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The Courts Government News Entertainment Games

Game Worlds and The Law Collide 46

Posted by Zonk from the don't-sell-my-stuff dept.
jnguy writes "Forbes points out another business boom due to video games: lawsuits. With all of the crimes being committed both over and within video games, lawyers are finding a new customer. Incidents cited include a man in Shanghai who was sentenced to life after killing someone for selling his 'dragon sabre.'" Update: 11/07 22:42 GMT by Z : Fixed hilarious dress-up typo.
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Game Worlds and The Law Collide More

Game Worlds and The Law Collide

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  • Uh, guys, hang on.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by matt me ( 850665 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @03:34PM (#13972826)
    I know nethack can get competitive, but isn't this taking things too far?

    It's game! No-one ever got jailed for "tax evasion" in monopoly, the use of mortar in jenga or tights in truth or dare.

    These people need to "get real". Urgently.

  • costumer? (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Other White Boy ( 626206 ) <theotherwhiteboy@gm a i l .com> on Monday November 07, 2005 @03:37PM (#13972858)
    so who's getting dressed up as what now?

  • Lawyers aren't needed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by matt me ( 850665 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @03:38PM (#13972859)
    Wouldn't the easiest, most suiting and certainly most interesting way to settle such mattles as these between players be in a duel?
    • In-game duels just favor the person with the best stats, who is often some jerk who spends 20 hours a day building a uber-character.

      In real life, if you piss off enough people, someone with nothing left to lose is going to show up on your doorstep with a shotgun.

      The best assassins are the ones who are willing to sacrifice their life if needed to get the job done. This could work inside a game. Buy the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, sneak up on your enemy, and pull the pin. The grenade would permanently k

  • Costumers? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by oliana ( 181649 )
    Is that because all the lawyers want to look like the on-line criminals (and need appropriate armor)? Or do they just like to dress up in general?

  • M.M.O.R.P.G. = B.A.D.? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kawahee ( 901497 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @03:42PM (#13972906) Homepage Journal
    I saw a rather interesting graph a few months back, which tracked number of violet crimes in the US since the release of DOOM, and it was steadily decreasing. What we've got here now, are games that are necessarily violent, but get players a little too passionate about the game, and are causing them to go out and do what they'd probably do in the real world if they're going to kill people for selling stuff in a virtual world - that is, kill them.

    I'll admit, I have no interest in MMORPGs, like World of Warcraft, or collectables like Warhammer 40 billion thousand, but I see why these people are doing it, and I think that if we're going to decrease MMORPG-related killings, we're going to have to get Blizzard and all them out there to put up a ToS where no real money is involved for the purpose of buying/purchasing, and they have an online police for sorting these things out.

    Depressing, isn't it? You could probably put something about how as children they spent all their time rolling 2d6's and that instead of adjusting to the outside world blah blah blah, but that's just more bullshit for Tack Jhompson.
    • we're going to have to get Blizzard and all them out there to put up a ToS where no real money is involved for the purpose of buying/purchasing, and they have an online police for sorting these things out.

      Most major MMO's that I know of treat selling of in game currency and other items as a bannable offense. Stuff like that is already in the Terms of Service. The Online Police thing is usually done through GM's etc.

      The necessary rules are in place, the competent staff are not.
    • ...I think that if we're going to decrease MMORPG-related killings, we're going to have to get Blizzard and all them out there to put up a ToS where no real money is involved for the purpose of buying/purchasing, and they have an online police for sorting these things out.

      I don't have the exact legalese handy, but in the EULA/ToS of the major MMORPGs there is a blurb saying that using real life funds to purchase in-game items/gold/etc is illegal.

      That's a slippery slope, there, though. Blizzard more than li

    • Re:M.M.O.R.P.G. = B.A.D.? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by egburr ( 141740 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @04:10PM (#13973197) Homepage
      Blizzard, and most of the others, do have a policy against using real money to buy virtual stuff from others in the game. They enforce what they can, which is probably only a small fraction of what's actually occurring.

