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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!
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).
...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.