IP Freely
The discussion of RMT has turned toward a discussion of Intellectual Property and Microtransactions, thanks to Moorgard and Raph. One of the common questions from players is: Why the hell don’t I have ownership of the character, coin, and items that I earn in the game? A simple question with a simple answer…
Getting killed by another player who then loots something off your body would then be exactly the same as being jumped on the street and getting your wallet stolen. All except the assault part, at least. Allowing players to gain ownership of in-game anything opens up an impossible legal can of worms. Players would sue players. Players would sue companies. Companies would sue players. Cops would be involved. It would be a mess.
I think you mean “Getting killed by another player who then loots something off your body would then be exactly the same as being jumped on the street…”
First time I read it, thought you were saying that was how it is NOW, which is wrong.
It might be a hoot, actually … if the cops were required to use regular characters to arrest you, and the judges could only sentence your virtual you to virtual jails.
What would virtual community service be? Helping noobs?
Thanks for the grammar clarification. Fixed.
Ryan, I’m beginning to see a trend in your recent articles; namely, the sticky business of virtual politics and its rule-abiding toons. You runnin’ for governor or sumthin’?
On a sidenote, that title of yours — pure comedic gold!
*chuckle* urine humor *chuckle*
IP Freely
A Very Wii Thanksgiving…
A whole lot of heartburn and 9 hours of driving later, I have returned home from visiting my girlfriend’s parents over the Thanksgiving holiday. Per usual, it was great to visit family and be away in a different neighborhood for a few days, but …
[...] Nerfbat – “IP Freely” * Note: I promise this isn’t an article on Ryan’s mens room habits! =P [...]
I agree players have no ownership of items they acquire in game. After all, if the company is attacked by aliens and the servers are abducted for scientific research, I’m not going to be able to do much of anything about it, IE sue for my loss (maybe unused subscription fees). That being said, I’ll play devil’s advocate.
I think what confuses most players is why they are free to give away their characters’ possession of goods to another licensed recipient, but not when the licensed recipient is engaged in a quid pro quo that involves a medium of exchange that extends outside of the game.
The other confusing part is the fact that the IP “content” never actually leaves the environment in which it was intended to be used for, and there is a difference. If I hack my windows XP cd and use the coding to create an incredibly buggy, security-flaw ridden version of software of my own to sell, that is removing the IP from the environment in which it was intended to be used for. My grandmother paying me $5 to teach her how to turn on her computer and use XP (where she is the licensed owner of the computer and the XP license) does not. She’d rather not take the time and effort herself, so she pays me to do it for her.
Similarly, when it comes to virtual items in a game, the item goes nowhere, and is exchanged in a manner which would be otherwise acceptable were it not for the fact that somebody is paying real money in exchange for the action.
If my buddy offers me a master spell I’ve been trying to find for months, and I end up buying him lunch at McDonald’s because I’m so happy about it but had nothing in game of comparable value to offer him in exchange, should I now be facing legal repercussions? If you’re the buddy staring at a potential lawsuit, would you like fries with *that*?
The only other point I’d like to bring up is in arguing the detriment to the company. If the company doesn’t sell its own items, where is the harm? The “broker” does not use the IP to create something that impacts the company’s bottom line, or create a new MMO that competes with the company. In fact, both the broker and recipient must be licensees of the software in order for the exchange to be feasible. There is no stolen music, no “company talent investment” that is being exploited, just one form of currency for another. Making a butterfly effect argument such as “players who buy items will not subscribe for as many months as those who do not” is difficult to hold up, and could prove to be just the opposite depending on the player.
I will say this is where I think the station exchange really sticks out as a ballsy, but smart move. Despite a person’s support or disgust with the action, it may end up setting the groundwork necessary for legislation to actually stick, which will benefit all companies in the industry.
