Everquesters Suing Sony Over Virtual Ownership

Thomas Charron writes: " A group of Everquest players that have had their accounts yanked, etc., is filing a class action law suit against Sony Interactive. They belive they have the right to sell 'virtual items' in real life, including the buying, selling, and trading of actual online accounts. They have set up a home page at Gravityspot. Kinda fringe, but as an EverQuest player myself, I humbly submit that they do have the rights they claim. You be the judge.."

I agree with Sony's actions in this case...

I have had the unpleasant experience of running into a bought character several times while playing Everquest now. Playing a character in the 40 and above levels, in my opinion, requires that you at least know how to play whatever class you happen to be. When a level 50 warrior, all decked out in his finest, asks you how to reply to a tell, you can bet someone is going to die soon due to this persons ignorance of gameplay. I have not had one good experience with anyone who has admitted to buying their character. They have either caused total party wipeout with their incompetence, have harrassed people with endless questions about gameplay (you figure they didnt want to spend the time leveling a character to begin with, why would they even try to read on how to play), and one person I had to eventually put on ignore because he wouldnt stop asking me to sell him something my character was wearing. When the auctioning started, I really didnt care at the time whether someone wanted to throw their money away on a bunch of pixels, but when it started affecting the fun of the game, thats when I realized it was a bad proposition and why Verant probably made the rule to begin with. So to all the people who feel they should get something monetary out of playing Everquest for so long, I say too bad you wasted all that precious life time on a game that didnt give them enough fun and entertainment. Hopefully the next sit in front of the computer for hours session will be more profitable. P.S. Pardon the lack of quotes and apostrophies, but they are not allowed in your java script.

It's a liability issue.

If players expect that they can sell items for real money, Sony would have a liability issue on their hands. If their server crashed and someone lost some of their items, someone might try to sue for the value of the items based on what someone on ebay would have paid for it.

The problem is more complex than you think

As nice as it would be to just let people sell the stuff they have collected, both current game conditions and past game history demonstrate that it just isn't viable to allow it. First off, one of the biggest variable costs Verant has is CS. CS gets called when people's Windows-based computers start crashing, which even though it isn't always Verant's fault, is something that eats up a lot of time. There's also players going above and beyond the call of duty doing nasty things to each other that causes CS to get involved in-game. Biggest on this list is *fraud*. It doesn't take any time at all to establish what looks like a kosher vendor profile on EBay or Yahoo, and then start taking people's money and simply never delivering the items. Twisted as it may be, it happens a LOT. There are also side effects from allowing this to go on... When people are just being powergamers and trying their darnedest to get the "best" items and the biggest pile of loot, they can be pretty competetive. Normally they'll only go hunting things that are reasonable for their level and class this way, since very little worth having ever comes from monsters who are too low to give exp points. Let them *sell* stuff and suddenly the level 50 players have a reason to play dirty and chase level 35-40 players away from monsters and loot they'd normally have no competition from, all because the level 50 player can get the Fancy Brass Shield of Eyes (made-up object, don't ask me where to camp it!) to fall out of a monster's hands twice an hour, and sell it for $400 or more on Ebay. Not only have high-level players driven low-level players out of areas where they wanted items to sell, one entire GUILD became so organized at it that they pretty much ruined gameplay for most of the people on an entire server, because regardless of where a special item fell, if you wanted it, THEY were camping it, which meant you had to basically pay them REAL money to get it, or decide you didn't want it bad enough. While it would be nice if people could sell their stuff legitimately on auction sites, the fact of the matter is that it causes far more headaches for Verant than can be considered reasonable (especially when there's fraud involved with selling accounts, since the original account holders usually have no problems taking them BACK a few months later and the person who bought those accounts is now without the characters they bought as well as the money they spent), and it causes far more long-term problems for players that also isn't reasonable to allow.

Re:This is an easy one.

> By selling imaginary items one acquires in the game, it makes it possible for someone with a lot of disposable income (and not much of a life) to gain an unfair advantage over other, possibly more skilled players.

Kind of like real life, eh?

--

Re:Yes!

