sued.

And here i am with 6 pending closure this week.

 - Malkavian

"When you find yourself falling into madness... Dive." - Malkavian Proverb

|MaguS|

Yup, thats why Sony bans any account that are caught instantly.

higgsboson

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Originally posted by |MaguS|
You can look at it also this way. Sony vs Ebay. Sony made it clear that players did not have the right to sell ingame items for real currency because they did not own the items! Anything related to the game is still owned by the company.You are doing nothing more then renting everything, read your EULA.

---

You really can't make your claim on cyber property under current system of affaire. First of all the system is imperfect. It's not like bank transaction system. It has bug in every stage of its evolution. It has everything that's got to due with imperfect nature of piece of code that no one will notice it until something goes wrong. You can't put your claim on property in such insecure medium. Nor will any developers will be bold enough to claim that their system is fault/error/hack free system.

However in the future, if a game can guaranty 100% hack free, glitch free system (like today's sophisticated banking system using most advanced encryption tools) and feature 80 to 90% of its content based on player's creation, this gonna be whole different story.

Because everything that we create has an intellectual value/property attached to it.

 

|MaguS|

Saddly its impossible for any real player content creation because then thier would be no developer

I mean someone has to come up with the item that the player is making, no? When a player goes and mines some metal and then forges a sword, hes not really making that sword. The sword was precreated by the developers. Its ALWAYS going to be like that. Without the developer precreating the item we have no game or beginning content.

Even if in virtual reality player can control every aspect, someone had to have made the software that the player is using and someone had to create the graphics that the player is seeing.

So anyway you look at it, you NEVER will own game content unless YOU make the game.

darkman

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Originally posted by heartless
You can't sue them. When you buy an MMORPG and pay a monthy fee, you're paying for the right to log on to their servers and play their game. All of the characters you made and phat lewt you gathered is nothing more that their code and is protected by copyright laws. The company has the right to close down their servers at anytime and stop charging you money and there is nothing you can do about it.
I'm not sure whether the characters get erased or not. I guess that would depend on the company and on the circumstances.

---

This is my response to this topic. What I am about to tell you is 100% true, I am not making it up:

Some chinese person, I believe 24 years old or something like that, played Redmoon Online for like a year and a half or so (I mean paid for it). So he was happily playing, then one day, all of the sudden he got hacked and lost everything. So instead of doing your normal whining and complaining, he takes it one step further, he demands from the company to refurbish his account because he got hacked. Now you guys obviously know what the company will say, no. So what does he do next? He tells the police about this little incident, obviously the police don't give a ****, so now here comes the interesting part. He takes the company (forgot who made Redmoon) to court, and demands 400 dollars or whatever (The amount he paid since he started) for reinbursement or his items back. You want to know what the outcome was?

The Chinese guy WON. The company was forced to reemburse all that he lost as the judge stated due to "loopholes in security".

So this wasn't really 100% related to this topic, but it does prove a point. In some cases, MMORPG companies actually can be liable for your items, as much as you want/don't want to believe it.

Clever_Glove

http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-12/19/content_291973.htm

Please do a little footwork and provide links to your stories, if your going quote something.

A gamer in china, sued a company in china under chinese law.

Maybe this might fly in china, but you'd have a much harder time here in the US. 

-=-=-=-=-
"The beauty of MMORPGS is the merging of gaming and chatrooms. EQ is really just AOL merged with a fantasy game." - billus8

Bartle: A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% Test learn what it means here.