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Mythic Sued Over Blocking Auctions of Game Tokens
Lukenary writes: "Mythic Entertainment, creator of the excellent MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot, is being sued by BlackSnow Interactive, owner and maintainer of CamelotExchange - an online auction site for the exchange of in-game items, money, and characters/accounts. This could be a landmark case: if you spend (typically) weeks of playing time to garner 1,000 gold in-game, do you have the right to auction off that gold for real money? Mythic has not yet had an official response to the suit, but you can read BSI's press release at the CamelotExchange site above. Personally, I find it interesting that BSI is going after DAoC, calling Mythic a "software giant," while ignoring the more established compettion in EverQuest producer Sony, Asheron's Call producer Microsoft, and Ultima Online producer Electronic Arts. Mythic's only product at this time is Dark Age of Camelot, which was released last October."
I feel almost guilty over this, as I'm rooting for the game companies here. As an alienated EverQuest player (what do you mean the stats don't matter?), this is difficult to stomach.
As a casual player, its hard enough playing against people with no lives who play 12 hours a day, muchless the farmers who play for a living.
Less Talk, More Beer.
A lot of people think that because you did all of this work for your item in game then you should be able to do what you want with it, and there is something to be said for that. Unfortuantely in the grand scheme of things it's not so simple. A problem arises when a lucrative market springs up, then you have people who use the game as a means to make their living in the real life.We call these item farmers. These people are a problem for the game system because they spend vast amounts of times gathering items and resources in the game beyond what their character could possibly want or need. These items are of limited availability (they all drop on spawn timers or on a rare percentage of monster kills) so this results in the actual players of the game being pushed out. This of course works for the item farmer because it helps to create the market.
Creating and then maintaining a sustainable economy is a very difficult thing to do in an MMORPG (indeed, nobody has done it yet) and item farmers just make it more difficult.
Sigs are awesome huh?
I find this disturbing: people will pay more money for a fake character than they will spend on themselves.
Think about it. I can imagine an unemployed guy sitting home bidding hundreds of dollars for some imaginary characters, while in the same breath complaining to his friends that he doesn't have the dough to buy a suit to go interview for a job.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
You're missing the point.
They are not creating anything. All the action happens on mythic's servers. Mythic can decide what can and cannot be done on their servers.
It's nothing at all like typing a book in word. It'd be like you searching for pages on google, and then saying that you can sell those pages because you spent your time searching for them, and you're allowed to sell your time.
While you can sell your time, you can't sell something that doesn't belong to you.
This is all well and good, but I think people should bear in mind that Mythic created and owns the entire DAoC set-up. I've never played it myself, so I'm a little sketchy on the precise details, but it seems to me that if Mythic chooses to restrict certain practices within the boundaries of their creation, then they are fully within their rights to do so. Players pay a monthly fee for access, not for rights to private ownership of what their character has. DAoC is hardly a monopoly and people play because they choose to, and within the rules set forth by the company. Whether players selling items is permitted or not permitted outside of the game, I believe it is Mythic's perogative.
--My purpose set, my will defined. Caress the air, embrace the skies.
Mark this.
This case could be the first splash on the legal scene that leads to the legitimization of non-physical economies.
Why is this important?
Imagine that at some point in the future, a corporation creates an amazingly successful MMORPG. The MMORPG is successful enough that the parent corporation spins off the division to form a new company. This new company maintains the virtual world of the MMORPG and derives all its profits therefrom.
Very possible.
If the company then made a move to allow players of the game to purchase commonly traded shares of the corporate stock for in-game currency, there is a tie between a physical-world economy and a virtual one.
At this point, it would take very little imo/ for the virtual world of the MMORPG to classify as a nation-state.
Consider. It _has_ an economy. There is an exchange rate (albeit an occluded one) between the money of the virtual and physical world. The virtual world has a defineable citizenry.
When enough people engage themselves as citizens of a virtual state, and bring enough income into that virtual state, and exchange income between that virtual state's money and the money of other states....
What happens?
Eventually, would a banking house take interest and provide an exchange rate from one economy to the other?
If so...
How long before the citizenry of the virtual world demands rights.
How long before the citizenry of the virtual world takes those demands to a world-recognized forum?
How long before the representative of Norrath addresses the UN?
... (or at least the perceived scumbags) before they go after the good guys.
