[MUD-Dev] Re: Black Snow Revisited

[amanda at alfar.com]

Norman Short <wjshort at wworld.com> wrote:

> I just came across this thread, since I've been too busy to read
> everything the list has been sending lately. But frankly I'm
> amazed.  I think you game company people have your head in the
> clouds ignoring reality.  For some reason you guys think you can
> put anything you want into a EULA and it automatically gives you
> those rights.  If the law in fact doesn't give you those rights
> it's just meaningless words.

Contracts negotiate restrictions that are not imposed by law.  That
is their very nature.  There are some things that you cannot
negotiate away by contract (for example, slavery), but a usage
license is pretty much open to whatever the licensor and licensee
agree to.  By paying Mythic for a license, I am agreeing to be bound
by the terms of that license.  It's not something Mythic is imposing
on me: if I don't like their rules, I don't have to buy a ticket to
play their game.  It is a contract that I, as a player, have entered
into freely, in return for the ability to play.  If I violate the
terms of the agreement, they can't throw me in jail, but they can
certainly impose the penalties specified in that agreement, such as
revoking my license to play.

Remember, I have to read the EULA and indicate my acceptance before
I am even allowed to purchase a ticket--this is not like a
shrink-wrap EULA where I can credibly claim I didn't read or
indicate my acceptance before paying.

> You've also put yourselves as game company employees on the same
> level as the justice system.  You want to measure intent?  That is
> a job for the courts, and I suppose you could make a separate
> court case on every single transaction so you could try to
> discover intent of the parties on each and every sale.  Good luck.

I'm not a game company employee, I'm a networking engineer who
happens to play a bunch of MMORPGs in her spare time.  I do intend
to follow both the letter and spirit of agreements I enter into, and
completely support Mythic's willingness to apply penalties to those
who do not.  Again, that's what contracts are all about.

Now, I should note here that this particular issue is not
necessarily how I would deal with the issue if I were running a
game: personally, I think that a better approach would be to
structure the game so that inter-player exchanges don't affect game
balance, and then let players do what they want offline.  However,
the fact that this is how I think I'd run a game has nothing to do
with whether or not anyone else is able to run their game
differently.

> Intuitively these policies sound downright anti-American, and anti
> business.  Not sure the government is going to be overly
> sympathetic.

Leaving aside the international angle for the moment, even in
America contracts limit rights every day of your life.

> I could go into all the legal niceties, but lets just live in the
> real world for a bit, shall we?  The internet is unpoliceable.
> You have zero ability to stop people from contacting each other
> and trading items either for cash or other items, and making a
> transaction in game which anyone else can make.  Again, you fall
> back on intent, but have no legal rights to determine such.  I
> suggest you start 1000 court proceedings immediately instead.

You're fuzzy on the details here.

BlackSnow initiated the court proceedings, remember?  They are
trying to strike down in court a contract they agreed to after
agreeing to it.

> The longer I see you guys trying to artificially stunt the
> players, try to make their advancement a slow creep in search of
> dollars, the less interested I get in playing these games.  And
> no, I've never been a seller or buyer of the online stuff.  I just
> think you folks are way too full of yourselves.

You don't have to pay anyone to play games.  You do have to pay some
people in order to play *their* games, and you have to agree to play
by their rules.  How exactly is this artificial?

Amanda Walker
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