SOP II: Jousting for Justice

The State of the Industry Breakfast (conversation between Alan Behr (Alston and Bird LLP), Alex Macris (Themis Group), John Erskine (NCsoft), and Philip Rosedale (2nd Life) offered a lively idea and question (among many). Alan asked: should virtual worlds shift the burden of player conflict resolution to in-world arbitration. Alan's suggestion rested on the belief that in-world arbitration may lead to a more nimble and in-time justice system than would waiting for the body of RL law to mature. Thus, consider the future possibility that two players in disagreement over a soured in-game transaction, for example, might pay a fee and have their case arbitrated.

What world tools and infrastructured be developed to facilitate this?

The thinking was that players may be incentivized by the prospect of a streamlined justice system. The developers may be incentivized by being able to side-step RW regulatory intrusion. The RW justice system may also likely be keen to avoid the clutter of lots of (essentially) small damage lawsuits. In-world arbitration may also be the only way to protect worlds with players from a variety of regulatory RW jurisdictions (say, Australia, Finland, and China). Is this a win all the way around?

In general the conversation was sympathetic, though concerns were hinted, e.g.:

1.) ...most of the major conflicts are via 3rd parties outside the game (e.g. ebay)...
2.) ...how much operating privacy forfeiture is required to make this work...
3.) ...how would this work, in a manner not too distruptive with the game...

Late in the discussion, then, someone threw out the idea: why not frame this arbitration process in the fiction of the world -why not medieval jousting, for example, in a medieval world ...

Comments

[Ian Schwartz]

1.

Do you mean, that any inworld conflicts should have a moderator to help solve them?

[Nathan Combs]

2.

should have a moderator to help solve them?

yes, a live arbitrator was the idea.

[Ian Schwartz]

3.

Bah! Could you imagine all the people needed for this position (and the cost)

[Matt Mihaly]

4.

Ian Schwartz wrote:
Bah! Could you imagine all the people needed for this position (and the cost)

Little behind the curve there Ian. Iron Realms has been using them successfully since 1997. They're used to settle any dispute between players regarding a variety of issues (usually oriented on theft, scams, or PK) anytime one of the players chooses to ask for help.

Sometimes I wonder if people focused exclusively on graphical MMOs actually believe they're ever encountering new ideas ;)
--matt

[Ian Schwartz]

5.

I was under the impression they were talking future games, with live assistance. A few MMORPG's I have played have the "you send in a petition" (i.e The Sims Online, Second Life, Star Wars Galaxies). Also what is the subscriber rate of Iron Realms now a days?

[ren]

6.

I think there were a number of specific points made:

- That in the EULA players would give up certain rights
- That arbitration would fall within the rules laid out by the world but would not necessarily occur within the world
- That it would occur at some point after the given incident though not necessarily immediately post
- That the players would some how bear the cost of the process

[Matt Mihaly]

7.

Ian wrote:
I was under the impression they were talking future games, with live assistance. A few MMORPG's I have played have the "you send in a petition" (i.e The Sims Online, Second Life, Star Wars Galaxies). Also what is the subscriber rate of Iron Realms now a days?

None. Iron Realms doesn't do subscriptions.

--matt

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

8.

How is this different from the current system of having volunteers with admin power do arbitration? This exists in all kinds of free multi-user systems, not only virtual worlds.

[Ian Schwartz]

9.

I agree with Ola, just about every game has either paying moderation or volunteer moderation to do decide what to do with the player who has violated the ToS. What are the speakers offering, other than what is already out there?

Matt, I mean the amount of people who play. Or is the game dead?

[Staarkhand]

10.

Glad to see we have a new variation of the ever popular "This all happened in Mud-Dev back in 1943" trope.

If only we had a place where people could share that kind of expertise with others from unique and varied backgrounds in order to bring gaming some new life and perspective. Oh wait.

[ren]

11.

Ola Fosheim Grøstad > How is this different from the current system of having volunteers with admin power do arbitration? This exists in all kinds of free multi-user systems, not only virtual worlds.

The difference is that the proposition was that users, through the contract with the game company, give up a whole bunch of fairly significant legal rights that they would other wise have e.g. certain right of privacy, rights to take further legal action against the company etc.

[Ian Schwartz]

12.

I am really not sure what opinion this article is trying to point out..That he is for or against this..what I am getting if i had to make an educated guess is, against. however, if this did happen, a lot of rules would be up for interpretation. I would rather people who work for the company do so.

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

13.

Ren Reynolds> give up a whole bunch of fairly significant legal rights that they would other wise have e.g. certain right of privacy, rights to take further legal action against the company etc.

