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Gambling in MMO's
Shard101
Member Posts: 479
I have a few friends on Capital Hill. I am gonna have them take a look into this matter with SOE in the U.S.
I am not against it totaly but, I do believe it will be regulated soon.
Comments
Excellent.
Wait...what? Are you talking about buying Loot Cards? GTFO thats not gambling. SO im a gambler every time I buy a Magic the Gathering card deck? wtf...by this logic every 12 year old with a deck of Pokemon cards has a gambling addiction.
On a side note: EvE Online is putting in REAL gambling where you can wager ships and money on the 'mini-games' in the stations.
~HappyGaming
Can you bother to read the other threads that CLEARLY outline the difference between "Insert card game X here" and the TCG.
Tx
S
Whoopty ' Doo, you get a ingame item instead of a limited edition or holo-card. People buy TONS of booster packs just to get one 1st edition card they want. same thing as buying a ton of booster packs for a in-game dishwasher.
1st Ed. / holo = the added bonus
Ingame-item= the added bonus
Lets get on blizzard case as well when we are at it, they have a TCG as well with loot cards....and where were all of you crazies when they added the same system to EQ and EQ2??
And the, BUT THOSE ARE TANGIBLE GOODS!!!! arguement....Magic: The Gathering Online.
The hate that goes on here is amazing....srsly I dislike SOE as much as the next person, but damn you guys take it on as a profession.
{ Mod Edit }
Can you bother to read the other threads that CLEARLY outline the difference between "Insert card game X here" and the TCG.
Tx
S
Oh, the threads are there. Doesn't mean they're correct.
Just because you desperately WANT to label it illegal gambling does not make it so.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Can you bother to read the other threads that CLEARLY outline the difference between "Insert card game X here" and the TCG.
Tx
S
Oh, the threads are there. Doesn't mean they're correct.
Just because you desperately WANT to label it illegal gambling does not make it so.
No one wants to label it illegal.
It has been considered controversial at best and unethical at worst.
Now people want to find out where it stands within the fremework of the law. Seems pretty logical to me.
Can you bother to read the other threads that CLEARLY outline the difference between "Insert card game X here" and the TCG.
Tx
S
Oh, the threads are there. Doesn't mean they're correct.
Just because you desperately WANT to label it illegal gambling does not make it so.
No one wants to label it illegal.
It has been considered controversial at best and unethical at worst.
Now people want to find out where it stands within the fremework of the law. Seems pretty logical to me.
Oh, I'll agree on controversial and unethical. But the posts here indicate a pathological need to label it illegal even though there is ZERO evidence to support that it is.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
SOE can do it legaly, it will be regulated and States that allow it to travel across their copper communication infastructure should benefit financially.
Can you bother to read the other threads that CLEARLY outline the difference between "Insert card game X here" and the TCG.
Tx
S
Oh, the threads are there. Doesn't mean they're correct.
Just because you desperately WANT to label it illegal gambling does not make it so.
No one wants to label it illegal.
It has been considered controversial at best and unethical at worst.
Now people want to find out where it stands within the fremework of the law. Seems pretty logical to me.
Oh, I'll agree on controversial and unethical. But the posts here indicate a pathological need to label it illegal even though there is ZERO evidence to support that it is.
Lol, Ive said more than once that if it is proven to be legal and above board, you will hear no more from me. By definition, it seems like it is illegal. If it's not, then it's not. I have no more pathological a need to prove it illegal as you have to prove it legal.
People in glass houses etc.
S
PS : There is plenty of preliminary evidence to suggest that it MAY well be illegal. You "pathologically" choose to ignore it because it doesn't suit your agenda
PPS : At least some of the posters bother to show evidence and link to reasons why it might be illegal. Your argument is basically "I say it isnt illegal, so it isnt". Not a very convincing argument Im afraid.
Can you bother to read the other threads that CLEARLY outline the difference between "Insert card game X here" and the TCG.
Tx
S
Oh, the threads are there. Doesn't mean they're correct.
Just because you desperately WANT to label it illegal gambling does not make it so.
No one wants to label it illegal.
It has been considered controversial at best and unethical at worst.
Now people want to find out where it stands within the fremework of the law. Seems pretty logical to me.
Oh, I'll agree on controversial and unethical. But the posts here indicate a pathological need to label it illegal even though there is ZERO evidence to support that it is.
