First off, this topic is about the growing concern about the lack of rights a player has when they play an MMO and the fact that they don’t “own” the characters/account they pay for. The title is a bit generic and worded as such to lure you here.
The question is… what rights should a player have when it comes to their account, their characters and “property” in-game and the time spent to level up said property? And for companies… what rights do they need to keep in order to maintain control of their own property as well as combat cheating and gold selling?
First, I doubt there’s much need to argue over the fact that MMO companies have far too much control. The EULA basically says they own the game and everything in it and can change the basic functions of how anything works. They can do this regardless of whether players like this or not, and can change how the game works entirely and are not legally required to pay you back for anything. Not only that, but if you decide to stop playing due to these changes, you can’t do anything to recoup your losses (though you can call up your credit card company and have them cancel the most recent payment charge).
They can also ban you for doing anything at all, even if you aren’t doing anything wrong. I remember there were a huge string of gold farmer/seller bans about a year or two ago where a number of people sending large sums of money to their “bank alts” got swept up in the banning. Now obviously with any large company, innocent people will get caught up with the guilty (it happens in our legal system, so why not here?). The problem is that companies take a “you’re guilty until you prove it otherwise,” and proving it could be as simple as making a call to as complicated to sending in a ton of paperwork that costs the innocent real money to mail it all in.
This leads to my first suggestion of how things change: instead of “guilty until proven otherwise,” companies should freeze your account for a set period (say a week) to get in contact with the company and clear things up. During this time too, the frozen period should not count towards your month of pay (again, making people pay for their account while they’re banned follows the guilty until otherwise concept). This period can be extended if requested depending on the extent of the proof required, but otherwise if you don’t speak up within the week, then the account can be banned. Obviously there will be arguments to the contrary of this (“What if I don’t play every week and don’t check my email that much and don’t XXX?”), but I think this is a better middle ground so that innocent people’s wallets aren’t made to suffer.
Now comes the trickier question: what rights do players have over their accounts/characters and what rights should game companies have? I wish I could easily say “players should have the right to sell their account if they are no longer satisfied with the game or a change being made,” but with gold sellers/farmers/leveling services etc., it’s impossible for a company to dedicate their time and money towards verifying that an account is being sold due to dissatisfaction and not to make money as part of a business. The point is to give the consumer some sort of value to pay for basically having their services changed in a way that is against their wishes, but not cost the company anything and keep dishonorable sellers out of the exchange (as much as possible, at least). It also needs to have some sort of feature that keeps too many new players from jumping in at the max level, which would make it unfair for players who just start the game fresh.
My suggestion is this: if a player wishes to sell their account, they contact the company. The company then takes all of the characters on that account, empties their banks and bags of all items, reduces their gold down to a certain number (to keep gold sellers from setting up dummy level 1 accounts to sell/transfer gold through) and basically leaves them with the armor bound to their character (which is now sitting in their bags since a level 1 character can’t wear the stuff) and perhaps a mount and maybe even a certain skill or profession (this type of stuff can be left up to the company to give or keep… perhaps certain “extras” like this are unlocked as you spend more time/money in the game). The only downfall is that you will see an influx of gold/items being given away because people know they are leaving, but it’s hard to tell if this will have any dramatic influx on the economy or will just be another “that time of the month” hiccup (like in WoW when everyone is getting their gems at the first of the month) which will come around patches/updates.
Some middle ground though needs to be reached soon, before this issue becomes worse and the decision-making falls into the hands of people who do not understand the delicate situation that is going on.
I'm afraid you won't get much sympathy from me. I seriously doubt that there is a case for implied ownership of accounts or any part of the data that is used in providing the entertainment service of an MMO to you. It is all owned by the company and they can change it around as they see fit - unless they have promised otherwise. EULAs are usually pretty aggressive about discouraging that idea.
An account isn't something that we own. It is part of the service that a company is providing to us. It simply keeps track of how we are using their service. There isn't anything to own there. If a company wants to provide the ability to turn over control of a character from one account to another, that's entirely a business decision on their part. It would just be one more piece of their service.
The fact that people get so wrapped up in these games is one reason that I'm leery of ever more realistic environments and ever more impactful and emotionally-involving experiences. I think that players, particularly the younger ones, are going to have a hard time knowing where the line is drawn.
Tue Apr 08 2008 9:52AM ReportJB, the second that SoE started to allow players to sell in-game items/accounts for real life money, it DOES become something we own. Players are getting real value for stuff that the EULA says isn't "theirs." Then why is it okay to earn money from selling something you don't own?
Tue Apr 08 2008 10:51AM ReportWell on this one I have to reply.
I have an account on probably 20 games, and an active account on 10+. I dont mind paying for games and have never sold anything. I never agreed that we own the products or any rights to it. UNTIL SOE hosed the main game i waited for, and loved. When the company drasticly changes a game why do we get hosed.
MY EXAMPLE: SWG- I payed for 3 accounts for 2 years. I played 2 boxes and wanted to play the game and loved it. Now when NGE was released the game was so changed that it made it worthless to me. My main char's were armor and weapon crafters. NOW 5 years later the weapons crafters are still junk.