Maybe this would work in the US, and IANAL, but I've got a feeling this contract could be set aside by the court if it was unreasonable in the mass market space. You would definitively need more than a shrink wrapped EULA written in a foreing language in my country. When I come to think of it, it is rather common for EULAs to contain some unreasonable elements and as a user you just have to accept it under the assumption that it will never have any real effect. And how many read EULAs in the first place? I asked my students and only about 10% did, perhaps fewer. I've got a feeling the jury will side with the consumer and not the unreasonable corporation... YMMV

[Geoffrey MacDougall]

14.

> Glad to see we have a new variation of the
> ever popular "This all happened in Mud-Dev
> back in 1943" trope.

Well... Point taken but this idea and the resulting conversation is far from new.

I wasn't at the conference and may be commenting on things that were addressed / dismissed, but it seems to me that one of the base assumptions behind the proposition - that players already have some form of right to in-game property (I'm assuming the basis of a legal claim is the violation of some form of property right) - is flawed.

I.e., the stated problems are "waiting for the body of RL law to mature" and "developers...side-step[ping] RW regulatory intrusion." The suggestion is that a form of in-game arbitration system may address both of these issues.

Well, IMHO, these issues don't exist in the first place and therefore don't need to be addressed. They don't exist for 1 key reason:

Players do not own the virtual property, other than within the fiction of the world. The RW legal framework governing the relationship between a player and the game is the EULA. The relevant field of RW law is therefore contract law. The EULAs to every game I've ever seen clearly state that the players do not own anything within the game. Therefore, they have no right to claim any form of legal damage or affront under RL law.

But, for the sake of argument, let's consider a scenario where a EULA was proven void for some reason or other and the legal issue of ownership over the virtual good became fuzzy. What happens to all of the player-owned houses the day UO goes out of business? What happens the day EA takes down the game and all of the virtual property the players claim to own - and even the reality in which that property exists - goes away? Is EA now liable for loss of property? Is some government or court obligated to step in and force EA to continue to operate to preserve the value of the players' investment? And can you envision anyone launching a game with this kind of liability at the end of it?

I can, however, see the benefit of an arbitration system from a purely customer service perspective - such as what IRE does. If players are going to continue to believe that these are more than games, and the swords, houses, etc. more than really advanced chess pieces, and if this perception is going to cause players to continue to make claims and occasionally assert these claims through the RL legal system, I can see the benefit of a company implementing an in-game arbitration sytem to avoid legal fees defending baseless claims and to provide a better game play experience for its user base.

[Richard Bartle]

15.

Is my memory playing tricks, or did the suggestion that there should be some kind of in-game arbitrator specifically concern the resolving of trade/service disputes between players? I seem to recall thinking, "this is OK if inter-player trade is something the virtual world developers actually condone".

Richard

[Nathan Combs]

16.

My recollection was all in-game conflict would be fair game. However, the examples used seemed to center on in-game trading.

I seem to recall thinking, "this is OK if inter-player trade is something the virtual world developers actually condone".

I don't follow this (doesn't seem to be unusual case)- most mmorpgs, for example, enable (encourage) ability to trade items among avatars?

I should point out the subtext (as I recall it) here for those not in attendance - the motivating interest was how to redress grievances in a universe where virtual property have taken on the weight of becoming property/asset in the eyes of the RW. A common theme in discussions was that "it seems inevitable".

Ted's last post on size of 2ndary market and discussion of viewpoint differences towards virtual property in asia (e.g. study cited by MacInnes et al. - see below)may imply a closer transition than one may have suspected last year...

...or so goes the discussion.

[ Footnote (ed, ncombs).

Ref. study mentioned above. From the paper (numbers jive with what I recall hearing): 78% of LIneage players in Korea believe they own the virtual goods in game, 17% believe the avatar owns it (interesting, how to parse this), and 3% believe the game devs do.

Macinnes et al. "Virtual World Governance: Digital Item Trade and its Consequences in Korea" -- SOP2 conf paper.
]

[Matt Mihaly]

17.

Ian wrote:
Matt, I mean the amount of people who play. Or is the game dead?

Well, that depends on how you count people. Does someone who played 3 years ago still count? What about someone who only logs in once per week, for 2 minutes? I'm also talking about 4 different games (Achaea, Aetolia, Imperian, and Lusternia). They certainly aren't big compared to Everquest. None have ever had more than 700 people online simultaneously and except for Achaea none have come close to that. Text is a pretty small niche comparitively speaking.

--matt