@ Robb, hayabusa75, and Xlorep DarkHelm

Robb, I'm sure that what you said makes sense to people who play MMORPGs. I really never have. I've only seen screenshots of them. hayabusa75, in this case, it's not the blood that's the focus. It's the fact that I like games that look realistic and numbers coming out when you get hit, doesn't seem real and somehow the gameplay looks boring to me. Even if the numbers dripped with blood, I don't think it would make much difference.

Xlorep DarkHelm, Quake and Doom didn't have the numbers coming out when the player was hit. It somehow looks more realistic when blood comes out than numbers. MMORPGs look very weird and boring to me. I don't know why. It doesn't look that fun to me. I love certain games. Last night, I stayed up until almost four in the morning playing Scarface the World is Yours on my XBOX. I am addicted to that game because it's very exciting and fun. In my opinion, MMORPGs aren't.

@xlorep darkhelm:

You're right, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. I was just saying it's not entirely accurate to paint something that exists in cyberspace as having no value simply because you can't touch it or pick it up.

@Daniel:

"I don’t insult people when they don’t agree with me 100%. I have never insulted you or Brokenscope."

Fair enough, I will grant you that. But, if you recall, I used to be very polite and respectful to you when you first started posting, when other people were jumping on you. I tried to help you multiple times in an easy-going constructive way, by making friendly suggestions. When that failed miserably to elicit any change in you, I warned you that I was done playing nice, and that I would be all over you until you stopped behaving like the poster boy for the anti-gamers. And by that, I don't mean you agree with them, I mean they can point to you and say, "See what I mean?"

@hayabusa75:

Even if you follow th logic of time = money, and you are simply selling your time for acquiring the item, you still are, in the end, not authorized to sell the item, by most MMO EULAs. You are violating the EULAs, which is a legal, binding contract, when you sell something that literally is not yours to sell in the first place. So the argument of "I'm just selling my time" is flawed.

@Daniel: Doom (1 & 2), Quake (1, 2, & 3 if I remember correctly) used numbers to represent your health. So, did you also think that was "strange" of them? WoW has health bars, and you can even have it display health bars on the creatures (plus, you *can* turn off the numbers that scroll up above the creatures, if memory serves). Blood isn't shown, because of the desire for a "T" rating, simple as that.

@Daniel
I agree with you about the non-worth of "imaginary" products. There's an economic reason beyond simple good sense and EULA's. First, maybe they're responding to private correspondence of a legal variety. Second, Ebay's insurance policy cannot cover virtual goods. There's no item, therefore no worth. It's a great way to make that unequivocal. Finally, economics in virtual worlds are 100% pure inflation when there is no invested funds to back the economy.

Let's say I make a game. Now let's have some players. Player 1 has played for 7 hours and has 2 gold. Player 2 has played for 20 hours and has 100 gold (he's a pro!). Player 3 has played for 100 hours and has 200 gold. Player 2 offers player 1 50 gold for $250. Player 1 buys it. $250 worth of inflation has just occured, because though the cost of the virtual item was real, the value is perceived. Player 3 discovers he has put too much into my crappy game and quits. His gold has not appreciated, so it is still worth $0. Word of mouth and actual play proves I made a really crappy game. Everyone else quits playing. Player 2 still has 57 gold, but that gold has a perceived value of $0. The bubble burst. Player 2 wasted his cash, and there are no real assests to cash in on.

The lesson to be learned here, which will become plainly obvious in the very near future of Second Life, is that games, unlike real assets, can be abandoned for better games. Sometimes it happens with real assets, but if you compare virtual items to food, for example, you can see why real assets have real value. When WoW is no longer popular, no longer supported, or both, all of that in-game stuff will IMMEDIATELY revert to it's original value: $0.

I'm not against the buying selling of virtual items, but buyer beware: you're buying nothing. Who will be the last holding the bag?

@ZippyDSMIee: I can understand that you have done that, it is just most EULAs do not recognize them as legitimate, and a number of the game companies, when they discover this, will actually lock the account (Blizzard being one of the ones that will do it, and have done it in the past).

Whether or not you should or shouldn't be able to sell the account key is irrelevant to the discussion, simply because what should and shouldn't be done isn't what is discussed. What is and is not authorized through the license agreements with the company who made & operate the game, *that* is what is being discussed. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the massive lockdown & proprietary BS that runs rampant through software companies, especially game companies. But my personal view on it isn't what I'm discussing -- that is a subjective viewpoint, where everybody can voice their own opinion on it.

