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The Basics of EULAs
Garthilk writes "Blizzard recently made a bit of press when they announced that they would be actively enforcing their End User License agreement and prohibit the third party sale of game items and characters. Many people don't believe these clickthrough EULAs to be enforceable contracts. Thankfully Don Shelkey from the Corporate Finance and Technology section of the law firm Buchanan Ingersoll stops by to give us the low down. Mind you he is speaking on his own behalf and not on behalf any of his clients."
What I can't understand from this is WHY Blizzard would be opposed to this? If a mini-economy were to open up around your game, isn't that a good thing? They could get into the act themselves -- selling magic items and high level characters to the highest bidder? Hasn't anyone learned ANYTHING from the file swapping issues, Hacked satellite boxes or even drug interdiction? You can't stop people from doing what they want, and by picking battles of silly stuff like this weakens the arguments in legitimate cases where people actually are injured.
Because you open up a whole nest of troubles as soon as real money is involved. People will complain and try to hold the company responsible if they are cheated by another player, and they have no control over this.
Blizzard is fighting this because A. It causes massive in-game inflation. As soon as there is a market, ebayers will begin farming money 24/7, often using bots and exploits. They will then sell this money to new players who suddenly have a massive amount of money out of proportion to their level. These new players are going to want the best equipment, of which there is a limited amount by design, and will be willing to pay for it. The end result is prices rapidly reach a point where your average player can not afford anything without buying money on eBay. This has already occured in many MMORPG's, particulary Star Wars Galaxies. B. If Blizzard accepts that in-game items have real world value, and there is a server crash causing you to lose items, you can now sue them over it. Blizzard does not want items to have value beyond their usefulness in game because no judge is gonna award damaged because it will take you an extra hour to get to level 60 cause Blizzard lost your fancy item. If you can sue Blizzard because you could have sold that item for $50 on eBay, thats a different matter.
True, but there's another issue that the article fails to address. IANAL, just someone who believes he's got a reasonable amount of common sense, but why do I have to enter a contract with the software company who made a product (whether it's a game or something else) to use that product after I purchased it in a store, anyway? Didn't I already acquire the right to use that software when I payed for it in store? If you take Photoshop, for example, which actually costs a couple of hundreds of dollars, I really would argue that by paying those, you bought more than a cardboard box, some CDs and a printed manual - you bought the right to use Photoshop. Adobe granted the store to sell that right to one person along with the box, and now the store is selling that right to me. Again, IANAL, but that's really what I think it's like. If I buy a book, for example, I don't have to enter a contract with the publisher to be allowed to read it, either, do I? I already got that right when I purchased the book, because what I paid for is more than just a stack of paper bound together. It's the right to actually utilize the contents (reading it in case of a book, and use it in case of software).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
There's all sorts of "let me do what I want" people who say they SHOULD be able to do this. That doesn't really matter - Blizzard doesn't think a secondary market is good for WoW gameplay. Simple as that. And since MMORPG EULAs are about as legally viable as they get (straightforward terms of use for a service, tons of legal precedent), I don't think they'll have much of a problem pushing it.
In the UK, the consumers statutory rights under the "Sale of Goods Act" and other laws are paramount, and can't be overridden by an EULA. If your country doesn't have such laws, it really should.
These laws state (approximately) that:
* Goods must have no defects, unless these defects are clearly described prior to sale
* Goods must be fit for the purpose for which they are sold
* Goods must be accurately described - i.e. no incorrect labelling on the packaging etc.
Oh no... it's the future.
I doubt Blizzard is worried about the individual player, their concern is more for companies that do this for profit. As odd as it may seem these companies apparently hire chinese labour specifically to farm and sell for profit.
Individual players would have little to no effect on the economy, bots and characters on every server farming 24/7 do.