August 13, 2007 -
Here's something we like to see - a game publisher who is concerned about gamer rights.Erik Bethke, CEO of GoPets, an animal-based MMO in beta, has offered a $5,000 bounty for help in creating, among other things, a EULA that outlines the rights afforded to gamers' online avatars.
Bethke writes:
We have long recognized the importance private property in GoPets but so far we have not taken any formal steps to ensure property rights to our citizens and now believe that formal recognition and other tangible forms of human and property rights will accelerate our commercial goals...
We would like to reach as high as possible to achieve the natural rights as expressed in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
The ‘governing rules’ should not be developed in a private conversation with our excellent corporate lawyers but instead with the people who are active in both the research of the legal and economic issues of online worlds, other creators of worlds and most important to are the people who will actually use these governing rules to their own benefit.
Bethke, who maintains that, in terms of avatar rights, Second Life's EULA compares unfavorably with that of North Korea's constitution, recommends noted game designer Raph Koster’s 2000 treatise on the rights of avatars.
Some of the rights favored by Bethke include:
-Due Process & Habeas Corpus (instead of the usual ban hammer, a player tribunal, perhaps?)
-Right to free avatar expression and assembly
-Non discrimination
-Right to transfer your whole account to another individual (you listening, Blizzard?)
-Compensating users for service outages
-Permitting mashups and fan art
-Welcoming user-created content
Via: Second Thoughts...
Comments
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Re: Online Game Developer Wants Avatar Bill of Rights
Any commercial MMO that would do this is doomed to fail, because, using WoW as an example, once you kill even one boar, you have permanently increased the value of an account beyond that of when you first activated it. Here by only a tiny amount, but still.
That said, anyone leaving the game would thus sell their accounts and only the world's biggest chumps would buy boxes from stores. This would completely negate all of the lower level content, which is essentially training for the upper levels.
Re: Online Game Developer Wants Avatar Bill of Rights
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Re: Online Game Developer Wants Avatar Bill of Rights
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Re: Online Game Developer Wants Avatar Bill of Rights
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Re: Online Game Developer Wants Avatar Bill of Rights
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Re: Online Game Developer Wants Avatar Bill of Rights
I am hoping that after these rights the gaming industry would run in an organized manner
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Re: Online Game Developer Wants Avatar Bill of Rights
The Consumer should have the right to give feedback!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re: Online Game Developer Wants Avatar Bill of Rights
The consumer should have the right to give feeback!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was supposed to be confusing. Well, not entirely, I mean. Anyway, my point is that humanity in general can be concerned with more than one issue at the same time, so dismissing an idea entirely because "there are bigger things to worry about" doesn't make sense to me. Also, babies in Africa can eat bread; it's their racial trait that they can use once per day.
GoPets=Furry City (Beta Version)
Your name, and comment confuse me. And babies cant eat bread.
"He’s just looking out for his furry-rights. Of which there are none."
And you mean, what, by this?
Priorities, people.
Erik's start is interesting, and no doubt well-intentioned, but he isn't providing any more universal human rights that Linden Lab, so the North Korean analogy is silly.
There is a lot of collectivism larded into Koster's and Bethke's "bills of rights" and unlike the U.S. Constitution, which is a model for certain, there isn't enough respect and foundation in individual rights.
One thing I think we can agree on, however, is that people like Matt Mihaly or Matthew here who natter on about how avatars are only pixels and aren't people blah blah should just go sit in the corner and keep talking on their plastic phones not hooked up to anything that real people are experiencing. Their avatars are extensions of themselves, they are their navigators in virtual worlds, and in those spaces, that want something at least approximating what they have in real life spaces.
Really, if all Erik gets right is a more fair, transparent, and humane punishment and ban system, he will already have gone a huge distance in democratizing games and making them more just, and that should be the focus.
Let's not lose focus on priorities, people. Free Speech first, avatar 'rights,' after real people all have them ...
Unless PETA does something stupid to get their way. Goddamn PETA.
You do not have a right to chill out in Ironforge with some polygonal night elves. It is a privilege offered to you in exchange for cash under a contract that states that the world might not be fair.
-Right to free avatar expression and assembly
-Right to transfer your whole account to another individual
I see no reason why any of these should be rights.
-Non discrimination
From the devs? That should be covered by existing laws. From other players? No chance. Particularly in games where you play opposing armies.
-Compensating users for service outages
Very worth discussing, and should be extended in general. My 360 was sent off to the Beast of Redmond for the best part of a month, but other people have had theirs disappear for longer. Of course, you expect to have it returned reasonably soon and so don't cancel your Live subscription... I personally received one month in compensation when it finally returned. Has anyone received more due to a longer repair period?
-Permitting mashups and fan art
If it's dev-created models and textures then why should anyone else be able to use it?
-Welcoming user-created content
Nude patch
I really like the idea of compensation for server outages.