Lol, Ive said more than once that if it is proven to be legal and above board, you will hear no more from me. By definition, it seems like it is illegal. If it's not, then it's not. I have no more pathological a need to prove it illegal as you have to prove it legal.
People in glass houses etc.
S
PS : There is plenty of preliminary evidence to suggest that it MAY well be illegal. You "pathologically" choose to ignore it because it doesn't suit your agenda
PPS : At least some of the posters bother to show evidence and link to reasons why it might be illegal. Your argument is basically "I say it isnt illegal, so it isnt". Not a very convincing argument Im afraid.
Not really. I've pointed out several analogous things that are legal. Baseball cards, for one. That you choose to ignore them is your failure, not mine.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Can you bother to read the other threads that CLEARLY outline the difference between "Insert card game X here" and the TCG.
Tx
S
Oh, the threads are there. Doesn't mean they're correct.
Just because you desperately WANT to label it illegal gambling does not make it so.
No one wants to label it illegal.
It has been considered controversial at best and unethical at worst.
Now people want to find out where it stands within the fremework of the law. Seems pretty logical to me.
Oh, I'll agree on controversial and unethical. But the posts here indicate a pathological need to label it illegal even though there is ZERO evidence to support that it is.
Lol, Ive said more than once that if it is proven to be legal and above board, you will hear no more from me. By definition, it seems like it is illegal. If it's not, then it's not. I have no more pathological a need to prove it illegal as you have to prove it legal.
People in glass houses etc.
S
PS : There is plenty of preliminary evidence to suggest that it MAY well be illegal. You "pathologically" choose to ignore it because it doesn't suit your agenda
PPS : At least some of the posters bother to show evidence and link to reasons why it might be illegal. Your argument is basically "I say it isnt illegal, so it isnt". Not a very convincing argument Im afraid.
Not really. I've pointed out several analogous things that are legal. Baseball cards, for one. That you choose to ignore them is your failure, not mine.
No, I dont ignore your analogies. I just acknowledge that they aren't pertinent to our discussion as they are not the same thing. The differences have been explained ad nauseam. As I said, you ignore them because it doesn't further your agenda.
You keep telling people that nothing will come of this even though myself and others have told you that the powers that be are looking into it. I doubt they'd give it a second thought if it was entirely on the up and up.
Again, you've provided no evidence of anything; just irrelevant analogies etc. You'll forgive me if I dont take your word for anything and defer to the experts.
S
suprise suprise this is in the SWG forum.
why dont we look at EQ2 for its gambling. i'm not sure if it is the 1st MMO with gambling but it sure makes a whole lot more sense to complain about it at this source rather than SWG just because of its checkered past.
anywho i say we drop this crazy argument before it hurts the industry.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
ROFLMFAO
Before it hurts the industry? Is that like closing the barn door AFTER the horse has left?
/sarcasm off
S
Capital Hill huh, who are they? meh nevermind they are probably crooked like everyone else there and Sony will just pay them off.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"SOE ruined my Nerd Wars Galaxies game! BAAAAWWWWWWW!"
"I'm not sure how, I'm not sure when, but someday I'm gonna have my revenge on them! I have friends on Capital Hill! I know the Mayor! My daddy is the President of the World!"
"You'll get yours Sony! You just wait! You'll make a mistake and I'll be there! Watch your back! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"P.S. If I promise to leave you alone, can I have some free loot cards?"
Christ, folks, it's over. SWG is dead. Yeah, it's their fault. Deal with it.
A dozen other games out there are doing a similar and/or identical "form of gambling" and no one says boo shit about it. Hell, in a couple of games it IS actual gambling and no one squeaks. How about EQ and EQII? World of Warcraft? Second Life? EvE Online?
You're buying a virtual product, in a matter quite similar to M:tG Online. Where's the lawsuit and nerd rage for WoTC?
Sony does it, however, and the nerd rage can barely be contained. Yeah, with the TCG you could, in addition to your cards, win some in-game loot. Just like in M:tG Online I could get a really sweet and rare card in a booster. Or just like in the WoW TCG I could win some in-game loot. I might not, but I could. I thought the whole thing I was paying money for was to get some cards so I could play a trading card game with my buddies?
Seriously, are you people even still playing this game? Does this even still affect you in any way? Or is this just another windmill-chasing opportunity to maybe get the revenge you honestly think you're entitled to?
