In the last issue of New Scientist there was an interesting article on the relationship between online gaming and the law.

Here's the introduction, unfortunately, you'll need to buy the issue or subscribe or something if you want to read the whole article though:Article.

Basically it looked at how on the one hand online gaming can provide actual profit, but then what happens when people break the rules and if the actual law can provide some kind of remedy.

The example at the start (which you can read) is where a guy lent a rare sword to another user while playing a game and he then sold it. The guy reported the theft to police (selling something you don't own is clearly theft) the police didn't do anything on account that it was just a video game, so the guy hunted down the person that had sold his sword and killed him.


I guess the big question that it asks is that if you spend ages playing WoW or whatever and have a character or item with real value (ie you could sell it on Ebay for cash) and someone, within the fundamental rules of the game, destroys that character, should you be able to access the law to offset the detriment. Or if not, how can you deal with people "breaking the rules" internally.

(another obvious example was people trying to sell stuff in games, but not getting paid).

Perhaps this should have been reported to the game developer rather than the police, but at the same time it is by definition theft, even if the item does not have a physical existance.

I suppose if the law can recognise a corporation as a legal person, that can be sued and sue others, and of course the corporation itself does not phsyically exist (eg. the corporation cannot think for itself), then why can't the law recgonise a vitural asset.

Perhaps an example where something that does not physically exist but yet is recgonised is Goodwill, essentially the Goodwill of a company is only recognised when the company has been purchased, and the purchase price is greater than the fair value of the net assets, the difference is goodwill which is regarded and recorded as an asset. So here we have an arbitrary asset that does not exist known as Goodwill that is regonised.

Perhaps the legal test for the vitural sword, should be similar to the Goodwill concept, that is if the vitural item can actually be sold on the market, then it can be recognised as an asset and therefore the theft can be established. I've taken the concept of Goodwill under it's defintion in Accounting Standards, I'm not sure what it's legal staus is, but nevertheless perhaps this Goodwill concept can be applied in a simlar way.

I know of a guy (friend-of-a-friend type thing) who spent all his time playing some MMMORPG and by the time he got his drivers licence, he had accumulated enough inventory so as to sell off all his items and buy himself a Nissan Skyline.

Another friend, (this time immediate friend) is an eBay freak, and would sell basically any item he got on eBay, quite often he would only get around a dollar or so, but when you consider it cost nothing to get the item, he is making 100% profit.

Cyber crimes cannot be ignored forever, this is the way society is moving and if they don't acknowlegde these crimes they can expect more of these kind of retalitations to occur. Anyone who has had a confrontation over the internet knows how frustrating it can be, as the annonymity of the interenet seems to bring out the worst in people, and when so much time is devoted to a game, to see someone profit from your loss can be excruciating.

I don't want to sound 90 years old here, but maybe people should realise that it's just a game and it's not the end of the world.

But you could say that in regards to any item in relation to theft Stevo, it's only a TV, it's only a car, etc.

A car is useful, a game isn't. Unless you use the disc as a coaster...

True, but you could say the same about almost anything that isn't a "need" in this day and age.

A collection of stamps would be a good example...most people couldn't give a toss about stamps, yet some people are borderline obessive compulsive about them.
I'm sure that when they report to the police station that someone stole their stamp collection, that officer couldn't give a shit about the stamps themselves, but he obliged to investigate and try and recover them, just as the their insurence company has compensate the customer if they aren't recovered.
In the future, don't be suprised if items in online games are in the same field as postage stamps.

Thanks for the tip, I'll look at it when I can find my copy.

Yeah but a set of stamps is a real physical thing with value, whereas a game item is just a piece of code.

I can understand people getting upset if their magical game item was taken from them. When I accidentally overwrote my San Andreas save file (with most of the stuff finished) I came up with many a new swear word, but then I got over it and started again. It's frustrating, but I didn't really lose anything except the effort I put in previously.

I just find the whole idea of placing value on in game items ridiculous, maybe it's because I don't play online rpgs. :/
There's got to be a point where people realise that they're taking it all a little too seriously.

Well what if you purchased a Game or an Album online and then someone hax0red your PC and stole/deleted it...you'd want that game/album back since you payed good money for it.
Some people pay good money for these in-game items, and really, it isn't that much different than any other piece of data...infact, how is a peice of data different to any other physical item? A JPG file compared to a JPG printed out onto some paper? They both phyisically exist, and just because one is being shown on a screen, and the other on a piece of paper doesn't make one of them lesser value...well it does, but that depends on what format a person prefers. Betamax or VHS? Regular Paper, or Photo Quality Paper?Plastic or Rubber? Metal or Mega-bytes?

If money is exchanged for the item, whether or not is exists as a physical item or simply as some code, then the person who paid for it, by defintion 'owns' it and therefore if it were to be 'stolen' the law should take this into account.

You can pay for and download PC games these days, hell even Xbox Live Arcade games, soon to be Vitural Console games, ownership is going beyond a physical existance, in time the law will have to change to reflect this.

I feel so out of touch :(

HAVE I MUTATED INTO A MAINSTREAM VIDEO GAME PLAYER WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THESE THINGS???

It's interesting though. I'm not sure if I'd want the law to play too big a role in video games though. When I sit down to play a game I don't really want to worry about getting sued and if I can trick someone into giving me something of value for very little, what's to say that's not just part of the game.

At the same time, if you were one of those tossers that actually bought an item on eBay, and then someone stole it from you, you'd be pretty angry.

Hmm, that is interesting since it's a game, something intended for enjoyment you dont really want to be playing some online game and be liable for your actions like you would be in the real world.

i had no idea things like this were for sale on ebay and the popularity of items etc. within these massive multiplayer games.....i suppose this is the way things are headed with gaming considering its probably as big as the movies right now

The thing is you're not meant to sell them, the mmo developers say DONT but people do and if they have that item stolen in-game its there problem. If I bought a really good sword for WoW on ebay, got it then 2 weeks later there is a big glitch in wow and I lose my sword can I sue blizzard then for destruction of property?

You could try, but as far as I'm aware the tort of conversion and the tort of detinue generally only applies to things that actually exist.

However, to be successful in either case you must also show that the action was done without legal justification and you probably agreed to certain terms when you installed/signed up to play WoW which I imagine included an exclusion clause limiting liability and Blizzard retaining the right to delete or modify any characters or items at their discretion.

And while that certainly doesn't guarentee that an action would fail, it does make it pretty unlikely.