About the purchasing thing... Many stores I've been in have prominent signs stating that they refuse to accept software returns for ANY reason if the BOX is opened. Nothing about secondary packaging or anything.

And sure, if you wish to be pedantic, EULAs can't take away RIGHTS, they can only restrict your ability to practice those rights. But that doesn't mean much, if the EULA forbids you to do something, what does it matter the specific method with which it does this? They're still trying to prevent you from things that you want to do.

The first amendment is unlikely to counter a contract to limit speech (an NDA) in any except the most extreme cases (whistle-blowing, etc). If shrink-wrap EULAs are ever found to have any validity, they'll definately hold up in preventing hostile reviews, etc. (The NDAs that review sites sign now to limit pre-release disclosure have held up in many court cases.)

Your reading of the GPL misses the fact that if the source code was published without a license, copyright law would prevent you from using it in any way. (You could critique it, or use samples in a parody, but you couldn't base a program on it...) You certainly wouldn't be able to create derivative works.

But if you agree to the terms in the GPL, you are granted the right to use the source code. Something you wouldn't be able to do at all without the GPL granting that right.

It's not like the GPL code is released in the public domain, then restricted. It's released with full copyright rights reserved and then it explicitly grants an exception in certain conditions.

And you're missing some things in the GPL...

"...requires that the user abide by the license, even if directed to do otherwise by a court of law;"

That means (and it says so in the license) that if you can't comply with the license and the court, then you can't use that as an excuse to not comply with the license, you have refrain from any use/publishing which the GPL would have granted.

This means you can't sign a contract to sell exclusive rights to the code, then use GPLed code, and use the fact that the other party sues you as a reason to close the source. You'd have to comply to the court's order to provide closed-source code by writing your own code in place of the GPLed code you used.

Re:Open Question

No, WalMart didn't have an absolute no-bag rule. That's the problem. If they treated everyone equally then I'd have made the choice about shopping there with that in mind. But the way they let one person do something and then immediately prevented me from doing the same was the problem. As to Sony... They should have the right to change the game, and thusly change the rules the world works in. If Sony forbids certain behaviour on their server then that's okay with me. If their AUP forbids impersonating a GM, fine. But if they try to regulate the behaviour of their players off of the servers, that's when I draw the line. It's only one stop from that to preventing players from publishing FAQs or walk-throughs of the quests. Where the line lies will eventually be determined by a judge. I think that line lies very close to Sony's servers, unless they provide people with a contract up-front, before sale. They should, IMHO, give the disks away and then make all the money on the service. Like AOL. That'd get them around most of this, because you wouldn't be buying the full game until you logged onto the net and read the AUP at the same time as you payed your money. Then they could send any fancy packaging and manuals to people once they subscribe. I really have no sympathy for a company that sells software and expect a shrink-wrap EULA to protect them. Especially when they do stupid stuff like say "Contract terms may change at any time and you are responsible for keeping track of any changes." That stuff just doesn't fly. It's like DC and the CueCat. They deserve anything that comes back to bite them. Let them write a real contract and get people to agree to it beforehand, and people can be responsible for signing their rights away, like in any other context.

Ethics vs. Law

I believe this law hinges upon the EULA - oh the horror of that thing. Sony isn't sueing the users, it isn't taking anything from them that they didn't have before, it's simply saying that if you want to use it's service, you have to abide by the rules of that service.

I'm not exactly siding with Sony here - although my opinion leans toward them because these people are putting good economic resources into virtual values like games and that strikes me as inefficient and unethical and part of a bubble world - ha! - on the other hand it's just free commerce of something of value.

The point that makes the biggest difference is whether or not these people agree to, by paying for Sony's service, abide by a certain set of rules. I have to abide by an AUP: Acceptable Use Policy, by my ISP - it says I cannot portscan (and they even accused me of committing a crime when I *did* portscan), but my arguments, even with citation of the harmlessness of portscanning made precedent in the Georgia case, the point of interest is not whether it is legal, ethical, or moot to let me portscan - I am violating an implicit agreement between myself and the person I am receiving that service from.

So I think it is within the right of the users of Sony's Everquest service to demand changes in Sony's policy, but I do believe that it is outside their rights to break their implicit agreement with Sony and solicit items from the Everquest games. The ethical consequences of this may be deep and far reaching - but that's beyond this conversation!