You don't have friends on Capital Hill. You don't have any lawyers "looking into the matter" for you. There isn't going to be a lawsuit, class-action or otherwise. No Federal investigations are now, or are ever, going to be conducted. None of you have the power to make this happen, none of you have friends with the power to make this happen. These are rather unhealthy "revenge fantasies" going too far in your imaginations and being claimed as fact on a forum.
On an equally sad sidenote, again I say SWG is dead. But it doesn't have to be. That's the shame.
Wake up, Sony.
(Active Galaxies player since January 22, 2004, and regular guy not attached to the industry in any way. So, in b4 "shill" and "you've never played" trolling ensues.)
Well, I am going to address this directly and put some additional history out there to be learned from.
Well, the quotes are insults and exaggerated points with the purpose of trying to invalidate and mitigate the posters on the subject opposing your view without addressing the actual topic so I will set them aside.
As for "identical forms of gambling" that is directly false. EQ and EQ II have different sales tactics than what they put in as the Star Wars TCG. Instead of benifits just being fluff, they are adding actual content via the card game that has NO impact on the card game, and making those items better than any items within the MMO game. That is point 1 people are (understandably) upset at.
MtG online does not award you items to be used in a completely different game that has no impact on MtG online. Also, MtG DOES have a real product you can buy and participate in, own, trade and sell at your desire. The Star Wars TCG has no such mechanism. Point 2 that adds to this.
MtG rare cards are designed to be used in the game you get. The Star Wars loot cards are completely useless to the card game and is specifically targeting the people that play the MMO without a way to seperate it from the card game. As for the WOW card game, they are physical cards you can sell and trade as you wish, so if they do not play the MMO, they actually can make a good sum off of it. With the Star Wars TCG, SONY owns all rights to it and retains the right to say you cannot make any real money off their product. Huge legal difference.
As a note on the gambling aspect of all of this. Both Magic and Vampire card games back in the early 90s got hit by the federal government because of gambling aspects of the card games they made. The original game and rules included the fact you had to ante a card from the deck you were playing and had several cards to manipulate that aspects as part of the card game. They got nailed hard over it and that aspect went quickly away. I was playing both games at the time so i am well aquainted with what happened.
As for the whole "You do not have friends...nothing will happen" aspect, as I mentioned just above, the government has looked into matters like this before, have taken action and it just takes one person reporting it to get the ball rolling. History tells me they are more likely to be getting some results than your version of the future happening. Personally, I think it's more like an unregulated lottery than outright gambling, but that is just me.
I hope this has cleared up some mis-information.
Have a good day
My understanding is that you are not complaining about the game itself but people gambling on what cards they will receive from the packs purchased from SOE. right?
The problem is that if you actually read the eula that applies to the pack that you are purchasing you find out that you are paying for a service not for the cards themselves. The cards like any other item in the SWG universe is the property of SOE and not yours.
So, you are saying people are gambling on what cards SOE will generate for themselves? Is this right? If so, how is it really gambling? What are you receiving if you "win"? Personally, I'm more inclined to believe that you are paying SOE to provide you with a random set of cards to use until either you or SOE decides to end the service.
Most legal experts agree, that software EULAs are not worth the bits they are printed on. Only a couple have gone to court, and the software makes have uniformly lost. Most software makers are even smart enough to know this, and settle out of court when all this stuff happens. There was a case in Washington state about a software EULA that went to federal court, I'll see if I can find it.
The problem that SOE will have, is that as far as this TCG goes, it wants things all it's own way. It wants the cards treated as a service component, and the game as a service, but behaves as if the cards are goods when it sells them to you..
Property, whether real or virtual, comes with a certain set of rights. Many things determine if something is "property", but the big one is how people sell it and what they charge for it. SOE sells the card packs for $3 and 3rd party sites sell the loot cards for up to hundreds of dollars. This is the marketplace, both original sale and resale, determining that the loot cards have "monetary value". However, SOE says essentially in the EULA, "No, these cards don't have any value of themselves, they are only part of the service you are paying for, we own them, you don't." The key difference is this: under SOEs vision, they could shut the game down tomorrow and people would have no recourse, because they are paying for a service. But, under the law, it would likely be found that they would have to pay HUGE restitution to everyone that ever paid money for a card, as cancelling the game is the same as taking away the virtual items they paid for.
The first time that goes to court, SOE will get shreaded. SOE wants it both ways, and the law does not tolerate that.
As for it being gambling (TCG tournaments) , or an illegal lottery, or an illegal game of chance, it is probably one or more of these. What is going to get them nailed, is that it is aimed at players 13+, and lawmakers tend to get a bug up the posterior when it comes to anything regulated (cigarette sales, alcohol, gambling) that is supposed to be for the 18+ crowd but aimed at kids...
