{{tag>"games" }}
======State of Play V - Richard Bartle======
I had a fascinating conversation with [[http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/|Richard Bartle]] over lunch, and asked him for his views on how we should regulate virtual worlds.

Richard is very concerned that we will err when we regulate virtual worlds and end up severely limiting the utility or enjoyment of these spaces. He stressed that people need to be free to play the games they want to play (within the limits decided by society - it is obviously permissible to restrain people from playing certain games). Richard said that if people were not playing by the rules, the provider of the game must have the ability to kick them out and exclude them from the game.

Richard believes that the limits should be determined with reference to the rules of the game. No question that game developers who encourage commercialisation should be held responsible for the monetary value of virtual goods. SOE, for example, are probably in a difficult position where they encourage RMT on certain EQ2 shards - that's probably enough to develop a principle that shey shouldn't be able to arbitrarily confiscate its users' property. Conversely, Blizzard should be completely entitled to terminate the account of a person found engaging in RMT. 

I asked him the same question isolated from property interests - should a developer have the ability to arbitrarily terminate a user's account, removing them from their social networks? Richard answered that again this would depend on the rules of the game. He cautioned against absolute bans on any particular action - arguing that there are always hypothetical circumstances where we would like the developer to be able to arbitarily remove people. However, he encouraged judges faced with such a question to take a detailed look at the rules and culture of the game. In the circumstances that such action went against the accepted rules of the game, he was not opposed to recognising the interests of players and placing limits on the power of the developers.

I think all this is very reasonable. Ultimately, I believe that the difficulty here will be in the questions of fact. Beyond mere literal contractual interpretation, judges are very well placed to answer these questions. For example, a critical analysis is able to determine when real consent has been given, whether the imposition of a punishment is reasonable or an unreasonable penalty, whether the developer has accepted a breach or whether the developer is estopped from acting in a certain manner.
~~DISCUSSION:closed~~