For those who just get the RSS feed, there has been lots of buzz in the comment fields on virtual property issues lately: The "GOM Off-line" thread is up to 75 comments as of this post, with Jamie Hale participating, and Richard's post of his "Virtual Property Overview" is up to 41 comments, with lots of wild analogy-slinging. You know, it's almost starting to feel Slashdotty around here.
So in the spirit of comment field ascendancy, Barry Kearns, who commented quite a bit on both threads, has contributed the following discussion fodder regarding the value of blanket "morals clauses" in MMORPGs:
Many high-profile endorsement contracts, as well as employment contracts for many customer-facing job positions, contain a "morals clause". Such a clause allows for the termination of the relationship between the parties, if the employee engages in personal behavior which might reflect poorly on the organization with which they are associated.Morals clause violations have been upheld in court cases as viable and enforceable contract provisions, and allow organizations to effectively distance themselves from representatives who engage in behavior that is not congruent with the public image that an organization wishes to maintain.
Recent discussions on Terra Nova have touched on the ethics of VW EULA provisions that reference out-of-game behaviors by players. Some players wish to exercise personal freedoms, while at the same time many VW operators wish to maintain full creative control of their environment... which includes the ability to remove any "disruptive elements" from their worlds solely at their discretion.
Is it time for VW EULAs to introduce a "morals clause", making explicit the notion that VW operators consider it "fair game" to cancel a gamer's access if they disagree with the solely "outside world" choices that a player makes?
Would you be more or less likely to patronize VWs that implemented a "morals clause" provision into their EULAs?
Discuss.
Some additional links/thoughts to add to the mix:
1) See Julian's "OWNED!" presentation. (And see TL's comments here.)
2) See the EULA-topia discussion (and the Grimmelmann post) from back in December.
3) Ren notes that some EULAs already have the functional equivalent of these clauses -- vague language such as "violating the spirit of the game" might do the trick. And I'll add that "service can be terminated for any reason" clauses in EULAs are not uncommon for many online services.
4) What percentage of players would ever decide whether to play WoW or COH based on the language in the EULAs that no one seems to read? Isn't it true that designer governance issues are largely tertiary to the motivations of "mainstream" MMORPG gamers?