That's why they go after kiddie-pornographers first when what they really want to do is censor opinions they don't like.
That's why they go after terrorists first when they want to disarm the general population.
That's why they go after self-confessed promotors of the violation of copyrights first when they want to shut down competitive outlets for content.
And so on.
Getting a conviction of someone perceived as a "bad guy" - and the "badder" the better - is easier than going after someone who isn't harming others. Courts and juries, in their desire to make the "bad guy" stop dong "bad stuff", may overlook the fact that the prosecutor or plantif is using the wrong legal tool to go after him, or may overlook how the precedent could be appllied to a non-"bad guy". Once the precedent is established, it becomes a tool to go after people who are NOT "bad guys".
Additionally "Bad guys" also often have shallow pockets, leaving them unable to mount as effective a defense as the more affluent citizens. And that puts them in a similar situation to the "go after the little guy first" model in the previous post.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
How much power is an EULA actually allowed to provide? If I pay to participate in something, and during my participation I acquire some item of worth, what restraints are there on the overseeing entity telling me what I can and can't do with my acquisition?
Bear in mind that your items of worth are merely records in Mythic's servers. In the absence of any agreement to the contrary, they would have every right to alter their records to show that you have no gold. Since the only thing preventing them from doing this is the agreement you made when you started paying for it, if said agreement disallows the sale of in-game items, that is absolutely enforceable.
What usually gets people riled up about EULAs is when they prohibit something that would be allowed in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, such as reverse engineering software. You can complain that the EULA is void because you never agreed to it, and that you therefore have the right to reverse engineer some piece of software. If you complain to Mythic that you never agreed to their Terms of Use/EULA/whatever, they can simply delete your account. What are you going to do, sue them for breaching the contract you argue doesn't exist?
Mythic just needs to exert the power they control over supply and demand.
-- Dan
Other unhealthy things people do, cramped up inside:
Read slashdot
Coin collecting
Stamp collecting
Watching TV
Reading books
Constructing models
Building home furniture out of Lego Brand Building Blocks (or Legos as they're commonly known)
Tweaking another 33MHz out of a CPU
In short, just about everything. So everyone should get up off their butts and go out and live life to it's fullest, teeth bared and snarling, or they're not doing a thing for themselves, society or the economy.
But, come to think of it, maybe they are doing something... Imagine the impact on the environment of tens or hundreds of thousands more people out and about, doing constructive things, I'm not sure it could take it. Maybe you should join the likes of Mike Vendeman, the one who trolls rec.bicycles.*, and drive people to do things or follow beliefs you value.
This was not intended to flame, but to underscore the differences in values and perception of others use of their time. I'm prone to it myself on occasion, but in a lucid moment recall I have my own hobbies and obsessions and wouldn't care to hear anyone sit in judgement on them.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I can understand the temptation. Pretty much every progressive stats-dominated (IOW, MUD-style) MOG I've seen suffers from bunny-killer syndrome: when you start, you're pathetically weak, and you have to spend ages killing what most players consider pathetically weak creatures, the game-equivalent of (if not literally) rabbits and squirrels. Not very heroic.
It doesn't matter what they call the bunnies, or how fearsome they make them look, you still have this situation where 99% of the creatures could squash you like a bug.
This may work fine for a single-player RPG, because you're the center of attention all the way along, and not exposed to the stronger creatures, but in a MOG, your pathetic weakness is rubbed in your face by the relative strength of other players. This is escapism?
It seems that these games would be a lot more fun without the grind of the stats-building process, but that's also a lot harder and more expensive to make (they won't be leveling, they won't be farming items, what will they be doing? there can't be enough earth-shaking heroic quests to go around...). Also, the stats-building process does have an addictive quality that keeps people playing even when they're not having fun (camping, anyone?). It makes economic sense.
It's bad for the game on the whole, but it makes sense for the people buying. Building up your character from a puny noob just isn't the fun part.
...items is it favors the uubers, and is bad for gameplay.
Face it, the majority of people with cash do not play EQ or DAOC 24/7... they would if they could, but they have jobs and cannot. On the other hand, they will tend to take longer to "finish" the game, and may offer a higher longevity of play (at $xx per month).
So, you've got a choice. Focus (what's sold as) a long-term game on 4-month-life players, or focus on people who may play it for up to a year or more... at $xx per month, both cases. Not exactly tough guess which one you'd pick.