      The problem with that is that Blizzard makes things artificially scarce, which drives up value. People will use whatever method is available to obtain something they want. Almost all will stay within the law, but most do not agree with the prohibition against using real money (and it's NOT illegal).

      Between artificial scarcity and extremely hard (impossibe for many people due to contigous time chunk requirements), a lot of people figure it is not possible for them to obtain certain items through the game and have no objection to purchasing it externally.

      After all, it's just another "pay to play" option. You're paying Blizzard to play the game. Blizzard intentionally reduces your ability to enjoy it. You're paying someone else for their efforts to get you an item that you think will help you enjoy the game more.

      I see nothing wrong with this, either morally or legally, except that it violates a ToS that you don't see until after you have already paid for and cannot return the game.

      Like many others, I have not purchased anything externally, primarily because I am not willing to dump even more real money into the game than I already have by the monthly subscription. (I finally woke up and cancelled that even, and went back to other games where I only have to pay once to play as often and long as I want.)

      Gold (resource) farmers are only viable because the resource is so ridiculously scarce. I never minded going out to mine resources. What I minded was never being able to find any because they were always cleared out by the farmers.

      The solution: reduce artificial scarcity of resources and make similar equivalent items available to people who are willing to put forth similar effort (but who cannot commit to a single large unbroken chunk of time).

      Yeah, the power gamers won't like it. Screw them; the rest of us paid the same money they did. Let them power play all they want; I don't care. But when two friends and I play for seven months, getting multiple characters up to high levels, and we only see one rare "purple" item drop in all that time (yes, we did some raids), it's a little ridiculous. Then we regularly see people who are completely equipped with purple items. We didn't want all that; we just wanted some ability to get a few items that had neat powers. Instead of going to spend real money on external purchases, I just lost interest in the game and eventually quit playing.

      It all just depends on the person. Prohibiting use of real money for virtual items is not the answer. Adjusting game economy/mechanics so more players are satisfied or even happy will drastically reduce real world value of those virtual items.

      • Imagine a professional football team bribed the opposing goalkeeper or perhaps the referee. While that may not be technically illegal it'll land all of you in trouble VERY quickly. That's because the rules say you must not use money to influence the game (if we ignore hiring for a moment). For MMOs the rules say "no trading items for real cash" so you can't do that within the rules of the game. Not obeying the rules will get you thrown out.
        • That's way off. MMORG players are more like the football audience, they are paying to receive the entertainment, not getting paid to provide it. Your analogy is like a GM bribing a programmer to give his character special powers.

          If you want a football analogy, try this:
          The customers who purchased a ticket to watch the game often get upset at the rules against bringing in outside food/drink, and often bring in 50 cent bottles of water or soda to avoid paying five dollars for the same thing. There is nothi

          • Which restrictions were those?
            • Restrictions like these:

              Only the original purchaser of the game media is able to create an account using the included key (not documented in either EULA or ToS), and you are not allowed to transfer ownership of the account (documented) even if you subsequently transfer ownership of the media (completely obeying the EULA as documented) which invalidates your account (documented). In other words, you can give/sell your copy of the game to someone else, but then neither you nor they have any right to play it

    • Re:M.M.O.R.P.G. = B.A.D.? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by brkello ( 642429 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @04:59PM (#13973711)
      You have no idea what you are talking about. Even if the companies do not allow exchange of items for money (which most of them don't), there are companies out there that are willing to set up the exchange of real life money. Companies don't have police, but they do have people monitoring to try to prevent this activity. They certainly can't stop real life crime. Only someone who is messed up to begin with would kill somebody over a game. Blame the person, not the game. We have laws for murder. It's as simple as that.
      • Praise be to the poster! I think we have a winner. I think that the American society as a whole is one of the quick fix. Instant weight loss,instant food, and instant justice. If we look at it that way then the next thing they'll blame is TV... Er wait... Music.... Oh um... Movies.... Oh that's right blame everyone and thing except the person who did it! God bless America.
    • Yes, because we all know that correlation does prove causation. Although I do think it would be great if we, as a culture, were turning our aggressions towards imaginary targets. However, I don't necessarily think that's the case. Maybe it has to do with the increasing de-socialization of society. In other words, less and less people are getting out and interacting with each other. There might be fewer violent interactions if the overall number of social interactions were also declining.

