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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."
Is it acceptable / legal to hire people to play the game for you?
Is that the same question or not? I think it basically is.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
If you're under 18, you cannot be held to the terms of a contract. I wonder if such individuals are free to do as they please then?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I find it hard to take seriously something that uses such turns of phrase, but then again I've never been one to scour complaints. At any rate, the lawyers hired to represent these people appear legitemete, even if the document reads like a high school essay.
Am quite interested in how it turns out.. this always was a sticking point between Verant and EQ players as well. Would be a nice precedent to have established in the books, because it would also cast shadows on the legitemcy of EULA's.
What about the Visa Buxx card designed for kids?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
How can you POSSIBLY be confused.
You are playing with Mythic's code. No matter what you do in the context of the game, you have not "created" anything that Mythic did not program into the game. Therefore, you cannot SELL what you did not create.
It's ALL Mythic's property, and you have no right to it. You're paying for access to the code, not for the code outright. Just because you played for hundreds of hours doesn't mean you've created anything. All you've really done when it comes right down to it is flipped a few bits on a server.
Hell, not even your CHARACTER NAME is your property, because essentially, all you did was enter a variable in a program, but that variable was planned for. Everything you type was anticipated down to the exact sequence (which is why you can't type in names they don't allow, or characters the program can't interpret).
If you had an agreement with your ISP saying "all books written on the ISP's shell box are property of the ISP," then the ISP has a valid claim under a long history of contract law.
But what if someone finds a way to cheat in the game? Or a programmer modifies the game code to give himself extra weapons or gold or any other game-related item? Said person then takes the items and sells them for real cash. It may seem like a remote possibility, but when real money is involved, people tend to become pretty creative...
Employee abuse. Unlike real items, these virtual itmes can be made and unmade by the trillions with a few key strokes. If you are one of the programmers or better yet sysadmins that happen to have access to the database that controls all this, you could really make a killing by adding in tiems and selling them, with no effort.
There is also a legal concern. For example, suppose that your game features the Ultra-Rare Sword of Asskicking +10, of which there are only 3 total in the game. There were given out as a one time quest thing. So they get traded around for real money, and a fair bit of it. Well you then decide it's time to expand the game. You up the level cap, add in new abilities, monsters, etc. You also decide to make that sword just an uncommon drop from a high level monster.
Now the people that own the orignals are pissed. Their monetary investment has gone to shit, just because you decided to change the way the game worked, so they sue you. Stupid? Yes, but I've seen worse lawsuits that have been won.
1) IIRC, Verant updated the EQ EULA specifically banning the auctioning of items and plat on ebay because they got sick of whining bitches petitioning the GMs saying "I bought 100K off this guy on ebay and now he wont give it to me! Can you get it for me please?!?!?"
2) If anyone ever discovers an exploit which allows item duping, the items immediately become worthless. No doubt there would be a large amount of loud, vocal, hardcore gamers looking for a convenient scapegoat. Blame the company for its "crappy programming" and them "not testing enough for exploits".
3) Being able to buy your way to the top makes the game pointless. Parting of being uber is being uber enough to stick it out and work your way up all those levels. Getting to level 60 on Everquest requires months of dedication to a character. How pissed would you be if some little shit down the street got his parents to buy him a Level 60 character for his birthday and he goes around boasting about it?
...the company would do it itself. It would be great for them to be able sell high-ranking or rare items as a primary source of income. I've seen MUDs do that, but always on a very limited scale: a handful of select, not too powerful, items given to people who pay extra (or pay at all, as it's usually on otherwise free MUDs that I've seen this).
The problem is, that doesn't make a good game. It's like playing chess in a league where people who bribe the referee can have all their pawns replaced with queens at the start of the game. Either you have to spend your money just to get a level playing field, or you have a hell of a time getting a decent game.
So it's a matter of protecting the gameplay. They can't just allow it. The question of legality depends entirely on the contract. Obviously, you can set acceptable use rules in the user contract.
This challenge looks pretty ridiculous to me. It seems basically to me like people disputing the right of a sports league to ban players for taking bribes to throw the game.
I would say if you ever reach the point in your life where you spend so much time playing a computer game that your character is developed enough to be worth money on an auction site, perhaps it is time to step away from your computer.
time to the game to level AND make money. Result:
I haven't played DOAC in a couple months, because
I have better things to do with my time.
It seems to me that Everquest is the other way around. Of course, my experience with EQ is
limited to the fact that when I tried it I gained
to about the 5th. level and just gave up because
it just wasn't fun at all. Anyway, in EQ, it
seems to me that it is easy to get stuff, and hard
to gain levels. Unless of course you get power leveled by some level 55 guy who just thinks he can score with you because you are using a female character model.
