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Rights To Virtual Property In Games?
With the rise of MMOs and other persistent environments over the last decade, the trafficking of virtual game property has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Regardless of whether the buying and trading goes on with the blessing of the content provider (or, in many cases, the owner of the account in question), the question of players' rights to virtual goods is coming to the forefront. The Escapist Magazine takes a look at how some companies are structuring their EULA in this regard, and what some countries, such as China, are doing to handle the issue.
"... the differences between China and the West in this case have more to do with scale than cultural norms. So many people play online games in Asia — and play them so intensely — that social problems in meatspace society inevitably emerge in virtual worlds as well. ... The general consensus, therefore, is that paradigm shifts like the ones that have already occurred in Asia will inevitably come to the West, and with them, the need for legislative scaffolding that keeps us all from killing each other."
Furthering on from my rushed comment earlier:
I used to pay a monthly fee to a chess club I was a member of.
I was never under the delusion that the pieces were "mine".
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
Ownership of online content of this is not clear-cut, like ownership of your chair or computer might be. You don't really own your character; the game company does--your character is subject to the alterations and whims of the company as needed, and access is even based upon whether they let you or not. They can kick you off if you are selling gold, selling your account, being a jerk, or because they simply don't like you.
Some of you may have an entitlement complex going on--"But it's mine! I am paying for it!" No, you are paying to RENT it, to have access based on their terms. Remember, they're the one making the game, without the company you couldn't have a game in the first place.
I think user agreement on MMOs are particularly important. If you don't like the terms of ownership or the rules, then don't play. They make no real guarantees. They make no guarantees that the in-game economy will remain just as stable, that they won't nerf rogues in a future patch, or that your character won't receive a huge revamp for balance.
Too often, I think, consumers fist-pound over their rights when they are the ones who signed the contract conceding the terms in the first place.
Can you imagine people suing Blizzard for devaluing their online property because Blizzard nerfed a certain set piece, or introduced better items?
People seriously want to bring the government into this? If you don't like the terms, don't play. You aren't owed. You do not have a special right; you agreed to the transaction upon signing up. You pay to play a game, and nothing beyond that unless you agree otherwise.
For one thing, you aren't paying for the items, you're paying to play the game and to pay the company's bills, and hopefully they will use some of the left over profits to make new content for you to play, so you will keep subscribed and pay them more money.
Technically, your items are nothing more than records in a database, owned by the company. All MMORPG companies likely can legally do whatever they want with this "property", from giving their employee game accounts every "super-rare" item for free, and lots of money for nothing, to messing with random players' items and stats to deleting random accounts to the whole database. Of course these would all upset players, leading to less money income as players leave. It's all about the money, so for now they will protect your virtual goods for you because it's in their best interest... but they're not really yours.
At least, that answers your question of who else could own them. I suppose it's still a matter of perspective, and EULAs.
However can you really "own" something that has no context whatsoever outside of that company's property (the game servers)? The database records in question would just be a bunch of strings and integers. Useless to you on their own without the game giving them context and meaning.
Other examples that come to mind... I can say I own the files on my computer because I own the computer, plus they still are useful when removed from my computer to other computers (note what this says about DRM). I can say that documents I create with Google Docs I own, because although I don't own the servers I created them on, it's trivial for me to print them out or download them in formats I can use locally.