One might cry "fundamental rights", or say that it's none of Sony's business. I think there's merit to this, and problems with implicit agreements, but I think Sony's in the right, and the users might have valid arguments in what they want but Sony has not done anything offensive to them (that I know of!) or essentially wrong within the constraints of the situation.

On Sony's side - read why.

On this one, I'm with Sony. I've been an avid EQ player since about a month after it went public, and I've seen the trend that is going on here.

What happens is that people who are level 35-40 in the game are camping areas that are for level 15-20 players in order to get the PH4T L3WT to sell on eBay. So, I can't play the game because someone else has quit his job to sit in an area where I'd like to be and is "stealing my kills" because he can make a buck.

This happened to me once, he got the item, and he said "I'll sell it to ya for $50."

And you can probably say "well why don't you move to another area?" I would, but there's an ebayer at every nice area of the game.

What has happened is that it's not the fact that they're selling it, but the "eBay Farmers" have taken up all of the locations of these items so THE ONLY WAY TO GET THEM IS TO BUY THEM ON EBAY.

You cannot quest for these items, you cannot kill the creature that has the item anymore, you MUST buy it from an eBay person. Is that really fair?

Also what happens, is that people will get scammed. They'll send the money to the person on eBay, and then the person will give them an item that looks the same as the one they bought, but really wasn't. Then, they either petition the in-game customer service Guides or call Sony to say "this person scammed me, get me the item I rightfully paid for on eBay!" There are many times that the in-game CS would be so tied up with people being scammed from eBay that they weren't helping the people that truly needed it.

So, the Slashdot crowd may say "It's their right to sell it! Down with The Man!" but it really makes it impossible to PLAY EverQuest, since you must BUY the items over eBay that you should have gotten playing since the people selling on eBay won't let you play the game it was intended to so they can make a quick buck.

I'm open to critisisms on what I said, so if there's something I'm missing here, please reply. I'm sure the flames will come soon. :)

Re:Open Question

This is simply Verant and/or Sony feeling that they should be the ever powerful Gods ruling over an idealistic fantasy world...

No, it isn't. It is about Verant trying to save themselves the frustration of losers who buy EQ items or accounts on eBay and then bitch and moan to Verant when the purchased wasn't as described. Further, it is about Verant's responsibilty to ALL players to maintain balance and fair gameplay, which is much harder to accomplish if they allow the lazy and self-indulgent to buy the power and status for which others have worked very hard.

...right down to the name you may give your character.

Is Slashdot more or enjoyable or less because of the juvenile actions of a few who think that trolling is fun? Imagine the how the tone of an RPG would deteriorate if Verant allowed players to have names like Lars WangSniffer and Gonad JizzSpew? I know, people should have the liberty to be cretins, but the non-cretins should equally have the right to pay for havens from them. It is in the Terms Of Service; if people really don't like it, fuck 'em. They can go play games where the TOS doesn't have such restrictions, and the adults (and I am not speaking with a chronological bias here) can enjoy the company of their peers.

And for those who will reply that I am elitist, or have a stick up my ass, fuck YOU.

:-)

Re:This is an easy one.

Kind of like real life, eh?

You say this as a joke, but it seems to me a very clear element of a fantasy game's draw is that it's not directly tied to your real life. But never even mind any discussion of escapism. A common trait of many games is that they test the players' skills in a limited and well-defined context (which may include or exclude strength, motor skills, persuasiveness, tactical thinking, or even luck). A game is "fair" if this context is the only context which is really relevant to game performance. Therefore, it's 'fair' for me to use force in wrestling, but not in chess (as in chess, physical prowess is beyond the scope of the game).

I consider selling and buying characters and game-items "cheating" (in that United States Brand Dollars are unambiguously outside of the scope of an FRPG) and I consider it completely reasonable for Sony to eject players who are cheating.

Re:Virtual items

This issue goes beyond ownership. The main drawback to selling you account and character is the fact that anyone with enough money can pick up a high level character, join a group, then fail to play that character correctly, possibly resulting in the death of the entire group. This is turn damages the property of OTHER users. Their characters loses experience, gear, and they have to spend their time retrieving their corpse.

