[MUD-Dev] Are eBay sales more than just a fad?

[Luc Van den Borre]

Dave Rickey wrote:
| end?  What's the legal consequences of selling, as the operator of a game,
| in game stuff for real money?  What if a bug eats that Sword of Buttkicking
| you just sold somebody?  What if you ban the account? How do we integrate

Just a comment on the legal side of things (the social implications are more
interesting though!).
I'm not a lawyer etc.

There was an interesting remark in a thread on Slashdot a while ago ( 'Sony Bans
Sale of Virtual Items from Everquest'
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/04/13/1931248.shtml ).

In the news article ('Sony Bans Everquest Auctions'
http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-3986,00.html ) that the story links
to:
'Sony is banning the real-world auctions of virtual-world characters and goods
from its popular online game EverQuest [...]. The auctions promote cheating and
create animosity among players, the company said.'

The top two remarks on /. are:

'Yeah, but I'll bet you that Sony will make a board where this can be done
through them, and they get a small percentage
of the profits.
ooh, Investors begin to turn heads at the sound of a new type of market!'

'They can't, it's illegal under laws designed to keep comic book/trading card
companies from reselling their items on
the secondary markets for high prices. '

If this is true - no 'secondary market' of in-game items by the company that
produces them (they control the market since they can just trivially produce
more). I imagine it can't be too hard for a company to cover themselves against
the eventualities you mention - players wouldn't be buying items, they'd be
renting them, much like you don't actually own a domain name, or a copy of
Windows.

--Luc Van den Borre









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