MMORPG's

[NotAGolf]

I've just read a couple of articles about how copyright and trademark law play quite a large part in the running of MMORPG's. I've never played any kind of MMORPG and I was reading up on Second Life and I was astonished that artifacts can be bought and sold in game for REAL money. Obviously this is going to throw up debate about who owns the 'intellectual property' and such. It also seems that Linden Labs don't seem to be too interested in the copyright (although they are acting fairly harshly on unautorised tradmarks it seems), leaving it more up to the users as to who owns what.

My question is why don't all games creaters just ship the game and forget about the copyright and leave it all up to the users? Surely this would save them a huge amount of time and effort, and probably and considerable amount of money?

 

[peetee]

Like konami do with pro evo, they let the community easily patch it so that we have the real kits and teams etc
You would think the money they saved by not having to pay for licenses would be spent on improving game though..shame its not.

 

[Frapple]

Second Life and other "Online Life Simulators" do not have an end goal that can be ruined and abused by the influence of real money.

MMORPG's contain economies which provide time, in-game money sinks and more importantly the basis on which the entire game in built upon. Economies keep players interested and stops them from hoarding gold. It also provides a challenge, like that new piece of armour you're saving for.

By introducing real money bought items or "forget[ing] about the copyright" would ruin the economy and thus the game.

EVE online lets you buy time-cards for in-game money, which I totally agree with as it has no doubt the most complex, strongest and interesting economies in any game I've ever seen and thus, cane take the influence of real money.

Buying items or gold for real money is the lazy kid's way out.

 

[ins0mn1ac]

Didnt some Chinese bird make a mill on Second Life?

 

[NotAGolf]

So are they actually making money by not bothering with the copyright as such or is there a reason why some do make an effort to stamp out copyright and the like?

 

[Darkwave]

I've never played any kind of MMORPG and I was reading up on Second Life and I was astonished that artifacts can be bought and sold in game for REAL money. Obviously this is going to throw up debate about who owns the 'intellectual property' and such.

Just did a quick Google on this and it seems Linden Labs say that everything the user makes is their own intellectual property and they're free to distribute it as they wish.

 

[NotAGolf]

I meant it would cause arguments between players rather than between Linden Labs and the players. Sorry if I didn't make that clear, I'm far too tired

But yea, why do so many companies worry about copyright when they could just take a back seat on the whole thing?

 

[agnes]

back when lineage 2 came out, by the 3rd chornical and introduction of B gradee i think it was, possible A i cant remember, you were pretty much forced to buy adena to get anywhere in that game. adena was its virtual ingame money, and you had to buy via real money to do anything...

ags