The objective viewpoint is what I'm talking about -- and that is, that most of the EULAs for MMO's -- and the EULA may not, as the1jeffy stated, actually affect companies like eBay directly or not -- but as the software is never actually *owned* by the individual making the sale, then it is legally questionable as to if the individual attempting to sell what they don't own is able to. I don't actually own anything within World of Warcraft. I have licensed my copy of the game, and my account key. I am using Blizzard's property as a form of entertainment. But I don't own my characters, their items, or their gold. I can't go sell any of it for real-world money legitimately, because it isn't mine to sell, any more than me putting up an auction to sell the Hoover Dam would be. I can't go buy the items legitimately from sites like eBay as well, because once again, the individual I am buying them from, doesn't legitimately have the authority to sell it to me.

That said, "fair use" laws and rulings do state that an individual does have the right to sell the software (packaging & all) to another individual (just like making a single back-up copy of the software is permitted); but the "fair use" laws and rulings don't really cover the selling of the actual account that was made on an MMO -- you can sell the account key, but it is really quite utterly useless to anyone if you've already registered that account key to your account. You don't even have the software that actually contains your account in your possession, you only have the software that allows for a connection *to* the servers. It is like owning a driveway, but leasing a car to put in it. You don't own that car, but you do own the driveway. And you have to pay for the gas to put in the car, but that doesn't somehow make you entitled to owning the car at all.

EULAs are not exclusive to MMOs, or other games. They are pretty cut-and-dry, standard operating procedures for commercial, proprietary software. Legally, if you buy a copy of Windows, you are authorized by the EULA for Windows to install that copy of the operating system on one, and only one, computer. Unless you bought more "site licenses". Legally, if you have 3 computers at your house, you have to buy 3 copies of Windows. However, not many people actually do that (and it is rather hard to enforce such a law anyway) -- but that doesn't make it suddenly legal to install that one copy of Windows on multiple computers.

Where MMOs have an advantage (for the companies that release/maintain them) over other kinds of software, is part-and-parcel with the very online nature of MMOs. The client-server operations require logins to get access to the servers. A CD-Key/Account Key from a specific box can be made to be connected directly to a specific account -- and can be made to ensure that one, and only one, box copy of the game will allow one, and only one Account to be created. It is devious, to be sure, but it is completely legitimate, and is more or less a standard kind of transaction to perform. Honestly, I'd not be surprised if other companies begin to adopt this idea more and more in other areas (future developments of "Genuine Windows Advantage" anyone?). It eliminates the morally ambiguous, and illegal acts of installing multiple copies of the software on multiple computers -- because without the Account/CD Key, those copies are more or less pointless. And since the actual account resides on computers that are completely controlled by the company in question, that company can dictate how and if accounts can be transfered from one individual to another -- which is usually defined in EULAs.

@Hayabusa
What? Its so easy to copy and paste replies to Daniels post now.

EULA covers their ass in a way that lets them get rid of disruptive customers.

@Brokenscope:

After you're done trying to explain that stuff to Daniel, I have a brick wall for you to ram your head against if you're interested.

@Daniel

Are you... retarded?

Not everyone is going to share your same opinions. Not everyone is going to have your same infatuation with every violent game that comes along.

You see some people play multiplayer games for competition. They derive their enjoyment of a game from the struggle to win. That is one drive, others play them because it gives them a chance to work with other people. The fact that they are interacting with other people is fun. With MMO games you tend to get the competitive, the social, and an added group effect that adds even more fun to it.

Essentially some people play games for reasons other than witnessing violence.

As for FF and other RPGs, that is a purely stylistic thing. Typically, knowing how much damage you did or you took is more important than being able to see huge amounts of blood gushing from the arteries of your enemy.

I hate to burst your bubble but the money we buy everything with technically has no real value. It is only given value by the ruling powers. It is not back with gold or any other precious metals. I think the right term is a "fiat money" system?

@MechaCrash:

Agreed. The typical transparent tactic (alliteration FTW!) is to suggest the buyer is not buying the gold, etc., but the time. These tactics are seen right through.

@Mnementh2230

The "buy this bottlecap and as A FREE SPECIAL BONUS you also get this wad of in-game money" is transparent bullshit, and eBay would treat it as the transparent bullshit it is by shutting it down.

The way i see it its just ebay telling free enterprise to go screw itself,next thing you know aussie government will complain about 17+ games citizens of their country can buy that were banned there otherwise.

I think compromising to lose money just so you can get square enix/blizzard/those folks that make city of heroes off your back will eventually lead to you bending over to be a a target latter on for other states/companies
excessively non legally binding garbage.(examples include jt attacking them for selling M games ect).

They really should of bared their teeth at these folks instead of backing off in a unprofitable unfair compromise.