Getting around that annoying problem requires that users be qualified to have the character they buy, like having a drivers license. That would just plain suck and take the fun out of the game.

I don't think you should be able to sell anything you acquire in the game. The user didn't create anything - none of the graphics, none of the sounds, none of the quests, etc. Verant/989 made it all and can do with it as they please.

For those who disagree then it would be proper to say that we own all the content on Slashdot. We are the ones posting the comments and submitting the stories. You should call your lawyer and get a percentage of the advertising revenue from this site.

The Integrity of a Roleplaying Game

Some people enjoy 'roleplaying' game in the sense of Diablo II -- action, in which you play a character. But Diablo is no more a roleplaying game than is Tomb Raider, where you 'play' Lara Croft. A true RPG, where people assume an alternate persona, requires a certain consistency, an effort, at building up a set of mannerisms, a coherent scheme of mores for an alternate personality.

If one person builds up a personality, and another just 'takes over', they will very likely be unable to play the character in the same manner. They know nothing of the characters history, their associations. They will compromise the integrity of the character, and therefore contribute to the compromise of the game.

Viewed in perhaps another way, if you played D&D with a group of friends, who accepted your character as 'real' for the purposes of their gameplay, would you expect them to welcome another person playing that same character, who had no real idea about them, because they paid you for the privelege? Undoubtedly not.

Having not played Everquest, I can't say whether this is a valid concern for them in particular, but having recognized the issue, and heard debate in general about whether people have a right to all their virtual property, I have considered the question. I don't believe they necessarily have the right, if it is made clear up front that it is not acceptable.

The scarcity of items/characters in such a game is inevitable given larger demand than supply (almost a given, if people have something to try to do in a game), and a closed system. Diablo II is an excellent example. Too many players, not enough of certain items, closed system. But unlike an RPG, diablo 2 does not suffer a loss from the sale of items.

I wonder how the players and sellers would feel if sony/verant simply said: "ok, they are your property, feel free to sell. And, by the way, we're now offering characters and items, for an additional charge, for you to use in the game." And they could simply sell for less than whatever anyone could fetch on ebay, with a swift descent to a value of 0.

the reason behind the EULA

Lemme start off by saying I think that selling the things is just silly -- reminds me of alot of heated star trek debates I've overheard in the computer labs -- in the end, the answer dosen't matter because it was a stupid question to begin with. And it underlines the main problem with online gaming: Alot of people don't have a sense of fair play.

But after that -- I'm going to assume that things you could purchase from other players in the game will give you an advantadge over other players -- Sony needs to prevent players getting unfair advantadges (yes, buying items is an unfair advantadge) because it will harm gameplay if players can advance unfairly -- if something hurts gameplay it hurts their subscription base, and that hurts the bottom line. Its the same deal as blizzard and id's war against cheaters: If the game isn't fun, no one will play it.

On the other hand though -- people are willing to pay 10$ a month to play the game -- thats how Sony makes their $$ ... so its not really absurd to think that people would be willing to pay for items in the game -- I suspect sony is a bit "jealous" in the sense they don't want people profiting off their game.

Re:Ethics vs. Law

EULAs are illegal. Period. Its post-sale disclosure of terms. Its a rights-limiting contract that attempts to apply itself without a legal signature.Many of the terms are against various laws. Why do you think the software industry was/is pushing the UCITA so hard? They don't have a legal leg to stand on right now.

-RickHunter

Re:This seems like a tough one.

The only way to make a MMORPG that doesn't compell people to buy accounts from other players is to make a game where there is no skill advancement. Unfortuanately (and paradixally), skill advancement is what keeps most players comming back for more.

If you compare this with a game like Tribe which the only real skill advancement there is is your ability as a player to better control your character in whatever situations you come across. I for one would be very happy to play a MMORPG that doesn't have ant skill advancement technique.

I think there would be a lot more roleplaying going on if every "naked" character would be technically equal because there would be much more incentive to cooperate with others to gain an advantage.

Re:I dunno...

You are missing something..

You are buying the most valuable thing you can "buy" in life.