The problem with selling items is it promotes farming. We all remember "EverCamp"... people waiting IN LINE to go kill a freakin mob. I've seen entire zones camped, by people who stayed there for weeks on end - long after the kills or item drops did anything for them, they simply exploited their high status to get items they'd sell for cash. And in doing so, they made it impossible for legitimate players to get and use.
Farmers certainly piss off the casual, 4-hour-per-night player. Especially if there's a "waiting list" over 8 hours long, and big time if the farming causes an item unavailability. Real-cash sales of in-game items, if the game does not have anti-farm tactics, alienates game customers like crazy... because of the farming it causes, no other reason.
I don't think the game vendor has legal right to prohibit such sales, however... such item transactions within the scope of a "game service" would simply be considered value-add. Their remedies are strictly limited to coding.
Character sales, otoh, can be prohibited. The game is marketed as a service, and services usually cannot be transferred. After all, go sell your catv service to your neighbor some day. Or, your Triple-A auto-service. Or the extended warranty on your car. You can't sell your health insurance coverage, and you can't arbitrarily sell your mortgage. It just doesn't work... the agreements (contracts) are with you, period. Most times, the ability to sell a vendor's service to someone else generally requires a franchise agreement. And, no vendor is required to GIVE such agreements to anyone... nor should they be. You can't just open up a store and start re-selling Verizon Wireless, you can't decide to re-selling new (or used) AOL accounts... you need to get their permission. After all, they are the one entering into contract with the customer, and God Help Us All of you think you have implicit proxy authority just because you know them.
You can, by law, sell or transfer the game license and media that was purchased in the store. You cannot arbitrarily sell or transfer the account used to play it, nor should you be able to.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
It's also acceptable / legal for them to delete your account if you break their rules. Remember, they're not taking away any actual property from you, merely terminating your service because you did not agree by the terms of service.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yes, TOS's banning the sale of items are quite common. The problem is that the EQ case showed that there's a way around it: sell the service of handing the item over (not "$25 for this sword" but "$25 for my time in logging in, meeting your character, and transferring a sword to them"), or the service of obtaining the item for them ("$25 for my time in logging in, adding you to my party, going to kill the R0X0R DRA60N where I deal 99% of the damage, then letting you have first pick from the loot window").
I think the copyright argument is rather vague, too, especially for selling characters. It would be entirely reasonable to argue that the series of actions that a player chooses for their character to take in the game is the PLAYER's copyright, which is tangibly fixed in the character's logs and present statistics. Also, it is not clear if the sale of the server owner's intellectual property is an issue because after all the server owner does not lose it as a result of the sale (it is still on the server)
But, at the end of the day, it really just shows that 90% of MMORPGs stink at the moment. Playing them is not fun; the only fun is in the reward you get for enduring the boring stuff for a while. Allegiance and Shattered Galaxy were quite playable, but every other MMORPG I've played has sucked rocks.
Depends if players would care. Something tells me that I wouldn't get anything more for "Sycraft's Keen Asterite Hammer" than a normal keen asterite hammer. Remember: What made rare Magic cards form things like Alpha and Beta worth a lot was that people collected Magic cards. Not only did they play magic, but they had cards just ot have them. I don't think this is the case in online games. People buy items/characters because they are good, and they want the abilities. They don't care what it's called so long as it has certian stats.
The lawsuit problem aside, the real problem is just item farming. When I played EQ I was on The Rathe. Now right as I joined, Verant had to disband a guild (and ban many of the members) for excessive lamness. They basically camped all the spawns of good stuff all the time, controlled it all, and you had to pay them real money if you wanted any of it. This rather made people angry. Now for those that would argue that they should be allowed to do this:
1) It ruined a lot of the fun of the game for other people. The point of games, is after all, to have fun.
2) It was in Verant's best intrest to can them, as it was making other paying customers (lots of them) mad. IF you don't keep your customers happy, they will vote with their dollars.
3) Service providers have a right to decide what is acceptable usage of their service (unless they are regulated like Telcos, in which case the government decides) and deny people access if they aren't using it in an acceptable manner.
I think that there are really two main reasons game companies don't want people selling stuff. The farming is one. It really ruins the game for the other players. The other biggie is they want people to spend time playing the game. IF you buy an account at the highest level and lots of good items, you're gonna get bored and stop paying faster than someone who has worked their way up. The companies are, afterall, in this to make money.