Yes, it's obvious that Superpoke was a service rather than a product, but the lawsuit is not necessarily a waste of time*. The ambiguity is in whether or not the virtual currency purchased was a product or a service. The virtual currency was clearly transferable, so it could probably be argued that it was a product rather than a service like Superpoke itself.

*These are people who spent $5M on virtual clothes for their virtual pets in a game! I think it's reasonable to accept that their values are somewhat different than are yours or mine. How can you possibly have any basis on on which to judge the value they place on their time?

You can't make it into fertilizer, but it's acceptable to sluice it away down the creek for other animals to drink? Poor justification.

Wait just a minute there, mister! Exactly how should this deter any potential employees? The presence of legislation that allows two men or two women to marry each other has no impact on me or my heterosexual marriage. It should similarly have no impact on any heterosexual. All it does it take one step closer to ceasing the government sanctioned treatment of homosexuals as second class citizens with fewer rights than heterosexuals. How could that be a bad thing?

Perhaps, but the two are not mutually exclusive, are they?

We seem to have discovered another AC who needs to hand in his geek card.

Then you fail at pattern recognition - or perhaps you have not seen all three. Yes, Biff Tannen is an idiot, and in every version of history/reality shown, he is an idiot. His descendant Griff Tannen is an idiot, and his ancestor Buford Tannen is an idiot. But there is only ever one Biff Tannen.

Hey, is your surname Tannen, by any chance?

is obligatory.

No, I have never played Warhammer 40k with magical dinosaurs versus spacemen - or at all. But more importantly, you're not seriously trying to compare a fantasy video game to actual warfare, are you? It's not similar at all. In real war, there are no rules that cannot be broken, people do not lose their credits, they do not take an extra 30 hit points nor do they surrender their "cloaks of becoming", their Mithril armor or their Great Swords; they are not healed by mystical potions collected on their quest, or any other sort of magical bullshit. In real war, people get horribly maimed and they fucking DIE!

But I'll grant that you are almost right about one thing. People (military or otherwise) will not fire on their own people - they will however, quite readily redefine what constitutes "their own people". Take for example:

• Romans vs Christians
• Catholics vs Protestants
• Colonists vs Monarchists
• Confederates vs Unionists
• Hatfields vs McCoys
• Bloods vs Crips
• just about any other conflict you care to name

That's why I said "almost right" just up there. Military men absolutely will fire on their own people under the right circumstances, and those really aren't too hard to come by. Simple weight of numbers would not be sufficient against the superior firepower of a professional military. It'd be like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

On the other hand, military men will target "terrorist" installations and encampments if ordered to do so, even if those terrorists are home-grown. And isn't one man's freedom fighter another man's terrorist?

Ya think so? Those 1.5 million have bigger budgets, superior weaponry, more basic guns, better armor and expert training. Regardless of any constitutional bleating about "a well-armed militia", the people of the US have no chance against their own military. No militia can be sufficiently well-armed to meet that force. I suspect that the primary purpose of the US flexing its military might every few years is not to convince the rest of the world that it is invincible, nor even to make profit for the Military-Industrial complex (although those are two highly favorable side-effects). No, it is to maintain the "balance" of power by dissuading its own populace from revolution. After all, the US was itself born of revolution, so any leader worth his salt knows that, all things being equal, the same is once again possible. That is why all things are very much not equal.

Oh dear. Buggy does not mean doesn't work. It means doesn't work well. Millions of people will buy a device like that and then discover that they have to reboot it every so often.

True, but you don't have to try terrribly hard to trivialize a career in which one gets paid to play a game.