[MUD-Dev] Re: Black Snow Revisited

[Fred Clift]

On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, Norman Short 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.

Oh, you mean game companies don't own the servers that their players
play on?  You mean that a game company doesn't have the right to say
what can and can't be done with accounts on their servers?  I'd say
you were the one who isn't seeing reality.

> Intuitively these policies sound downright anti-American, and anti
> business.

I repeat - can you tell a game company what to do with their
property?  Note that in this case it _seems_ that having a monthly
account with the game company is a contract for some type of
service.  Are you implying that a company wanting to write a
contract that lets them keep some control over their own property is
unamerican or anti-business?  I suggest that the opposite is true.

> You absolutely don't have the right to tell players who they can
> talk to and what they can do when they are not connected to the
> service.

This case isn't about that -- it about transfering a contract for
service from one person to another.  Non-transferrable contracts
happen all the time.

> 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

Just because something is difficult or near impossible does not mean
it is a) illegal or b) something you should ignore.

> suggest you start 1000 court proceedings immediately instead.

No legal matters need to be started, but the contract can be
cancelled if the customer does not keep his end of the deal.

> I don't buy the "they'd have stayed longer if you didn't sell them
> an item" line.

I dont think people have been saying that an individual player would
stay longer if they didn't purchase an item from someone like BSI --
I think the claims have been that the company looses revenue when
such things happen.  Personally, I'd get frustrated and leave a game
if I saw _other people_ buying stuff like this when it was stated
that it wasn't allowed.  (Well, if the game were designed up front
to encourage that kind of thing, or if say, it were an expected part
of the game to keep buying stuff - think collectable card games...).
I would think that the buyers would actually stay longer if they
could buy uber-gear, but I would also think that this would drive
away other players.  Or, perhaps it would keep people from buying
more accounts when they wanted to play a different character.

> acquire it.  You're like the studio industry when the VCR came
> about; trying to close legal loopholes and stop people from doing
> what they want and claiming the practice costs you money.

No, I'd say game companies are more like cable-TV operators that
thrive on keeping monthly-subscriptions comming in.  The game
companies provide a service, not a piece of hardware.  You can buy
all the $40 boxes you want at the local computer store -- if they
shut down their servers or if you just decided not to pay money for
a service contract with them, you would have nowhere to play the
game.

> the Grail in that you can make more money by selling the items
> yourself instead of just letting players fill the vacuum in
> providing a service they want and you wont provide.

Now wether this is a good business practice or not, I dont know - I
dont know the particulars.  Even then, something being a 'bad
business practice' doesn't make it illegal or unamerican.

> service, you're still losers.  Plug a hole here, a dozen spout up
> somewhere else.  You're just trying to prevent players from doing
> something they can easily do and want to do.  Lets not forget
> you've never tried to assert these rights in court.  My guess is
> you're afraid to; afraid that the results might give players a
> right or two you'd like to deny them.

Wait a minute -- looks like you are "judging 'our' intent" which you
said was a job for the courts, not for mortals in the gamming
industry.

> 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.

Well, I guess you aren't talking about me, since the game I work on
is free.  The game does not make us money in any way. In our game,
if you sold a character to some fool, I wouldn't have much of a
problem with it.  However if you sold some equipment for real money,
you'd probably get some sort of administrative punishment for not
role-playing correctly.  Using Out-Of-Character means to gain some
In-Character advantage is bad form and officially 'frowned upon'.  I
mean, what possible IC motivation could a character in the world
have to just seemingly give away valuable things?

Oh, and if you do have a character in the world I work on, and we
decide to just rmeove it or delete it, you dont have any rights that
would prevet us doing this..  Note that we do not arbitrarily do
things like that.  However, when we delete someone's character for
cheating, or effectively banish them via some sort of ban, those
people have no recompense.  In general, they knew what they were
doing was against the rules and knew what the likley punishment
would be.  We own the server, we pay for network access, we own the
content of the world, every bit of it.  If you can't abide by the
rules of the world we run, then you are welcome to a full refund of
$0 and welcome to leave.

Aparently the real world that most of us are living in is different
from your hypothetical real world.

Fred

--
Fred Clift - fred at clift.org -- Remember: If brute
force doesn't work, you're just not using enough.


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