Time..

And hey it may not be worth it to you but something has value as long as someone else is willing to pay for it.. the fact that people buy these accounts says they have value.

THis is all a bit much saying people are blowing money... *shrugs*

It may be worth it to someone to not play for 800000 hours to make a character (time is not an actual time it would take I have no idea, just that it is a lot of they are worth this much money)

Jeremy

Re:I dunno...

You're probably a troll, but here's something obvious that you've missed: ever bought a computer program and downloaded it? Mp3s? Porn? What are you getting? Nothing? Or a string of 1s and 0s that, in some configurations, is very useful?

question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes

Re:What about karma?

I remember an interview with Hemos and CmdrTaco where they admitted to messing with someone's karma who was trying to sell their Slashdot account on eBay. Cmdr's opinion was (at the time of the interview that is) that karma doesn't matter, that it's not THAT important.

I remember reading that... I believe it was a log of an IRC chat. Can you post a link to it? I don't remember where it was. I don't think it was an article on Slashdot.

If I remember correctly, the owner of the account "FascDot Killed My Pr" was selling his account on eBay because he didn't want to post on Slashdot anymore, and given the account's high karma (above the karma cap) and low user number, he considered it marketable. He advertised it by continuing to post regularly, but with "Bid on me! (Serious offers only)" as his signature with a link to the auction page on eBay.

Well, CmdrTaco found out, and, right at the exact minute the auction ended (and the winning bidder was chosen), he reset the account's karma to zero. When questioned about it in the IRC chat you mentioned, his justification for his action was, "Virtual property is stupid."

I do remember Taco and co. talking about people trying to sell their EverQuest accounts on eBay last spring on Geeks In Space. I don't remember exactly what they were saying, but I think basically they were making fun of the idea.

Anyway, it's quite clear that for better or for worse, karma has become a sort of pissing game that has affected a lot of people. Heck, I'm kind of annoyed that I only had about +35 karma when the karma cap was put in place. I think it would have been cool to have "excessive karma", even if only for a short time.

I've been a Slashdot reader since early 1999, and I got my account in January 2000. I don't remember too well, but checking the archives suggests that CmdrTaco and co. used to regularly participate in the discussions and post news stories about various changes and amendments to the Slashdot rules. These days, of course, they don't. Today, Taco seems more like an enigmatic figure behind the curtain, secretly manipulating Slashdot (bitchslapping people, instituting karma caps, adding lameness filters, etc.) from behind the scenes. I think if he came out into the open again and had a regular dialogue with the readers, people would understand his actions and be a lot less critical of him. He could do all the things he's doing now, and people would understand. Perhaps Slashdot's huge userbase or Andover.Net's control prevents him from doing so.

That said (just had to get it off my chest), some earlier posts in the discussion pointed out that Sony has a clause in the EverQuest enduser licence that forbids selling characters.

As for more Slashdot accounts going on sale, I believe at least one other account was sold on eBay, but secretly. I'm not too sure about that. I also know Signal11's account was given to a troll to "burn off the karma". Basically, someone was using Signal11's high karma to flame and insult people with the score +1 bonus. It was great fun to read, just because of the extreme rudeness "Signal11" exhibited. Eventually, he trolled one of Michael's (jellicle's) stories and Michael changed the password, effectively banning "Signal11".

Anyway, if Slashdot doesn't explicitly forbid the trade of user accounts, karma and all, they shouldn't object to it when people do it. But, to be safe, if you're going to auction or sell your Slashdot account, don't let Taco and co. know. Advertise it on Kuro5hin, or better yet, WonkoSlice [wonko.com] or Plastic [plastic.com].

Thanks for mentioning this. I was hoping someone would.

Open Question

The briefs should certainly make for interesting reading. I would have to say that I'd come down on the other side, though: I think that Sony, etc. are probably within their rights.

The question that you have to ask is: Legally speaking, what are these players selling? Their experiences in the game may have made for unique characters, but you have to decide whether those experiences can be separated from the intellectual property that *is* the game -- in other words, the programming that directed those experiences.

