Macro-Mining and EULA's

It seems that there are a lot of people contesting rules and "laws" set by game companies. Of course, there has always been those who have wanted to stretch the rules a bit, or just flat deny their existance, and have made gameplay for many people downright awful! Ever been victim of one of those who screech about, "I paid my $14/month to play this &$*# game, and I'll do what I *@*& well want to! BUG OFF!"

*shudder*

And it seems that the latest phenom to hit...not that it's new, but just increasingly worse...is the gold farming that takes place in various games, if not all of them. Is it just gold? Nope! Items are a hot commodity in the market place too. Just ask the secondary market companies about making money from games. Then, ask the players who deal with the power gamers-turn-farmers-and-entrepreneur (wealthy, I might add!) about how that affects their gameplay and the game as a whole. It causes a cavity in the whole environment that grows and becomes painful! The enjoyment is diminished for many because of the "instant wealth" that seems to overtake some and the blight it causes on the game/server economy.

A few years ago, I had a guy go on a rant about EQ and how he paid his money and he was an attorney and he was going to take SoE to court and....well, you get the idea. My character just stood there. Too bad you can't make jaws drop, because I was not believing what I was hearing. However, being the game geek I am (just can't get into power gaming, so I watch for the unobvious), I reminded this "attorney" that another game's EULA had stood up in court and had set precedence for all other game companies. He continued to rant and fuss and go off. I charged him 25p for the language (which did cause a break in the action, believe me!), and told him if he felt that way, to just quit and let us have fun.

He quit. (YAY!)

What any company or law firm does is to find cases that have been tried in courts and use those as a model, when possible. For instance, in answer to what happened in 2004 with Blizzard vs BnetD, we find the following response to what the closing sentence in that article said ("Blizzard executives might have to hire a second set of lawyers to protect themselves against their own legal victory.") here. This from one group that has taken on the gaming law challange! Notice this part:

The court upheld the EULA and TOU as enforceable contracts, rejecting various arguments by defendant that a contract was not formed through the click-thru process.

Anyone want to cheer? Go ahead. I can wait!!!

We still have idiots out there with their heads in the sand, as this person who wrote about an XBOX 360 issue:

To my knowledge, EULAs have never been upheld in court.

Besides, I usually bypass them anyway.

*sigh* Check the dates. Where has this guy been?

Doesn't it really make you wonder what goes thru the minds of people when they buy a game? Or, you could take that pretty much into the real world documentation, as well! Rules of the road, maybe? The ones people spend SO much time writing just to have someone try to tell an officer, "Hey...I paid for this car! I'll drive it the way I want to!" ...... not! Makes as much sense, tho!

So, let's take this a step further:

We have all heard about the game Eve-online, right? No? Ok...don't feel bad. It's a biggie, but the name doesn't get thrown around as much. Anyway, this particular company is taking a hard-core stance against gold-farming! And when I say "hard-core", that's exactly what I mean. One warning...that's all you get! Already been found to have sold/bought on open market? BYE-BYE! *BAN button*

Macro-miners...Gold Farmers...it's become a serious problem. Some call it part of life and therefore, should be allowed to come ingame. Well, ok, so irl, we do have griefers, losers, winners, thieves, murderers...does this mean we go ingame to emulate real life or to escape it? Granted, some people do play games to achieve all the wealth, love and power they can't seem to find outside of that glowing box in front of them, but when it comes to the intent of the game they are playing, does it make it right?

Read this and get some good things to think about! Fortunately, Abalieno (writer for The Cesspit) linked a lot of things, so it made my life easier. You can run thru them and see what you think about it all. It boils down to the simple fact that game producers can develop their rules and should be able to STICK to them without being slammed into court by someone who doesn't like the fact they don't get their way...even tho they "signed", a document upon logging in stating that they would adhere to the EULA and Rules of Game!

In this thread on the Eve board, one of the GMs commented:

Just this morning, I have permanently banned about 50 accounts for sellking ISK (gold) and I have removed billions of ill gotten ISK from buyers. Those who buy ISK are directly encouraging all kinds of illegal activity such as macroing, hacking and more so this, as GM Arkanon stated, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED and the buyers will face dire consequences as well as the sellers.

GM Grimmi
Senior Game Master

Any questions?

Didn't think so!

So, the question is now, who is going to be the first of the x-amount of now-banned players who will take this to court and try it? The EULAs have already proven that they can stand up in court! Rules of Conduct/Game and EULAs both usually state that you agree to follow what the company has outlined as their rules...and has taken a LOT of space in explaining prior to you checking off the "Yes, I agree" box! It's bound to happen, tho! Why? Well...try this:

“My tax return for that year which has salary from 2 months of my job which I quit to make this my full time business, showed $150,623.78 after expenses. By this time I had made another character on another server and bought myself another computer and was playing on two. I killed guards in everfrost and sold the weapons to vendors and then bought items from players, or sold the platinum. That's the entirety of what I did to make that income.”

NOW are there questions?? (I found this quote incorporated in this article from Gamasutra) This is just frightening!

I could go on and on citing instances (like the sweatshops now in China, etc, with sleep-deprived people) and pulling out all the examples of the "why's" and "wherefore's" of this dilema but I think I will close with a final link and quote from Hexenworld:

You don't like the license? Use a different utility and take your chances with a different license. But either way, sell your levels, end up in court. Unfortunate, yes, but when you're the software developer, you'll be thankful.

And, if that's not good enough (and everyone knows I can't stop when I'm on a roll), try the quote from Brad McQuaid from his interview with Yahoo:

...my message to those companies that don't make games but merely profit -- illegitimately, I might add -- from these practices, interfering with games never designed for the external influence of real life monies and such: "Be a man about it and make your own game. Go for it. Use all those millions and make an awesome game. Earn respect. Don't ask for it.

nuff said!