      Just my two
    • The tiny amount of real life violence resulting from people playing MMOs is just a fact of people playing competitive games. This can happen no matter what game is being played. Someone accuses another player of cheating in a high stakes game of poker, someone ends up dead.
      Any type of "oh no we must stop this" reaction neglects the fact that it's human nature at work and you can't change that with a law. Just as some states ban gambling to curb violence associated with it, the gambling still goes on.
      If ther
    • It's not even about the real life money. Even if they could somehow stop the exchanging of online goods for real life money... the gamers are still going to have insane amounts of real life time invested in their imaginary stuff. A lot of these people play these MMORPGs for hours every day, for months on end working towards various goals.

      So put yourself in their place. If you've put hundreds of real-life hours into obtaining an imaginary super-sword 10000 or something, and then somebody finds a way to steal
    • Depressing, isn't it? You could probably put something about how as children they spent all their time rolling 2d6's and that instead of adjusting to the outside world blah blah blah, but that's just more bullshit for Tack Jhompson.

      Well, if the Technological Singularity goes as planned in 2012 there won't be an "outside world". Wait... Did I just type that out loud.

  • Cosplay? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by alan_dershowitz ( 586542 )
    With all of the crimes being committed both over and within video games, lawyers are finding a new costumer.

    While the lawyers themselves may find this disconcerting, it will be only a minor transition for some of their clients to go from paying one "professional" to dress like Tifa Lockheart to another.
  • I currently work for a law firm that partly specializes in real-estate law. Although EULA's currently discount any possibility for legal action based on in game activities, (killing someone outside the game with an "ingame" motive" doesn't count), can we possibly see a future where property laws come into play. If someone can find real and established value for their property, ie. Dragon Sabre=500Gold, 500 Gold=$200, then who says that you, by affecting my property or causing me a financial loss, cannot be
    • This is one instance where I totally agree with the use of a EULA. When someone signs up for a MMORPG, there should be a little agreement that, among whatever else is appropriate, says, "I agree that I cannot hold anyone responsible for virtual damage to my virtual life". Something air-tight to keep the lawyers out.
    • How does that work with boxing, for example? Do they sign a contract or is it just assumed that by putting on the gloves, entering the ring and fighting you participate in a game and agree to get injured within reasonable limits?
  • A meatspace beating is only, but the embarassment of ingame pwnage lasts a lifetime...
  • I play the games to get away from the real world. When the lawyers start claiming the property is "real" (and legal enforcement starts), it is no longer a game. The bits, bytes, servers, etc. belong to the game company. You agree when you play the game to play by their rules. I like playing by the rules and keeping it "just a game". If you don't like it, go start your own game and make your own rules. The company running the game should have the right to take whatever in-game action it feels appropria
  • The discussion about virtual castles recalled to me this quote:

    Neurotics build castles in the air. Psychotics live in them. But the Psychiatrist collects the rent.

  • I've played several MUDS, MMORPGs and other online games. I've never taken anything said online personally. The person needs to be able to detach the online world from the real world.

    Not sure if bad parenting is playing a hand in this violence. But highly likely since I play/watch some violent things and don't go around killing people. I'm frickin autistic and if I can make the detachment then no other person has a decent excuse.

  • We often see that incident in Shanghai cited as being to do with video game violence. As I recall what actually happened was that his mate sold the item for real money and did not share it. That is why the murder happened. Rest assured if you sell anything of mine and refuse to hand over the money, I would kill you too, and I have never played an MMORPG.
    • Also, as a side note. The guy who killed his friend had quit his job so that he could play the game more and was living in an internet cafe. I would say that qualifies as not "normal" behavior and more as obsessive behavior.

      I play WoW and yes I have had my share of late nights when I have to be up for work the next morning. I've been in a raid and had someone "ninja" the best drop then log out. Was I pissed off..sure I was. I saw it as a waste of my time, but I got XP from the run and was able to do it

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