It's one thing to sell your "experiences" -- in the sense of selling the rights to the story of your life, for instance. Here, though, it seems to me that the players are selling data; and I would guess that, legally, the company retains ownership of the data.

Consider it another way: Could you, as a Dreamcast owner, legally sell a Visual Memory Unit containing game files to another Dreamcast user? You purchased the VMU, after all, and you played the games to generate those files. Yet you don't own the games; you simply own the discs on which those games are stored, and the right to use those discs. You don't have the right to use those discs to produce copies of the discs, so it's conceivable that neither do you have the right to use those discs to create VMU files to sell to other people.

This sounds like a very interesting case. If it proceeds, I hope that Slashdot will follow it.

crib

Re:Virtual items

From the everquest EULA:

"You may not sell or auction any EverQuest characters, items, coin or copyrighted material."

HappyPuppy [happypuppy.com] has a good article [happypuppy.com] on this. You play the game you agree to abide by the rules, fail to do so and sony can yank your account. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

This seems like a tough one.

Normally, I'd be of the opinion that Sony shouldn't be allowed to shut down the auctions. I can't quite figure out a good way to articulate that right now, but anyway...

In this one, I sort of think there should be a place for things to be *just a game*. Yes, you can still play with your limited resources just paying for the subscription, but my past experience is that this sort of thing causes problems for those who either can't or don't wish to spend so much money. (Disclaimer: I have not played EQ. Perhaps someone who has could share their views? Thanks). I really think there should be a place for online games that require a simple fee to play and where there isn't a way to spend more money on it -- I think it adds a lot to the feel of the game to know that people really worked on their own to get where they are in game status (or at least that most of them did). So, I think the decision is up to Sony, and my understanding of the EULA is that these people "agreed" not to sell items. I have all sorts of problems with EULAs, including this one, and I believe that these people basically are morally in the right. But isn't there some way that a game can be just a game, and not about spending money to get ahead? I used to play MMORPGS, but got out not long after this sort of thing became common.

So, one question: is there a way for the proverbial "nice company" (as opposed to big bad profit-seeking corp) to build something that is "just a game" without this happening to it, and can people not attack them when it happens?

Also, does Sony fit the bill in this case? They certainly have profit motives, but I think they're trying to keep the gamers that share my view in doing this. So i guess I really don't know where I stand on the lawsuit. I do know that I wish people wouldn't make the suit necessary in their minds and just play the game for once. I know, I'm being idealistic. I'll stop whining now.

This is how addictive EverQuest is:

From the August 2000 issue of PC Gamer, in the Scoop! article on Anarchy Online, page 27:

"Some of us have considered replacing EverQuest in our lives with a debilitating heroin habit; not because we advocate illegal drug use, but we think heroin is less addictive and we don't have to see our habit reflected on every month's credit card statement."

This is an easy one.

By selling imaginary items one acquires in the game, it makes it possible for someone with a lot of disposable income (and not much of a life) to gain an unfair advantage over other, possibly more skilled players. It's Sony's online game community. If they feel that such transactions are cheating, they have a right to stop them. Suppose that ping-flooding the server would give a player an advantage. Would Sony have a right to try to petition the players' ISPs to stop the ping flooding?

I'd like to see Sony countersue and claim that the people buying and selling the imaginary items have reduced the value of Sony's property by creating unfair advantages that reduce the enjoyment of the game for many players, thus cutting back on sales and online participation.

If I thought that any of the people involved in this idiotic lawsuit had any chance of getting laid, I'd be calling for them to be sterilized now before they could breed. Fortunately, that is a non-issue.

P.S. Yes, I know that Verant and "others" were to be named in the suit, but I just mentioned Sony in the interest of brevity.

Re:Open Question

Software is a tool no different than any other. Whatever you create with it (be it a spice rack or a character) is your own to dispense with. The tool is capital investment, and whatever you gain with it is your own. Adobe can't stop you from selling the works you created with Photoshop, and Microsoft doesn't charge for every application you develop.

This is simply Verant and/or Sony feeling that they should be the ever powerful Gods ruling over an idealistic fantasy world, right down to the name you may give your character [sony.com]. 13 rules for a game in general would be off putting enough for me, much less just for what you can call yourself.