Synopsis: Virtual items are actually just clauses in a vast, constantly-changing service contract with a game company. Microsoft Excel is used as an illustrating analog.
In order to understand how people can pay real money for virtual items and virtual currencies, you have to remember that all real world money is transacted between real world people. So when in doubt, look at everything from the standpoint of the real world. Thinking about a virtual item as a thing that has actual value just walks us down a garden path to confusion. A virtual spoon is not a spoon because there is no spoon.
So what actually is that virtual spoon? It is a portion of a service agreement between you and the game company. It is like a dialog box in Excel. It's a feature of the product. If Excel were a free product where Microsoft charged a one-time fee to enable the Search feature, it would be just like any of the MMOs that begin free and then charge for items. That's because those virtual items are merely product features. They change the user's experience of operating the product.
Buying a spoon for your character to do battle with simply changes the features of the product that are available to you. It is presented such that you see a spoon. In Excel, it is presented such that you see a dialog box. Either way, there is functionalty and appearance, and you gain access to them by paying money.
The notion of a spoon as a service feature gets a bit confusing when we start talking about trading spoons in the virtual world. To stay on top of things, let's go back to the Excel analogy. Imagine that everyone who uses Excel is operating on the same spreadsheet. It's a huge spreadsheet, some millions of cells in each dimension, so there's room to find a spot for your data. In that environment, you bought the Search feature, which gives you a Search dialog. I haven't paid for that, so I can't search. But per the functionality created by Microsoft, you can let me use your Search dialog. Regardless of how this is accomplished, you are in some way letting me use a service feature that you originally obtained from Microsoft.
This is the same thing that happens in an MMO when one player gives an item to another player through their characters. It is simply the use of the product as it is coded. It permits one player to transfer the right to do certain things to another player. We think of it as a transfer of virtual spoons, but in fact there is no spoon. There is only the right to use the MMO as if there was a spoon.
Because you paid money to be able to use the Search feature, it only makes sense that value would be associated with it. If you were to transfer it to me, then I would have something of real world value. It makes sense that I would give you something back of real world value. I might give you something that is related to the software, whether an MMO or Excel, or I might just mail you a check.
We also place value on our time. If it takes me 10 hours to operate a product to get a certain result, then I will associate 10 hours of effort with that result. If my time is valuable to me, then I expect to get some value back from someone if I transfer that result to them. If I've worked for 10 hours to get to a certain spreadsheet built, then if anyone wants that spreadsheet, they have to offer me something that I value. They might offer me a Search function in return, and I might accept because I never went and paid to have access to the Search function. And all that is an analogy to someone in an MMO spending time to obtain a certain game item that they then want to sell to another player.
Ultimately, it's just a change of the way that the software can be used, not transfers of items.
Some are wondering why I'm going on about this. It's important to understand what virtual items are and are not. When people lose track of reality, they start to do things that no longer make sense. The case of the Habbo Hotel property thefts tells me that the judicial system hasn't lost its way yet. The crime there was not the theft of virtual items, but the fact that somebody connived to transfer rights to a product feature from its proper rights-holders to themselves.
As a point of contrast, consider that soulbound items are a modification of the service agreement that I've been discussing. With the soulbound service agreement, you cannot transfer the service associated with soulbound items to other players. That is part of your agreement with the game company. The right to use a soulbound spoon cannot be transferred to another player's account so that they can use it. The game provider has implicitly stated that that was true as part of the game contract. The right to use the Search function cannot be turned over to another user in Excel because the Search function is soulbound.
So the next time you break out that spoon to do battle with the uglies, and thrill over the fact that it just proc'd Greasy Mess for the third time in the fight, remember that there is no spoon. There is only the agreement that when you push certain buttons, something that looks like a spoon gets waved around on the screen, and the Greasy Mess effect will be applied to the opposing avatar.
It's all awfully clinical when you get down to it, but that's where the truth lies. Down in the nitty gritty details.
does this really matter? it's a game after all, not real life.
If i want to think it IS a spoon, then please let me do so.
Thu Nov 22 2007 10:58AM ReportInsightful read...too bad many readers don't care -_-(as I may quote 'does this really matter?')...
Very interesting concepts, make me think about what I play from a different perspective, I just wish less players have that 'does this really matter?' attitude and put some thoughts into the time they invest into a game.
Thu Nov 22 2007 12:46PM ReportIt doesnt matter. His posts are pointless, some simply trying to get a response out of people.
Thu Nov 22 2007 1:03PM Reportit wasn't really my intention to break the op down. I do think however that in-game items can be a little more than just an extra function in the game. It is something to work towards, something you can use in the game that makes you different from other players. As long as i'm playing the game, the spoon actually exists for me, as i can use it to eat in-game food or kill another player. I think there's a fundamental difference between a game and a tool like excel. Excel doesn't have any immension, there is no sense of challenge or competition. In games there is however that sense and that makes a spoon in a game a whole lot more that a spoon in excel.
Thu Nov 22 2007 2:20PM ReportIt does matter. From a legal standpoint.
