[MUD-Dev] Teaching ethics in MUDs (was Re: "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG")

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Zak Jarvis <zak at voidmonster.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Friday, February 23, 2001 2:32 PM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Teaching ethics in MUDs (was Re: "An essay on d00dism
and the MMORPG")


>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jon Lambert [tychomud at ix.netcom.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 10:19 PM

>> Zak Jarvis wrote:

>>> Ultimately the only reason Verant provided for canceling the
>>> account of =he player in question was "Someone complained to us,
>>> and threatened us =ith some right-wing morality police."

>> Could you provide a source reference for that quote?

> I'd hoped it was apparent that it was a paraphrase, but alas it
> really quite clearly wasn't.

> In any event, the exact quote is now well and truly lost as it's
> scrolled o ff the official EQ message boards about 5 months ago.

> In essence, John Smedly posted saying that they had over reacted due
> to a player threatening to turn them in to one of the many rabid
> Christian media-watchdog groups.

> I nearly lost track of reasons they provided, but that one stuck out
> in my mind.  It was also the final one that was used, and part of a
> conciliatory gesture on the part of Verant towards the banned
> player.

Well, this isn't the original post, but John Smedley's own repetition
of the same points in an email to Lum the Mad:

  http://www.lumthemad.net/news/1404.php

I've seen the outcry regarding the banning of Mystere. While we
typically do not discuss this, I would like to elaborate on several
things surrounding this in order to address legitimate concerns raised
by our playerbase.

It is very important for everyone concerned to understand that
EverQuest's reputation is a very important thing. In this day and age,
video games are subjected to an ENORMOUS amount of scrutiny by
watchdog groups and the federal and state governments.

In this case, a parent complained to a lot of anti-child porn watchdog
sites and several mainstream media outlets regarding the extremely
graphic detail of the story and the fact that it apparently contained
violence directed at a child.

For us, this poses an extremely serious problem. EverQuest has a
reputation as being a family oriented game. Yes it has a mature
rating, and yes it does contain violence. That in and of itself gives
pause to many people out there (especially parents). But, you would be
amazed at how many parents play this game with their kids mostly
because we do control the language and they feel like EQ is a family
friendly environment despite the dark overtones of some of the stories
and quests.

You may say "a person has the right to say whatever they want"... and
of course that's true. But, when that action is linked to a company's
Intellectual Property (which is just a fancy way of saying people
associate it with EQ) it becomes our business because it threatens our
business by making us a huge target for all the folks out there that
think we all are all a bunch of violent video game players. This just
gives them fuel for the fire.

For us, this story represented a serious problem because it used
EverQuest as a backdrop. It's already been pointed out by our General
Counsel in more legal terms, but the simple fact is that it's easy for
folks to point at that story, point at EQ and link the two.

Whether or not any of us likes that or not isn't really the
question. The fact is that EverQuest is the very heart of our business
and we have to take that very seriously.

Now - Will we be policing the Internet looking for these kinds of
stories?

No. We won't. In fact, none of us was even aware of this until it was
brought to our attention. That doesn't mean if someone crosses the
line again and it's pointed out we won't do the same thing.

The big question is - where's the line? And what right do we have to
draw it outside the game?

The answer is complicated and extremely subjective, so I'll just have
to be honest and say we'll know it when it's over the line. We're
going to discuss it in the upcoming few weeks and see if we can make
it more clear, but I can't honestly say if we'll get anywhere because
none of us wants to stop people from writing awesome fan-fiction about
EQ.

But we aren't going to be looking at every fan site and becoming the
Thought Police. We have neither the time, nor the inclination to do
that. However we need to protect EverQuest's good image as best we
can.

Did we handle this as well as we could have?

No - We didn't. And for that, I apologize.

In the future, we're going to handle this in a different way.

Regards,

John Smedley
President and CEO
Verant Interactive, Inc.

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev