Here at the Edinburgh International Games Festival the panel discussion on virtual currency that I chaired has caused a bit of a storm thanks to Jeff (lawnmower man) Brown, VP of Corporate Communications for Electronic Arts.
During the discussion Greg Lastowka and Linda MacKellar (of MacKellars law firmand Slam Games) both stressed that games companies need to take some stance on item trading both in their EULA and through actions i.e. if a company bans item trades in word they must follow up in deed by warning and possibly banning players that transgress the contract. Greg made the point that sleeping on rights and allowing the other party i.e. the players, to assume that they are not being enforced, could invoke some interesting common law concepts should the games company want to invoke the rights later. Whereas Linda, who also runs a development company, made the point that game companies can’t simply tack a EULA on at the end of a development process but have to think of their intended legal position through the design process.
Jeff stated that EAs position is quite clear – they are aware of item sales in games like Sims Online currently do absolutely nothing about, nor do they intend to do anything about it in the future.
In front on an increasingly stunned audience Jeff went on to comment on the whole business of making money out of virtual items – stating that if a kid had a choice between spending time creating something in an online world or going out and mowing the lawn for a few bucks, then obviously they should go mow lawns.
Sitting next to Jeff was Jamie Hale of Gaming Open Market and while I looked for somewhere to take cover Jamie and Jeff ‘discussed’ whether virtual item / currency sales (the basis of GOMs business) was the complete waste of time that Jeff seemed to be suggesting it was.
After the panel several audience member came up to me and asked: Did that EA guy really say that this virtual world stuff is a waste of people time – can you say that about your player base? I think Jeff’s point was that doing it for money was waste of time but that certainly was not the impression that many people seemed to take away.
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