The first one on his list is one of my pet peeves. I don't, usually, go about my gaming in a manner that would get me banned, but the lack of transparency and due process when/if you do get banned from an online gaming service, or a forum for a gaming company/game is troubling. More so when you consider most gaming company websites/forums are moderated by volunteers, i.e. gamers just like you. Some of them are completely unsuitable to moderate their pants.
Also if you're any good at any Xbox Live game and play ranked games a lot, you're GUARANTEED to amass a lot of negative feedback from sore losers. Given Microsoft's policy on bans based on user feedback you're bound to get banned sooner or later. For nothing, except being better than others. For example I've gotten "bad language" feedback during games I didn't even have my mic on.
If you get banned from XBox.com, you can't even ask the mods what the deal is, or plead your case, because the ban also bans you from using private messages. Genius.
It sure would be nice, if there was a more direct way to communicate with people and companies that ban you. And additional transparency to the whole process would serve everyone better.
-Due Process & Habeas Corpus (instead of the usual ban hammer, a player tribunal, perhaps?)
(Good idea expet for one problem... Greifers are the equiveleant of online terrorists and should be dealt with no mercy. With most MMOs there is an appeals process or you can just make a new account. Getting banned is not an end all be all punishment. You just have to work hard to get back in. And with most MMOs, a ban is the last step after you ignored the warnings.)
-Right to free avatar expression and assembly
(Good... Umm, can't we do that anyway as long as it does not violate the ToS?)
-Non discrimination
(I need explenation on this one. Anyone can make an avatar and go into an online world. And no company can deny you the ability to play the game for real life reasons like race or religion because there are laws already in place that makes that illegal. And if you are getting bashed for being a short stubby gnome kiddie? Well, you made the choice to be a gnome. You have extra MP and more powerful spells. Defend yourself you stumpy football!)
-Right to transfer your whole account to another individual (you listening, Blizzard?)
(Seconded)
-Compensating users for service outages
(Hell yeah! Like hell I am going to pay for a month of service when the server was down for 27 days! Anyone remember thoes days in WoW?)
-Permitting mashups and fan art
(It is called free advertising. It worked for blizzard and now they have a strong fanbase. THis is a no brainer.)
-Welcoming user-created content
(As long as it does not violate the ToS or gives unfair advantage to a player.)
-Due Process & Habeas Corpus (instead of the usual ban hammer, a player tribunal, perhaps?)
For one thing, this would place the whole thing under a whole needless layer of complexity.
Who would serve on these tribunals? Obviously, the concept of jury duty would never fly in WoW, so it would have to be volunteer. How could you guarantee non-bias under this system? You could easily have "tribunal griefers", people joining to "hang them all" or "get the man off their backs" regardless of the facts in the cases at hand, and the company would be powerless to do anything about it and protect the integrity of their game.
Plus this would add huge delays to ANY complaint being acted upon.
No.
-Right to free avatar expression and assembly
Uh huh, except these huge and often pointless assemblies prevent legitimate play by causing huge lag, both graphically and connection latency-wise, in the area and hamper people actually trying to play the game in doing so.
-Non discrimination
Great, just make sure this extends all ways, not just to the popular causes.
-Right to transfer your whole account to another individual (you listening, Blizzard?)
A thousand times NO.
Any commercial MMO that would do this is doomed to fail, because, using WoW as an example, once you kill even one boar, you have permanently increased the value of an account beyond that of when you first activated it. Here by only a tiny amount, but still.
That said, anyone leaving the game would thus sell their accounts and only the world's biggest chumps would buy boxes from stores. This would completely negate all of the lower level content, which is essentially training for the upper levels.
That's why they (and pretty much every other major pay MMO) has made it so that nothing in the account is yours. Because we're all supposed to start at level 1 with only starter gear, and learn through the process. And those who do sneak around behind things and buy accounts are cheating.
Just because you think you can because "I own it and can do whatever I want with it." is no excuse, especially when playing a game with other people.
-Compensating users for service outages
If we start talking in terms of a week or so, then yes, any reasonable pay service should talk about compensation. If we're talking more like a day, especially regularly scheduled and unavoidable service outages, it's 50 cents, get over it.
-Permitting mashups and fan art
-Welcoming user-created content
These two kind of go together. They shouldn't be any kind of intrinsic right at all. What's there has been created by the developer. It belongs to them. If you created something and you wanted to grant these rights, bully for you. If you chose not to, you wouldn't be impressed by someone telling you you HAD to.
In other words, we're talking about two different issues here: consumer rights, and character (avatar) rights.
Consumers have various lobby and awareness groups and institutions etc. to advocate for them, but characters/avatars do not. As more of our real-world resources and identities become invested in virtual spaces, we may find a true need for avatar-specific rights.
GoPets CEO Erik Bethke is set to break new ground in the area of virtual worlds by proposing to turn his service’s end-user licensing agreement and terms of service document into a plainly written bill of rights. [Via GamePolitics.com, pointed ou...
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