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Roleplaying Game Taken to Court
- Thread starter Azure Trance
- Start date
Desdichado
Hero
Actually, if I understand it correctly (and someone chime in if I don't) unless you are a company that is subject to government grants, tax subsidies or some other such government assistence, you can also choose whom to do business with, even if the reasons are extremely bad.
jasper
Rotten DM
Joshua Dyal said:
Wrong if I remember my business law.
If you advertise across state lines, on the intersstate system and some others.
I forget the year but in 196? a georgia resturant was forced to seat blacks because his billboards were on the interstate road side. I don't know how far this has been extended.
Remembering late night college bull session I think includes long distance lines and other stuff.
and the license agreement if EQ or Camelot etc orginal license did not say you could not there might be a case about the change.
I remember those posts of his MaxKaladin
First Post
I just can't get upset about this.
I know some people don't like the idea that someone with a better character/better stuff just bought it. In an ideal world, I'd probably be more upset about it myself, but frankly I find the "clanz" or whatever they call themselves much more annoying between powerleveling everyone to ungodly heights, spawncamping, killstealing, hogging rare spawns and running anyone not in their guild out and all the other behavior that goes with them. Of course, much the same behavior can happen when someone is collecting items to sell, but that's the only real problem I've got with the practice.
You see, I played EQ for a long time (and still have an account, though it's mostly for my nephew to play with when he visits). It became quickly obvious that the game catered to people who had massive amounts of free time and/or knew how to milk the system and really worked at it. Casual players just weren't going to get anywhere without that massive investment in time either in laboriously gaining items and levels or in learning to milk the system. Either way, much of what you had to do wasn't much fun. Quite a few people sought to bypass that by spending money and the current debate was born. Given that much of what gets you levels and items isn't fun and much of what's fun gets you nothing, I can't blame people for wanting to pay someone else to do the work so they can have the fun.
Of course, as someone who played EQ for quite a while back when it first came out, I've got a lot of complaints about gameplay and the company itself, but I'll leave it at that.
I know some people don't like the idea that someone with a better character/better stuff just bought it. In an ideal world, I'd probably be more upset about it myself, but frankly I find the "clanz" or whatever they call themselves much more annoying between powerleveling everyone to ungodly heights, spawncamping, killstealing, hogging rare spawns and running anyone not in their guild out and all the other behavior that goes with them. Of course, much the same behavior can happen when someone is collecting items to sell, but that's the only real problem I've got with the practice.
You see, I played EQ for a long time (and still have an account, though it's mostly for my nephew to play with when he visits). It became quickly obvious that the game catered to people who had massive amounts of free time and/or knew how to milk the system and really worked at it. Casual players just weren't going to get anywhere without that massive investment in time either in laboriously gaining items and levels or in learning to milk the system. Either way, much of what you had to do wasn't much fun. Quite a few people sought to bypass that by spending money and the current debate was born. Given that much of what gets you levels and items isn't fun and much of what's fun gets you nothing, I can't blame people for wanting to pay someone else to do the work so they can have the fun.
Of course, as someone who played EQ for quite a while back when it first came out, I've got a lot of complaints about gameplay and the company itself, but I'll leave it at that.
Storm Raven
First Post
Not in the US. Most companies are covered by the Interstate Commerce Clause (most certainly to online game companies, since they use interstate phone lines), and Congress has applied a whole host of laws to companies covered by that portion of the Constitution, including laws against various forms of discriminatory or exclusionary behaviour.
Most states have similar, and in many cases, even more limiting, laws that apply to businesses that conduct activities within their borders.
Henry
Autoexreginated
Re: My $0.02
One note about this...
The second-hand card market became a bane to the existance of the M:tG game, particularly the Unlimited, Antiquities, and Legends expansions, and Wizards made a conscious decision to kill the second-hand card market with the release of the Chronicles Expansion in late 1995. The immediate result was the destruction of the second-hand card market for approximately 75% of its hottest traded cards. Only the most extremely 'broken' of cards (such as the "Power Nine", Berserk, etc.) were not reprinted, and prices while not as high, still remain quite high to this day. The last time I tracked this, early 2001, Black Lotuses were still selling for about $225, and the Mox Gems were selling for about $175 each.
Am I a Magic Fan? While I no longer collect, I still have about 6000 cards to prove it.
die_kluge said:
One note about this...
The second-hand card market became a bane to the existance of the M:tG game, particularly the Unlimited, Antiquities, and Legends expansions, and Wizards made a conscious decision to kill the second-hand card market with the release of the Chronicles Expansion in late 1995. The immediate result was the destruction of the second-hand card market for approximately 75% of its hottest traded cards. Only the most extremely 'broken' of cards (such as the "Power Nine", Berserk, etc.) were not reprinted, and prices while not as high, still remain quite high to this day. The last time I tracked this, early 2001, Black Lotuses were still selling for about $225, and the Mox Gems were selling for about $175 each.
