EULA/TOS (Score 1)

The problem with the ToS/EULA of many MMOs and online services is that the unfair balance of power being in the developer's hands is a violation of a consumer's rights. When you subscribe to an online service you are paying the developer for the right to use the service for the period of time agreed upon. The problem that arises with the developer's holding the power to terminate your service at any time is that with online games in particular, you are investing time and energy to obtain digital goods. Whether it be characters and equipment in a RPG or digital real estate in something like Second Life, you are paying for the right to obtain these goods. This makes those goods your property. Now the developer has every right to control your access to this property as agreed upon when you pay your subscritpion, they do not however have the right to terminate your access without due cause. It is my belief that with the size of the market in the MMO industry, there should be more government regulation as to the rights of the consumer. When you begin to assess the amount of time and energy invested by many MMO gamers you will quickly realize that there is more at stake than just a monthly subscription fee. These customers have invested many hours to obtain what they have, whether it be progression of the character or goods that the character posses, or perhaps less material, the experiences and relationships that are gained from this type of game. These by-products of the services rendered should be acknowledged and supported by the gaming industry as well as consumer advocacy groups and goverment regulations. I believe the key to fair play in this issue is that the developers should be required to maintain and continuosly update a grocery list of behaviors that would constitute a violation of your agreement with them in regards to the product rendered. Cheating/exploitation etc should be well defined and there should be a system in place to properly process violations of this. My personal opinion is a publicly posted list of behaviors constituting revokation of your access and a three strike policy. Players of these games should be required to read and agree to a Terms of Service that clearly details exactly what is considered a violation of the agreement. If they fail to comply with this policy they should initially be issued a warning, stating that such behavior/activity is prohibited and that further violation will result in termination of service. This will give accidental violations more leeway while punishing those that truely seek to violate the terms. I'm reminded of two situations from my own past, both examples derived from the MMORPG Everquest, considered largely to be the first large scale successful MMO game. The first issue arose early on in the game's existence when a player had written fan fiction that involved aspects of the shared world provided by the content of the game, in this fan fiction some largely abbherant behaviors were discussed such as Bondage/BDSM type sexual acts. When this was brought to the attention of Sony Online Entertainment, which as the time may very well have been micro managed by the original developer Verant, they quickly examined the incident which occured off of the company's resource/properties and terminated the user's account. This caused a public uproar among some members of this customers immiediete community of fellow users. It is my opinion that in this issue, the developer was in the wrong, as the incedent occured outside of the company's servers and therefore was not eligible for their judgement. What right they did have however was to address any potential copyright infrigement of their intellectual properties. This should not have resulted in a termination of service, but should have been handled as any other copyright infringement incedent would, with a cease and decist order. Another incedent that comes to mind was in regards to how large scale encounters in the game were handled, as these events were meant to be strategy based gameplay there were occasionally questionable tactics used. In the example I am referring to there was a group of players (called a guild) who defeated an encounter by using the terrain within the game to negate the "monster";s ability to hurt these players. The developer determined that this action was an exploitation of game mechanics and dozens of customers involved had their accounts terminated. This to me is another gross example of violation of a consumer's rights. In a game structured around strategic gameplay, the users should not be punished for looking for opportunities to succeed. While this action may not be how the encounter was intended to be completed, the responsibility falls on the developer to address flaws in their design, not on the user for taking advantage of them. The issue should have been "hotfixed" or "patched" and the users should have been asked to not use that methodology in the future. Too often when you subscribe to a service like the above mentioned you become very invested in the product provided, both financially and emotionally, and time-based. The developers holding the right to revoke these rights unchecked is not just poor customer service, but a violation of good business practice. You would not for example, order a meal in a resturant, pay for it, and then suddenly be asked to leave the facility immedietly without recieving the goods you just purchased. However if you were to violate that facitlities policies on acceptable behavior, it would be expected that you would be asked to stop, and if you did not comply, your order would be either refunded or completed and you would be removed from the facility. Just my long winded opiion on the matter.