The way that items work in DAOC is that they degrade slowly, and they also are designed with a particular level. So for an item to work the way
it is supposed to, it needs to "con" around your level. Sooner or later, if you gain levels, your
stuff is going to be next to useless for you. And
even if you keep it, it will eventually fall apart.
So basically this forces players to spend TONS of time doing both leveling and earning if they want to have a decent character.
This is a problem. If it were easier to make money, players would not have to spend hours on
end playing, doing boring, repetetive tasks rather
than fighting monsters and other players. There
would be fewer people devoting their entire lives
to MMORPG games, and the scene would be much
more attractive to the casual gamer who wants
to play 2 or 3 hours a week and still have their
character advance at a decent pace.
I don't know what Final Fantasy Online will be like, but I hope that Square makes it much easier
to enjoy the game without forcing you to make it a
second job. The game would actually become fun,
and there wouldn't be losers out there who would
feel the need to try to turn EQ into a money
making business, or who want to be somehow
compensated for wasting 80 hours a week playing
EQ.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
>You aren't doing the same with a character, you're just making changes to a database that Mythic designed and owns the rights to.
Well, I guess this is where it gets sticky.
Isn't a filesystem nothing more than a simple database? ReiserFS would have us beleive so.
>They don't have a contract with you gautenteing service.
They sure do if you paid in full and aren't breaking the rules. Just the same way the cable co can't come out to your house and cut your cable for watching too much Seinfeld, your ISP can't cut off your shell account unless you break the rules, or you are repaid.
If they decide to change the rules they need to either wait for your current payment to expire or refund the rest.
>For that matter, they can shut down your account for any reason.
If my ISP did that without a refund I'd take their ass to small claims court and see what a judge thinks about it.
He'd probably not just refund my money, but if he was generous he might even give me punitive damages if the reason were outrageous enough (like them feeling they have the rights to something you created on your paid for CPU cycles and on your pad for section of their hard drive/database).
>If you dont' like it, vote with your dollars ad go play elsewhere.
Nahh, when a company tries to suspend the whole idea of free trade in a free society, I think its totally fair for the people harmed to revolt. They deserve not only their money back for the unused server time, but also the money back for their purchase of the game, IMHO.
Next thing you know you'll rent a hotel room for two and the owners will think they have the right to tell you that you that you and your soon to be wedded wife have to sleep separately unless you are married. This is a matter of freedom, and people need the government to tell these people that when you rent someone's hardware and create something on it that you own it, not the renters.
What's next, rental typewriters that require you to give the owners of the typewriter a copy of your manuscript?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
A TOS or any contract (including non-disclosure and employment contracts among others) cannot act as a barrier of trade. In other words, you cannot be bound by a contract that says "I agree that I wont buy a car". How this works out for electronic "possession" is what the courts have to decide.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
One must consider the side effects. Poof, all concept of trading items goes away. All the interaction from
Bzzzt. Try again. You're going to have to have some way of changing address, name, and credit card number. Unless you're going to tell people that when they change credit cards, move, or get married that they have to start their characters over...
This is a harder problem than you give it credit for.
Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
The bans on trading items have nothing to do with whether it affects game balance or not. They have everything to do with the amount of support calls it generates.
Every screwed up sale, every dishonest transaction, every CD lost in the mail, the offended party can't get 'justice' from the other side, so they go and complain to the in game support. Consider all the fraud on E-Bay etc. - it generates a massive support load on the companies running the games.
Now think back to the regular complaints on every MMORPG story on slashdot about how they "rip us off for $x/month". Most of that subscription goes to covering overheads - most of which are support.
Now do you really want them doubling their support load and so having to charge you twice as much each month because people get ripped off on E-Bay?
Finally, consider how actively they actually go after people who do still trade accounts? They don't - other than making an occasional public show of those who most publicly flaunt the rule. That's because all they need is the policy in place so no one will try calling them. Once that's done, they don't really care.
What Mythic is effectively being sued for is refusing to provide free support to people who get screwed using CamelotExchange and can't get justice from the site that was used to screw them. Put in those terms, why should they?
If this were a single-player game, would selling be an issue? If I buy a copy of and spend months getting high-level characters and finding cool equipment, no EULA can prevent me from selling the game to someone, even if I charge a much higher price than shelf-value. If there were a way to export individual items from one copy of the game to another, again no EULA could prevent me from doing so.