Am I a Magic Fan? While I no longer collect, I still have about 6000 cards to prove it.
bmcdaniel
Adventurer
No reason at all is a good one
For the sake of legal pedantry and to make things absolutely clear, in the U.S., companies are forbidden from employing a variety of specific discriminatory practices, for example they cannot refuse to serve you because you are black. However, they are free to exclude you for other "bad" reasons, for example because the owner doesn't like red-heads, or even for no reason at all.*
This slightly counterintuitive result works in practice because it is the JURY and not the business that ultimately decides whether your offered rationale ("I don't like red-heads") was a pretext for legally impermissable discrimination.
And yes IAL.
Brian McDaniel
*Note that this does not necessarily apply to "common carriers," whether designated by statute (including railroads, air travel, and telephony) or common law (including inns). These businesses are required to serve the public generally. In addition, contractual agreements with employees (including quasi-contractual collective bargaining agreements enforced by the NLRB) may limit businesses discretionary power. It also finesses the antitrust laws, which is a whole 'nother barrel of monkeys but not strictly on point. But thats more than you wanted to know.
For the sake of legal pedantry and to make things absolutely clear, in the U.S., companies are forbidden from employing a variety of specific discriminatory practices, for example they cannot refuse to serve you because you are black. However, they are free to exclude you for other "bad" reasons, for example because the owner doesn't like red-heads, or even for no reason at all.*
This slightly counterintuitive result works in practice because it is the JURY and not the business that ultimately decides whether your offered rationale ("I don't like red-heads") was a pretext for legally impermissable discrimination.
And yes IAL.
Brian McDaniel
*Note that this does not necessarily apply to "common carriers," whether designated by statute (including railroads, air travel, and telephony) or common law (including inns). These businesses are required to serve the public generally. In addition, contractual agreements with employees (including quasi-contractual collective bargaining agreements enforced by the NLRB) may limit businesses discretionary power. It also finesses the antitrust laws, which is a whole 'nother barrel of monkeys but not strictly on point. But thats more than you wanted to know.
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All the legal issues aside, the 'real' players (as opposed to the ebay farmers) have significant issues with ebaying for a number of reasons - and its not all simple jealousy either. There are game-play integrity issues at a social level.
The quasi 'professional' seller is only playing the game to make a profit. That motivation can create a significant conflict of interest when interacting with normal 'recreational' players. If I know a certain character is played by an ebay merchant, that pretty much destroys any trust I'd have. These are largely social games, and the very best stuff can only be obtained through the combined efforts of many players.
As far as the casual sellers - folks who played the game honestly, and then sell their accounts when they quit - there are serious trust issues here too. Most folks take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to get into the upper levels of a game like EQ. Generally, you don't do that by yourself. There is a social fabric to the game that grows over time. It would be difficult to underestimate the importance of reputation at the higher levels of game-play. No one gets to 60th level with really nice gear by themselves - you get there because you have a network of friends (probably a player guild and others) that you established over time. When another player buys and plays that character, an identity problem occurs until everyone figures out that the character has been 'ebayed'. But you can't buy friendships or reputation, so if the buyer doesn't have these already, the rep of that character takes a nose-dive. The really sad cases involve characters that get traded several times, becoming completely damaged goods from a social perspective.
I agree that the economic principles involved are really interesting and all. However, those of you stuck in some darwinian economic model need to have your box shaken a bit and reminded of some other principles. Its supposed to be a game, not a factory! So here's a principle to chew on:
Playing the game should be its own reward.
The quasi 'professional' seller is only playing the game to make a profit. That motivation can create a significant conflict of interest when interacting with normal 'recreational' players. If I know a certain character is played by an ebay merchant, that pretty much destroys any trust I'd have. These are largely social games, and the very best stuff can only be obtained through the combined efforts of many players.
As far as the casual sellers - folks who played the game honestly, and then sell their accounts when they quit - there are serious trust issues here too. Most folks take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to get into the upper levels of a game like EQ. Generally, you don't do that by yourself. There is a social fabric to the game that grows over time. It would be difficult to underestimate the importance of reputation at the higher levels of game-play. No one gets to 60th level with really nice gear by themselves - you get there because you have a network of friends (probably a player guild and others) that you established over time. When another player buys and plays that character, an identity problem occurs until everyone figures out that the character has been 'ebayed'. But you can't buy friendships or reputation, so if the buyer doesn't have these already, the rep of that character takes a nose-dive. The really sad cases involve characters that get traded several times, becoming completely damaged goods from a social perspective.
I agree that the economic principles involved are really interesting and all. However, those of you stuck in some darwinian economic model need to have your box shaken a bit and reminded of some other principles. Its supposed to be a game, not a factory! So here's a principle to chew on:
Playing the game should be its own reward.
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