12/27/2023 0 Comments Sword magic iconOn this subject, read this article from PC Gamer UK: But the time you invest in some of these items could be worth alot indeed. ![]() They’re actually not even the property of you, but the game license holder. Virtual money, magic swords, uber loot and the works are just that virtual. Collapse replies (1) Reply View in chronology One state makes it look like you have something, another state looks like you don’t. It is all just different states of data being sent to your PC. Just as you can not sue a game company for shutting down their game servers, which would mean you lost access to everything you thought had value. Therefor you can not sue for losing a fake item, as you never owned it to begin with. They own the bits, and allow the servers to send the required info so that such items appear in your imaginary inventory once you log into their servers. In an MMORPG the items your characters have are stored on the developers database. ![]() The only thing they legally own is the game install software, and the bits of data on their hard drive. Open your eyes to the world you live in, not just the narrow bit that applied directly to you.”Īctually, they can’t sue for losing an imaginary sword of magic. “Sorry, but people can (and will!) sue when they think they’ve lost something of value. Only if the video game was used as an assessory to a real life crime, should the police get involved. Leave it to the GM’s who are paid by your monthly fee, not by the police who are paid by everyones taxes, most of whom don’t even play your imaginary game.įurther, the thought of having local police handle a game which can have cheating conflicts across multiple countries would make policing games difficult even if it made any sense to do so, which again it doesn’t. They may not stop all cheating, but that does not mean the government should step in, that is just rediculous. It should be THEIR job, as it is THEIR world for them to add whatever rules they want, and should enforce to the best of their ability. As well, leave it to the developers to fix and/or police their own game. Heck, even without it being written out, it is common sense and a fact of online gaming. You automatically accept this fact once you click ‘I agree’ on MMORPG EULAS. Playing video games online comes with the implied understanding that there will always be risk of cheaters. And you can’t bring ‘but I buy gold online with real money’ excuse into this either because that is clearly against most MMORPG TOS which puts YOU at fault for any losses. ![]() Sorry, there is nothing complex here, it is a simple case of trying to mix the real world with the imaginary.Īnd if you want to use the excuse of “But I pay real money for access to this game and service, which is different from playing a free board game.”, that would be a good point, except for the fact that Monopoly cost money to buy before you can play. ![]() What is the line between a computer game and board game like Monopoly, that for some reason someone can steal from the banker, and if you called the real police they’d laugh at you, yet cheating in an online game and all of a sudden everyone thinks this is a hard / interesting subject. You can’t sue a game company for a bug in their game that deletes all your fake gold, so why would a security hole that allows someone to effectively do the same be reason for criminal investigation? The day my tax dollars are spent to fund police at punishing someone for stealing non-existant imaginary items from a video game, is the day I officailly declare this world doomed from excessive ignorance. But what about counterfeiting gold pieces? What about running a script inside the game that transfers gold from one player to another? Before diverting law enforcement resources to rectify players’ complaints, companies running online games need to strive to develop their own security measures that satisfy their players. For example, most people would accept that if your character is mugged inside a game, then that’s part of the gameplay, not a legal issue. It’s a lot harder to get them to buy into ‘someone stole my magic sword.'” But before discussing how law enforcement can address the situation, game developers and players should try to define the border between the game and the real world. This problem is only going to get worse as one Microsoft researcher put it, “The police are really good at understanding someone stole my credit card and ran up a lot of money. As we’ve seen in the past, MMORPGs are facing more and more real world complications as people invest an increasing amount of money into them. Tue, Aug 15th 2006 02:08pm - Joseph WeisenthalĪt a gaming conference, Microsoft warned that multi-player online games have significant security vulnerabilities, and that the growing value of in game assets was a juicy target for criminals.
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