Found the article on the fact that the law is catching up to the fact that software EULAs are crap:
A Seattle man is free to sell second-hand software on eBay, a US court has said. It found that the maker of the software, Autodesk, could not stop the resale by claiming that its software is licensed rather than sold.
Software companies have long claimed that software is not sold to users but licensed, and many software licences forbid the resale of the software. A Seattle District Court has found, though, that the packages of software in question were sold, not licensed, and that the licence is not binding on subsequent buyers.
Timothy Vernor bought several copies of Autodesk's AutoCAD design software in 2005 and 2007 from businesses that had originally bought the software from Autodesk. He then put the software up for sale on eBay. Each package contained discs, a copy of a licence agreement and other documentation.
Each time, Autodesk issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notice asking eBay to suspend the auction, which it did.
Each time that happened Vernor wrote to Autodesk asserting his rights and saying that the software was legitimate and not a pirated copy, but received no reply. Ebay reinstated the auctions. At one point eBay suspended his seller's account for a month for repeat infringements of its policies when Autodesk had complained a number of times.
Vernor applied to the Court for a declaration that he had the right to sell the software because he believed that this process would be repeated every time he tried to buy and sell software.
The court said that Autodesk's initial transfer of the software to the businesses was a sale, not a licensing arrangement. Those businesses, therefore, had the right to re-sell the software with or without the permission of Autodesk.
The 'first sale doctrine' is an important part of US copyright legislation. Richard Jones, the judge in the case, said that if invoked, the doctrine would protect Vernor.
"If there were no License, there is no dispute that Mr. Vernor's resale of the AutoCAD packages would be legal," he said in his ruling. "The first sale doctrine permits a person who owns a lawfully-made copy of a copyrighted work to sell or otherwise dispose of the copy."
The Court relied on a 1977 decision involving prints of films, in which the US government took action against Woodrow Wise, who operated a film sales operation in Los Angeles.
That case was the first to look at what is a licensing arrangement and what is a sale, Jones said. It found that in cases where a company expected the material to be returned – as it would if loaning a print to a cinema for display – that was a license arrangement. Where it never expected the material to be returned – such as when a studio allowed actress Vanessa Redgrave to have a print in return for money – that was a sale.
Jones said that subsequent decisions had backed Autodesk's contention that software distribution could be a sale, he had to stay consistent with the earliest relevant ruling, which was that of the case of Wise.
"Although technology has changed, the question at the core of this case is not technological," said Jones. "Mr. Vernor does not seek to take advantage of new technology to ease copying, he seeks to sell a package of physical objects which contain copies of copyrighted material. The essential features of such sales vary little whether selling movie prints via mail (as in Wise) or software packages via eBay."
The ruling also dealt with the extent of the power of the original software licence. Vernor asked the Court to declare that the original licence, which forbade the re-selling of the software, did not control his behaviour.
The Court said that the argument Autodesk had earlier made – that Vernor should not be allowed to own the software because the licence was non-transferable – must govern to whom it can apply.
"Not only has Autodesk failed to surmount the thorny issues of privity and mutual assent inherent in its contention that its License binds Mr. Vernor and his customers, it has ignored the terms of the License itself," said the ruling. "The Autodesk License is expressly 'nontransferable.' License: Grant of License. Autodesk does not explain how a nontransferable license can bind subsequent transferees."
The software industry relies on categorising what consumers often think of as software sales as software licensing agreements. If followed by other courts, the Autodesk ruling could affect the ability of software publishers to restrict the transfer of their technology in that way.
The court denied Autodesk's motion for dismissal or summary judgment. The case continues
Only a matter of time before this makes it into the gaming sector.....
I think this is an excellent idea and should apply to the entire gaming industry, because I put $8.75 into the claw machine at Chuck-E Cheese trying to get the blue teddy bear and all I got was the pink moose.
Most of the time I didn't get anything!
---
I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.
From what I have read about all this there are some violations that are taking place but there is not enforcement or a clear way to enforce and make internet laws!
This link is kinda intresting about it!
http://webpages.acs.ttu.edu/mmetheni/Internet%20Gambling%20and%20the%20MMORPG.htm
And this one is the laws i could find either regarding it.
http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Federal-Laws/
Im kinda intrested in what players say who actually read these 2 links and the laws that are on the books.