Look up the EVE online assassination and corperation betrayal. Billions worth of in-game currency and items were stolen... but in EVE, you can use in-game money to pay for your Sub fee, and you can sell tehm for real world money, it's not against the game maker's EULA.
So should the person who stole it all be prosecuted?
Thu Nov 22 2007 2:28PM ReportDrolletje: "I do think however that in-game items can be a little more than just an extra function in the game."
They can be treated as such, but they are never more than a point of service in a computer program. Nothing that has been said here is an attempt at claiming that people who play MMOs are a bunch of escapist weenies who really need to come to grips with reality. Given that I'm one of the weenies, such a claim would be rather self-defeating.
vazzaroth brings up a very practical point, which is the legality of using a game's controls to perform simulated acts of crime. There is no place for prosecution in the Eve Online example because one player simply moved his pieces such that he ended up with more game pieces.
I figure the next step for Eve Online is that players will start drafting real world contracts involving consequences of the outcomes of gameplay. Players would start signing up with real world teams to play for that team. A team might mean a corporation or alliance, or it might mean a group that acts to victimize unsuspecting warring forces by joining both sides and then exploiting their position for gain. So long as they play the game by the declared rules, they aren't doing anything illegal (barring illegal acts in the real world being sanctioned by the game rules)
Thu Nov 22 2007 8:41PM Reportthe incident vazzaroth was talking about was a very serious deal, and is probably the largest single act of theft of ingame commodities ever recorded in the history of gaming. to top it off, it wasn't even illeagal, or against the rules. i reccomend anyone who has ever played an MMO to read the whole thing.
http://eve.klaki.net/heist/
Fri Nov 23 2007 1:13PM Reportnow, if the spoon has pudding on it, that's a whole nother story :P
Fri Nov 23 2007 9:24PM Report"Look up the EVE online assassination and corperation betrayal. Billions worth of in-game currency and items were stolen... but in EVE, you can use in-game money to pay for your Sub fee, and you can sell tehm for real world money, it's not against the game maker's EULA.
So should the person who stole it all be prosecuted?"
No. In the game it is not against the rules, to the contrary, it is something expected and generally looked forward to by the creators. They set the scene so that story could be played out by the actors, in this case, the players. It's an ongoing story setting and "artisticly controlled" by the creators. Read any EULA and take note, even EVE.
You can make money out of the game by means of selling virtual items. However, until they are sold for perceived value, they are legally worthless, and technically speaking the intellectual "artistic design" property of the game's creators. Therefore it is not legally prosecutable as theft by the active participants, the players. The games designer's might persue legal action, but it would not be theft, but rather artistic infringment.
meh..
Sat Nov 24 2007 1:43PM Reportlliberty: "However, until they are sold for perceived value, they are legally worthless, and technically speaking the intellectual "artistic design" property of the game's creators. Therefore it is not legally prosecutable as theft by the active participants, the players. The games designer's might persue legal action, but it would not be theft, but rather artistic infringment."
You're falling into the exact trap that I was trying to guard people against with the blog article. In the real world, nobody stole anything. Not ships, not money, not artwork, nothing. The game pieces in Eve Online were moved around until one group of players was happy with the outcome and another group was very unhappy.
Players do not own anything in the virtual world of Eve Online. They have the right (per their agreement with CCP) to play the game. It just so happens that some people are willing to pay money to players for the rights that they have accumulated. It's like paying real money to another player in Monopoly to give you Boardwalk. You control that game piece, but you don't own it.
CCP won't pursue legal actions because no real world laws were violated. Their copy rights certainly weren't infringed because nobody reproduced any of their content without their permission. If somebody drew a painting of a Titan and tried to sell it, then CCP would take action.
Sat Nov 24 2007 2:56PM ReportSome people are missing the point that in the Hobo[sic] hotel event, the thief was phishing for passwords. It's similar to stealing your credit card data and using it. He stole people accounts then transfered everything from their accounts to his.
As for eve, all your legal logic is wrong-o. If any of you had ever ever bothered to read the terms of use agreement of any game, you'd know that anything inside a game belongs to the game owner. You pay for the rights to use them. They don't belong to you. That's it. They are free to delete your crap if you stop paying. Hell, they're free to delete it and ban you even if you are still paying. Would that be theft? Destruction of property?
Nope. You agreed to it from the moment you started paying and clicked "I Agree" on that lil box under the text you never read.
Sun Nov 25 2007 7:07AM ReportThank you, soulwynd. Your Abraham Lincoln version of my Edward Everett speech is much appreciated. Short and to the point.
Sun Nov 25 2007 7:53AM ReportSoulwynd.:" they can delete your crap even if you are still playing. Would that be theft?"
That ultimately depends on the situation. If they ban you for no apparent reason other than.. hmm.. im god and i can do what i want.. yes.. that is theft. In fact, there have already been a few high profile cases in which Accts were banned for no good reason and the developers were sued. So yes they are liable. Also. there is no way for developers to delete your stuff and for you to still be paying. The moment they ban you, you are also released from your obligation to pay.. well.. because you were, as you say.. merely paying for the right to participate.
Fri Dec 14 2007 11:28PM ReportMMORPG.com writes:
Login or Register to post a comment