As an analogy, if I buy a book, highlight all the important passages, and auction it for more than I originally paid, no publisher has the right to stop me. If I could manage to auction off just the location of passages I highlighed to someone who already owns a copy of the book, it's absurd to think the publisher could have an EULA that prevents this.
So why should the fact that the game is multiplayer make it any different?
If my sister joins the game and I give her a lot of powerful equipment, it's ok, but if I sell that equipment to a stranger, it's wrong. What's the logic here? Nepotism is ok, but capitalism isn't?
If a friend does a favor for me in return for a powerful sword, it's ok. If the friend gives me cash, it's wrong? What's wrong with this picture?
If a mechanic friend offers me cash for a powerful item, but I'm forced to decline because that's against the rules, what if I strike a deal that in return for a magic wand he fix my car for free the next time it breaks down. Basically, what's happened here is that the mechanic has paid me with credit. No money has been transferred, but presumably there is no legal issue here.
Something is seriously wrong here. The items in the game clearly have value. They're going to be traded as valued goods one way or another. IANAL, but it seems like some sort of discrimination to prevent some forms of trade (online auctions) but not others (personal favors).
There is nothing to "own". It's all data and software owned by Mythic. Heck, even the client belongs to Mythic, by the strictest definitions of the EULA (granted, that won't necessarily stick if push came to shove). At a minimum, the server side data -- the state of the accounts -- belongs to Mythic. They store it, they provide the access and bandwidth and hardware to manage and alter it.
A player claiming to "OWN" the currency or items, to the extent that THEY should be able to dictate what is done with them, has a flaw in their logic.
Look at a real world example: Arcades. If you play a few hours, invest tons of _real_ cash, and earn a million tokens, what can you do with them? You can trade them in, _according to the rules and conversion rates specified by the arcade_. Technically, even taking them off the premises is THEFT -- you don't earn the tokens, they're just a form of representation of the "winnings" you've obtained through one of the allowed systems of the arcade -- a game of luck, skill, or both. Those tokens belong to the arcade, subject to the rules they establish.
Now, do people pool them inside the arcade to get a bigger prize? Sure. That's allowed, at least implicitly. Are you _allowed_ to take them home and build up a larger stockpile? NO. Do people do it anyway? Yes.
But does that mean the arcade visitors have a "Right" to take those tokens from the arcade, and sell them for real cash to other people? No way. The rules explicitly disallow it, and the tokens remain the property of the arcade throughout. The data on Mythic's servers is less tangible, but NO less their property.
At least, that's the way I look at it.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
look, if i go out and buy Cakewalk Pro Audio, make a #1 hit song, should the Cakewalk people say that I cannot have rights to my song and not sell it?
if i purchase Adobe Photoshop, can i not sell any images i create with it? or are the images only there for me to enjoy personally.... um.
i don't exactly like the fact that some rich newb can purchase a character more powerful than the one i've built with hard work.
BUT, i think online items, real estate, etc will be a very real future of virtual, real-time applications.
if worse comes to worse, i suppose MMORPG companies can always insist that all auctions of game items must be done on their own game auction web site. that way, they could make a small percentage of the sales.
All this talk about company XXXX blocking auctions of in game [MONEY | CHARACTERS | EQUIPMENT] .. what about Karma, eh? I seem to recall slashdot [FIDDLING WITH | DELETING] the accounts of those who try to sell their high-karma accounts on eBay.
too much pepsi today.
I think this business of selling items in the
real world is A Bad Thing.
The problem is that the game's creators are
trying to produce a credible virtual world. If
people start doing things for incomprehensible
reasons (like giving all their gold to a
complete stranger), then that credibility goes
out the window.
Imagine if this kind of thing happened in the
real world! It would destroy our ability to
understand people's motives - it would be a
hard place to exist in.
Was join a good guild. While they won't hold your hand, they will help you out. I've recieved a fair amoutn of finincal and item support form my guild, and they continue to give it. I also give support to lower level characters, and make trips to rez epople and so on. DAoC really seems to be built on the idea of cooperation.
they won't be leveling, they won't be farming items, what will they be doing?
My idea (well, I'm sure it's not *just* mine) is instead of levelling, have something very similar to Karma harvesting on Slashdot... partly from quests, partly from experience, etc... because in the real world, a 30 year old is not five times as strong as a 20 year old. Experience should count, but not be the whole point. Item and gold collection over time would also inherently make you stronger, but again, not *that* much stronger.
