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Raking Muck In The Sims Online
Dr. Spork writes "According to a Salon article [ad click-thru required], after launching a newspaper website chronicling tawdry dealings in the Sims Online city of Alphaville, Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at the University Of Michigan, had his Sims Online account terminated by EA/Maxis, the company behind the service. 'Censorship', charges Ludlow, who has exposed dealings such as underage cyber-prostitution and extortion of simoleans (the Sims currency, exchangable on eBay for real-life money)."
It is a free game world. EA isn't a government, they don't govern the world in the sense that our government does. They're God to the Sims. Only EA can make a SimLife, EA can kill whoever it wants, and EA can break all the rules if they wanted to. Physics is theirs to control. What you can and can't do are written down on a sacred TOS.
The real problem here is that SimDeath is the only way to control the world. Say you put a sim in jail. Would you pay money per month to be a prisioner in your spare time? Why, when you could just create another account and kill off your old sim.
Maybe monetary punishment would be good. Fine people simoleans. It seems to me that most people are out to try to make money in the game (via whatever means), so EA could implement laws. The only problem here is that it seems that they don't care about minor infractions, such as prostitution or domestic violence, because of the game world that ensures everything is consentual. The only problems that seem to arise is when you have out of game cracking/bug exploiting, etc...
I guess the best way to solve problems like this is the way that it's been done so many times in the past (ie real rpgs) - heated debates and bitter feelings.
What do YOU do when you have problems in an RPG?