Quoth James:
The harm lies in that the players who don’t use RMT to advance feel cheated by somebody who uses it. The sense of pride and achievement from playing a challenging game is deflated when you have somebody who’s ‘achieved’ as much or more than you but has no clue how to play the game or meet the challenges well enough to have actually earned it. No, scratch that: players really feel bad when somebody gets past them and isn’t even as good as they are, regardless of if they themselves are good enough to have made that particular achievement or not. Players who feel like they’ve been cheated or outdone like this and have no way to overtake the offenders are more likely to blame the company rather than the other player; this makes them more likely to jump ship when a decent opportunity comes by.
I note that I’m not referring to levels here: levels in most games are pure grind. I’m being completely item-centric. The more that I analyze the current games out there and their flaws, the more I’m starting to despise the item-centric design. There’s at least one (possibly more) game out there looking at a subscription base and non-item-centric design: not only would I like to see how it turns out, I’d love to be involved with a second generation of such games, where the base idea of items having little impact will be refined.
Nice idea. A virtual jail? I like the idea of that being helping noobs
Samownall WoW tips
Back on the original post:
If I owned this property and you shut down- did you just destroy my property. Is a server rollback property destruction? If you, the developer, SOLD me the property, then denied me that property, can you be held liable for the damages? If the value changes due to a nerf, has your property been vandalized?
Granted, good lawyers would be sure to include caveats into the agreement that imply these items are not permanent, may be changed or removed, etc, but just arguing whether these agreements are viable will consume considerable lawyer time… and may even lose (especially if the game implied permanence in other ways). It’s so much easier to say “you’re paying for access.”
———
On to Chrisidon:
Chrisidon,
Would the RMT sale be any less painful if the “achievement” were marked by something like a badge instead? Some mark that can’t be transferred, that anyone can find in the user’s profile, that signaled specifically “I did that?”
For some it would. For some, it would label the gearholder as a buyer- whether RMT buyer or plain gold purchaser, but not the achiever. Others wouldn’t, though. They’d resist the alternate achievement metric & still fret over RMT “unworthies”
Players make their own metrics of success. They set their own limits on themselves. Developers can support or discourage these different ways of measuring achievement, but they can’t bend the players to their will.
What I’ve always found interesting is beyond the physical quantifiable representations of the character that exist in the character file (gold, equipment, hitpoints, stats) are who owns the actual creative rights… things like the characters name, likeness, personality, story, etc…
As long as the developers of a game create an environment which fosters an economy (IE one with tradeable assets), there are going to be those who view their assets with varying degrees of worth.
A rich man might not fret over the purchase of a plasma television. A guy working minimum wage would treat such a decision with much greater consideration and impact.
This differential applies to any economy, virtual or tangible. Therefore you will find circumstances where people sell items “below value” because they want plat fast, you will find people who will pay 2 plat for a “rusty coin” for their collection; applied to a real world, you will find people who would rather have money to pay their bills than hold onto the uber piece of gear they just found.
The only way you “fix” this is to try and eliminate the economy, shift the focus of the game from aquisition of assets and levels to the use of skills (penalizing those lacking hand-eye coordination or limited motor skills), all of which make characters less unique.
The sooner game developers realize that they can’t realistically create a magic bubble in which they can force all their subscribers to live in, the better. People who are so diametrically opposed to influences outside the game impacting the game should recognize that the players themselves are an influence outside the game that impact the game, and will continue to do so. Single player CPU games do still exist.
Even if legislation is passed which will hinder the supposed “sales” of virtual “IP” (which I still don’t believe is valid since the broker has no legal ownership of the supposed property, is licensed to use the “game attribute” and is merely transferring it to another licensed user) this looks to lead down a slippery slope of attempts at regulation of any activity that could be remotely related to “money for…anything that can be related to the game.” “Smart” legislation will not only have to police transparent quid pro quo “trades,” but will likely have to start regulating performance contracts and consulting services as well. After all, if trading a virtual “good” for cash is suddenly illegal, how about a “service” that is consultative in nature, such as in-game skills training which includes equipment and funds to buy upgrades?
The tricky thing about litigation is that it has to be both written and interpreted by humans, who are by their nature great and finding loopholes and ultimate “path of least resistance.”
[...] Nerfbat » IP Freely wrote on November 26th, 2006 at 2:44 pm: [...]