So this in mind, I would have no problem if we had the ability to sell accounts. It is my money (who purchased the license to play), my time to play the game to get it to max level. My time to find and get things. WHY cant I sell that time and money to someone who would enjoy the use.
Tue Apr 08 2008 12:51PM ReportThis is a tricky subject. Second life- the users should own their property because they can create the content and introduce it to the game. Hence why gamers have won lawsuits against the developer for ownership of their virtual property
In a gamey linear mmo- I'm not too sure how this should be handled. The thought of having "ownership" of my own virtual character is an interesting one but if I can own that character then surely the Developer has no right to takedown the servers if they are not making enough money or perhaps I should have rights to their source code to setup my own server?
It's pretty complicated. For games like Second Life it makes sense that players should own their own contributed works and IP. For a "gamey" MMO I'm not sure where the line should be drawn
IT would be interesting if gamers were treated like majority stockholders and "nerfs" and such would have to attain a majority approval to pass heh. I just have no idea myself....
Tue Apr 08 2008 2:45PM Reportstreea: "JB, the second that SoE started to allow players to sell in-game items/accounts for real life money, it DOES become something we own."
Negative. The ability to transfer a right doesn't constitute the existence of an object that can be owned. If I rent a car from a company, then I am acquiring a right of use of that car. If that right of use includes the right of transfer for money, then I can do that. But I don't own the car as a result. All I own is the right to transfer the rental (and to use it, of course).
MMOs are the same way. A virtual sword is just a right of use. Of the game. Not the sword. The sword is a game feature, like a menu. Because I played the game a certain way (used a character to kill a monster), I have acquired the right to use the game a certain way (a character can swing a sword).
The whole thing could just as easily involve a character's right to jump up and down. Once I have any given right of use I can transfer that right to another player's account so long as the game permits it. That might take the form of handing a sword to another character via the fiction presented by the game, or it might just be a push button option in my account to drop Jumping from my account and to add it to your account.
The part that make it seem like 'ownership' is that there is a transfer involved. But there is no object to be owned. There is only a right to be transferred, and that right is subject to the decisions of the company granting the right. Per the EULA.
If there was something to own, then I wouldn't need the company to facilitate the transfer. Because I'd own it.
mmcrimson: "It is my money (who purchased the license to play), my time to play the game to get it to max level. My time to find and get things. WHY cant I sell that time and money to someone who would enjoy the use."
Because the game company controls whatever it is that you plan on selling, you agreed to abide by their rules, and their rules said not to sell it.
If Sony wants to permit it, then they change the rules and people can start buying and selling the right to use each other's characters.
Tue Apr 08 2008 2:52PM ReportSandbox: "This is a tricky subject. Second life- the users should own their property because they can create the content and introduce it to the game. Hence why gamers have won lawsuits against the developer for ownership of their virtual property"
I can understand a Second Life user controlling intellectual property created using a piece of software, but not any notion of ownership of something that fictionally exists within the confines of that software.
Tue Apr 08 2008 3:01PM ReportJB: The ability to transfer a right doesn't constitute the existence of an object that can be owned. If I rent a car from a company, then I am acquiring a right of use of that car. If that right of use includes the right of transfer for money, then I can do that. But I don't own the car as a result. All I own is the right to transfer the rental (and to use it, of course).
This example doesn't work though since A) by renting a car, you're in a contract where you must pay the company a certain amount of money, B) a company would never let you sell a car without paying them back for the ENTIRE cost of the car and C) MMOs are not contracts where we are required to play a set period of time.
If you wanted to compare it to a real-life situation, it'd be like a company selling a plot of land, letting the people who mine the land sell anything they mine, but at any time they have the right to change the land around, force a player to mine in a different spot, or force the player to use a spoon to mine instead of a pick. These types of deals can and do happen in real life, but only idiots would buy into it since they have no rights to what they're paying for. And that's the problem... MMO companies basically get away with giving players no rights aside from the ability to play whatever they're given and to cancel and give up everything they've paid for (time spent using their property).
People are basically getting tired of being taken as suckers to enjoy a game, while certain companies are letting people sell what doesn't physically exist and can be changed at any time with no warning and no rights to the players. The relationship between an MMO company and player is like a dictatorship (though obviously not as serious or dangerous or life-threatening).
BTW, all of this is me speaking out for this side of the issue. I personally have no problem with playing an MMO until I get bored of it and don't feel like I've been given the short end of the stick. But there are people out there who have been wrongly accused of doing things they didn't and punished without any means of fighting back. Plus, as time continues, issues like these are going to keep coming up as real money becomes more and more integrated into MMOs.
Tue Apr 08 2008 3:18PM ReportSorry, but all you've convinced me of is that real money should NOT be more integrated into MMOs.
Your mining reference is not at all appropriate. You do not make your living playing a video game. Also, in an MMO, you aren't buying your character. You are buying the SOFTWARE and the license to use it for specific purposes, according to certain rules.
MMO developers have every right to protect their intellectual property -- this is the only way they can protect players from each other. I for one would never play a game with a more relaxed EULA because I know exactly what kind of horrible atmosphere would result. Rampant bots and cheats would be the tiniest tip of the massive iceberg.
Tue Apr 08 2008 4:18PM ReportMMORPG.com writes:
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