And then things started to get ugly.
First, Second Labs doesn’t fair so well when holding their TOS up in front of a judge. From Raph:
What it boils down to, though, is that the court is saying that some pretty common elements of TOS agreements may be considered unfair by law
Is this big news to people? Really? TOSes have been thought by more than a few to be pretty unenforceable in a court of law for a good long time. From the ones on the inside of shrink wrapped packages to the click-through versions we play MMOs with, it’s been pretty iffy. But I think the holy trinity of guys I linked above are on to something, this could have a big effect through out the industry…
Second, a Class Action lawsuit is being brought against…IGE! I know, confusing, right. What are they charging in this lawsuit?
Because of IGE’s infusion of gold, virtual currency being held by honest Subscribers is constantly devalued. The devaluation of this virtual currency has an economic value in real dollars as reflected on Defendants’ website. This devaluation of Plaintiff and the Class’s gold, which was caused by Defendants’ sale of gold in World of Warcraft, is conservatively, in the millions of dollars.
This seems to present all kinds of problems to me. One, to devalue something, doesn’t it have to have value in the first place? And doesn’t Blizzard’s TOS clearly (heh) state that you can’t buy and sell anything in their game because you don’t actually own any of it? Oh, right, the above TOS problems. Well, still, if the gold has a real world value, who defines it? If anyone, isn’t it IGE, the biggest gold farmer in the US? Second, assuming they can get by that problem, and that’s a huge if, then they have to prove IGE devalues the currency. Devalues something which by the TOS (I know, I know) says doesn’t exist.
Both of these things are really interesting in terms of what MMOs allow, either through inaction or directly, and should help shape future MMOs.
Interesting times we live in. The MMO industry is still just a baby and we could be witnessing some harsh growing pains.
What Would Matt Do: Get some popcorn, keep on eye things and as Lum does in his piece, wonder where Blizzard falls on the suit about the value of their gold.