Player wins MMO lawsuit
CmdrSlack:
I think if you look back at news from both China and/or South Korea, you'll see that they've already ascribed value to this virtual stuff. People have been granted the return of their virtual stuff, etc. Most of it was based on breach of duty as opposed to value if I recall correctly. For some reason, I'm about 90% sure that we'd seen actual value ascribed to this stuff within Asia. As such, it seems to me that we're already past that and looking at the WHY of a harm -- was it due to incompetence (data loss, theft, improper ban, etc.) or is it due to acceptable game world changes? (nerfs, etc.)
If the former, there's a case for restitution if that loss is measureable, perhaps the most equitable solution is to replace the item or cash or whatever with the same thing, or the in-game currency equivalent of the item. If the latter, well, that's where we veer into interesting public policy questions.
Quite honestly, the developer never has full control over these virtual things -- there's publishers and ratings boards and state and federal laws that touch on these spaces. It seems to me that the control you're worried about is the power to nerf and whatnot, not liability for screwing someone over. Maybe it's both and I'm just misreading your posts. Seriously though, the complete freedom of the developer is an illusion past a certain point.
But if, as I think I'm seeing it, you are mostly concerned about nerfs/balance passes, it would be bad public policy to prevent developers from doing that. As I said above, it would simply require common sense, an understanding of IP law, and/or some simple disclaimers in EULAs/TOSes.
Venkman:
The developer maintains the right to adjust the stats of a sword, to adjust how frequently it enters the game world, and how quickly it can get mudflated throught the introduction of a better sword (whether the new sword has better values on the stats or focuses on new stats added into the system). All of these affect the real world value of that sword good as it were, on eBay or wherever. But because that's Black Market, the developer doesn't need to care.
When it's not Black Market though, now there's a complication. The company has a vested interest in moving that item, or seeing it move, so doesn't want to muck with this too much for business reason. I'm not thinking SOE Station Exchange here, but rather, GPotato (Space Cowboy) or Nexon (Maplestory), microtransaction based games. Here is where I agree with your point: already developer hasn't free reign. But those aren't widlly huge titles in North America nor EU either.
But add now government oversight on microtransacted goods. Yikes. Can a game even change at that point? Or does it get locked in some sort of stasis because the developer is too gunshy to make any change. We know supply/demand in the real world is based on real complex webs of interconnecting resources. In virtual worlds, those resources are just button pushes though. it's all fake really, including the intrinsic value of a good, because even the time it took to get that good was entirely contrived by the developer.
This is a slippery slope. Everything about an MMO is fake, from time to asset, on the part of the consumer. So how can real value be ascribed to any of it without severely legislating the body creating the time and asset itself?
SurfD:
Im not much of a great legal mind, but i think i see something of a parallel that could maybe stand some clarification from the actual law students among us:
The person in the mentioned case sued for loss of value on goods / stuff on their character over a period of time because they were not able to access the character: Ie, Depreciation over the interval they were banned.
Is it possible in real world law to sue someone over depreciaton of goods? If I tick off the government and they freeze my bank acount / stocks, can I sue someone for lost income if the stock decreases in value over the period of time i am unable to access it?
If they impound my car for a year, can I sue them for loss of value because i couldnt sell it at the start of the year when it was worth more?
I mean, hell, that would be like someone who was arrested and thrown in jail for 20 years suing the govenrment for loss of value on all the stuff he owned that he couldnt do anything with because he was in jail.
CmdrSlack:
Quote from: SurfD on November 28, 2006, 10:35:46 PM
Im not much of a great legal mind, but i think i see something of a parallel that could maybe stand some clarification from the actual law students among us:
The person in the mentioned case sued for loss of value on goods / stuff on their character over a period of time because they were not able to access the character: Ie, Depreciation over the interval they were banned.
Is it possible in real world law to sue someone over depreciaton of goods? If I tick off the government and they freeze my bank acount / stocks, can I sue someone for lost income if the stock decreases in value over the period of time i am unable to access it?
If they impound my car for a year, can I sue them for loss of value because i couldnt sell it at the start of the year when it was worth more?
I mean, hell, that would be like someone who was arrested and thrown in jail for 20 years suing the govenrment for loss of value on all the stuff he owned that he couldnt do anything with because he was in jail.
The major difference is that, in the U.S. system, you can't really sue the government itself. The government has to consent to being sued. It's called sovereign immunity. When you hear of so and so suing the government, they're really suing governmental officials in a specific manner that avoids that immunity.
And DQ, as far as what you're afraid of is concerned, I really doubt that you'd ever see a situation like that. It's bad public policy to fly in the face of the rights of IP owners (i.e. game companies) and say that they are prohibited from changing their game ever for fear of devaluing virtual items. Not only are there possible EULA-style safety nets, but there's no reason to protect an individual from something losing value. We don't protect those who lose money in the stock market beyond basic fraud and "you're doing the shareholders wrong" lawsuits. It'd take a TON of leaps to get to what you are proposing.
This is, of course, good.
Endie:
Quote from: SurfD on November 28, 2006, 10:35:46 PM
Im not much of a great legal mind, but i think i see something of a parallel that could maybe stand some clarification from the actual law students among us:
I knew that law degree would eventually come in handy. My rate is 400 guineas to the hour.
Quote
Is it possible in real world law to sue someone over depreciaton of goods? If I tick off the government and they freeze my bank acount / stocks, can I sue someone for lost income if the stock decreases in value over the period of time i am unable to access it?
If they impound my car for a year, can I sue them for loss of value because i couldnt sell it at the start of the year when it was worth more?
Well, this kond of thing is called "pure economic loss" and is really, really difficult to sue for. Meaning that "my asset was worth 100,000 when it was damaged, but was probably about to grow to 200,000 in value" is a massively difficult proposition to argue in delict/tort (sueing people that done you wrong). Not impossible, and some legal systems have alternately dabbled then retreated when judges got tempted to rule in cases where it was so obviously the case that such damages had occurred that they effecively ruled in equity. But really, really difficult.
As CmdrSlack says, governments tend to be covered by sovereign immunity. They can waive that, but more commonly they explicitly legislate to reinforce their immunity: if they locked you up and froze your assets for a year, following which it turned out that you were in a coma when the alleged offence occurred, then most jurisdictions will find you either unable to recover damages, or having the extent of compensation decided by a quasi-judicial body set up by that very government.
A bit like MMOs and their EULAs: "we owe you nothing, but if we investigate and find we cocked up then we might give you your stuff back. Might."
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