This way everyone is not so far behind when they start, but the real heroic people are quite a bit stronger (but must keep being heroic to stay strong). Assholes would, in contrast, become weaker, but as on /. have the ability to redeem themselves with a determined effort.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
bigger issue is taxes.
if virtual items have real value then they are
assets-taxable assets.
if your magic sword has value of $50
then you made $50 when you got it.
you should file tax return on it.
irs will want their share.
what about all other items-dungeon of gold?
irs will say company owns it since you dont.
then irs will ask for tax money.
company must stop real world value of items
or get big tax bill. also irs audit of server
for mega players is very easy-then you get
bill for your players armour of gods and sword of
anything slaying in dollars not gold.
Some friends and I were discussing this the other day. We were discussing how if gold/etc rewards from killing things scales up with levels, it is trivial for a high-level character to supply low levels with gear. Therefore, what should happen, is items should have wear and tear, and the wear and tear should be too expensive to repair on a too-powerful-for-your-level item. This is one key to a functional economy, since the major problem with a MMORPH economy is there is eventually infinite supply, because nothing ever is destroyed. IE, give us entropy, or give us a joke economy.
That said, people seem to have forgotten the "RP" in MMORPG. I'm waiting for a company to not only make a game like Everquest or DaoC, but enforce roleplaying so that idiots running around going, "d00d, the sword will spawn soon, let's get it!" are simply slain irrevocably and directed to read some "don't be an idiot" FAQ. Of course, this is the good thing about Neverwinter Nights -- it will form communities that do just this, and without the profit motive that Verant/et al have to permit any player, regardless of their crappy roleplaying. The sale of items, and more so characters, completely undermines the RP in a MMORPG. You should, over time, get to know what a person behaves like -- are they aggressive, generous, noble, etc? Of course, if they actually made a balanced game, then they could take an important step: permitting unwanted PKs to occur anyhow. A game isn't "competitive" if players can't compete against each other in a meaningful way. Racing to a certain level is not meaningful, because it indicates nothing more than time available to play. Best equipment? normally the same. But if players can take things from other players by force, killing them against their will -- that's different. Now its a fight to survive, a hunt to kill people off, etc, and you wrap that up with excellent roleplay, and its an unbeatable blast. Several muds do it well -- for example, Avendar or Carrion Fields. This REQUIRES some sort of active enforcement. Not a lot, but some, because it is important to not let the game be ruined by non-roleplayed mass murder, especially aganist the helpless/uninvolved, just for kicks (this was a serious issue with UO).
What makes you think the money issued by the various governments of the world is any more real than that in a virtual world? Money is an imaginary construct, we all agree that it has value so it does regardless of whether is green an printed by the treasury department or belongs in a game.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I recently attempted to sell one of my old UINs for ICQ on eBay, as it is very low and quite desirable; I received an email telling me that AOL had requested my auction be pulled as they were the "verified rights owner" of this number
Seems that AOL have the monopoly on numbers now...
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Think of it this way:
Someone buys a membership to a gym (these games are memberships to, for all intents and purposes, a service or a club). Said person spends a lot of time working out with the bench press. So much time in fact, that he hogs it up 12 hours a day, during prime time hours.
Eventually, said person doesn't want or need to use it all that time, so, they decide to sell off usage. He figures that he has the potential of using that entire time, so, why not sell some of "his" time to other members?
It's basically the same concept. You are leasing an intellectual property that belongs to someone else. You should not be able to profit from it, without an agreement with the property owner.
Same thing goes for movies, music, books, software and the list goes on.
The big question I have though, how do we know that the majority of said auctioneers are not indeed employees at Verant Interactive - Sony, or whatever the associated software company is?
If I was a manager at VI/Sony and I seen the interest in people buying in game items for real money, I would probably setup auctions as an official, un-written, policy. What better way of making more money with your intellectual property? Heck, they could probably make as much or more on selling items in auction then they do on membership fees. =)
Of course, you would have to have an official policy that stated such things were not allowed, to help defeat competition from members doing the same thing. =)
Laters,
CRT_Leech
Query: What exactly IS the limit you can put in a TOS? Is there a legality limiting the kind of things they can ask for? If you reread a TOS of a game you just installed and discovered that the company now owned your house, would you have to move?
The User's License Agreement may or may not hold up in court, but the fundamental reasons for banning the sale of virtual items are unsupportable.
The argument is that sale of virtual items is damaging to the in game economy, and hurts the other players of the game. If this is true, then the in-game economy is already broken.
People can and will give powerful items and commodities to other players for free, whether they are friends, guildmates, or a second account owned by the same person. To the game, this is exactly the same effect as player A selling some pile of junk to player B for real cash.
Over time the line between 'real' money and virtual money will become increasingly blurred. ULA's like the ones existing game companies enforce are going to fail in the court system eventually.. I suggest game makers start making their economies robust enough to deal with it.
-Zaphod