Honestly, I'm glad that eBay has done this. It doesn't, as Diceman put it, eBay telling free enterprise to go screw itself. It *is* eBay protecting their posteriors. See, the EULAs for most MMOs (Second Life as the exception) clearly state that all of the property, items, characters, etc. within the game are owned by the game's developers/producers. Players selling them on sites like eBay aren't practicing "free enterprise", what they practice is something similar to black marketing. Buying/selling the items or characters in a game like that is at *best* morally and legally questionable, and more likely simply downright illegal due to the wording of the EULAs.

One of the problems that many people seem to misunderstand is how commercial software generally is handled. When you go to a store, and buy a game, you technically do not own that game -- you only licensed it. As a licensed product, you are entitled to do only what the producer/seller of the product says you can do. For example, you cannot "reverse engineer" the product to figure out how it works. You can only legally make modifications to the software that are authorized by the EULA's, and you legally are not allowed to go and redistribute the software -- for money or not.

With MMOs, this EULA frequently extends to include anything within the game -- which has a double repercussion because everything your characters have on them -- money, equipment, even the characters themselves are not even coded/found on your computer, but rather in the server's database. You don't possess really anything other than a copy of the program that permits connection to their servers. MMOs also usually have a kind of CD Key to register a specific account -- one account -- and that account is, once again, on their servers. Sure, you might have the CD-Key in question, but you don't really own that account -- you are leasing access to the MMO servers, with what basically amounts to a "site license" -- one account per CD Key. If you want to get technical, you could possibly sell that Key, but you can't sell the account, and once the Key has been used, it is rather worthless.

So, eBay is simply protecting themselves from "legally questionable" situations that providing access for the sale/purchase of electronic goods that the seller doesn't even have the legal rights nor permission to sell could bring. They aren't stopping free enterprise, they are simply finally correcting a mistake they've had on the books for a while now.

well this has certinaly stopped the selling to USED MMO games it has not stopped the selling gold and shit...god this is just another step to control the selling of used games.....I bet in 2 years ebay wont sell used PC games because of "keys" morons....

@ZippyDSMIee: It doesn't stop the selling of used MMO games -- you can sell the box, CD's, user's manual, etc. However, you can't sell the accounts, which the CD Key is tied to. That's been true for almost every single commercially-operated and sold MMO on the market. It really is nothing new. Like Jabrwock had said -- eBay had a policy against those kinds of sales for a while. It's just they only started actually bothering enforcing it recently. Which probably means there was either an investigation done, or the threats of an investigation to be done to show eBay was illegally permitting the sales of property that the seller did not have any rights to sell. It would be like if people were attempting to sell the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Eifel Tower on eBay. The seller has no rights, or authority to sell such things, and eBay is attempting to block such illicit sales from taking place. When it comes down to it, it is the same thing as what a con artist pulls. The sellers of gold, in-game items, or accounts are simply conning the buyer into believing they actually have the authority to do it.

This unwise move by eBay will lose them millions of dollars in auction fees and double the profits of giant companies such as IGE. The MMORPG industry shows a high demand of in-game currency and where's a high demand, marketers will always provide a wide array of offers. Games like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, EverQuest, StarWars Galaxy, Guildwars, SilkRoad, Lineage and the list could go on forever, are highly addictive and players will go to great lengths to enrich their gaming experience and otherwise enhance their virtual characters by purchasing the items and in-game currency for real cash.

What the story is lacking is a real angle on another reason here: simply put, the EULA of most of these games strictly forbid the sale of virtual items and/or accounts. eBay has basically been silently supporting contract breakers for years.

Additionally, selling in game currency/items on sites like eBay has a negative impact on the economy. The value of gold or an item drops when it can be purchased en masse by anyone online.

I thought this had been the case on eBay for years now - or at least there was a ban on auctions for downloaded software and download access codes. How is this different?

As I was about to say, it speaks of virtual items, and since the game itself is a real world item, then you can still get that rare copy of G Darius is you want it.

Now they need to do the samething to Runescape and get rid of the damn gold farmers all over ebay for it. They mostly use autoing/macroing programs and cut down "expensive" trees on the free to play side of the game.

I can't tell whether I'm for or against this. I'm the kind of person who has put in a hefty amount of free time on Guild Wars, trying to figure out builds, come up with the funds for armors, trade on good deals for weapons and upgrades, and I'm not the kind of person who has resorted to this form of purchasing as a last resort. One part of me says that if a person wants to waste their actual for-your-rent-and-bills-gained-from-a-9-to-5-job money on stuff that doesn't even exist, go right on ahead, it's your cash anyways- but the other part of me just shakes my head and realizes the blatant possibility of a scam of some sort on someone's part.

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really?