Professor Balkin has a post on his blog about virtual rights and has written University of Virginia Law Review article on virtual rights. On his blog, Professor Balkin criticizes David Pogues who, in a New York Times article, professed mystification at the increased commoditization of the fruits of online gaming, e.g., buying and selling in-game items for real-life money.
As an avid gamer for many years (Atari 2600, Nintendo NES, Super-Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Sony PS1, Sony PS2, and countless computer games) I am keenly aware of the emotion that gamers invest in their virtual avatars. It does not surprise me that trade in real life has developed around virtual worlds. All games have built within them either implicitly or explicitly as status system and I posit that this status system is what drives much of the commoditization of virtual property.
This status system, for some games, is as simple as a score – a higher score indicates higher status. For other games, typically Role Playing Games (RPGs), which comprise nearly all massively-multi-player online games (MMPOG), the player takes on the role of a character with various attributes representing physical or mental abilities and an inventory of items that may augment various abilities. Status is then implied by the increasing of attributes, abilities, and acquisition of more and better items. Increasing attributes and abilities is typically accomplished by some form of experience system whereby the character gains experience levels as he or she participates in the game (e.g., finishes quests, kills monsters).
To give a archetypal example, in a generic role-playing game, a player’s character may start as a level 1 wizard wearing plain robes, carrying a plain wooden staff, and knowing only a handful of spells. Many hours of game play later the character would be a walking “Death Star” able to dispatch all foes with ease – equipped with magical robes, magical rings, a magical staff, and knowing many powerful spells.
In non-online games, the motivation for achieving “Death Star” status is manifold but certainly includes: the satisfaction of gaining new abilities, the ability to dispatch ever more difficult monsters, and moving the story along. All of those motivations exist too in on-line games. The important element for MMPOGs is the addition of other humans to the mix. This brings in all the human tensions one would expect – crime, jealousies, and struggles for dominance. All of this provides even stronger motivations for accumulating items and abilities that increase ones standing or power.
Having myself participated in many of the aforementioned struggles, I immediately recognize why those players who are financially able would want to supplement their game-play by spending real life money on virtual items to augment their characters. Professor Balkin’s article on virtual rights and the copious prior work he cites have piqued my interest. My initial reaction is that virtual rights make as much sense as property rights for Monopoly’s Park Place. These are, after all, games. Of course, the commercial nature of most MMPOG hosts quickly dispatches that my initial reaction, for the simple ability to play the game is itself a commercial transaction, which will involve various legal entitlements and obligations. I need to read Professor Balkin’s article and some of the work he cites therein (with all my free time) but I admit I am skeptical about mapping real world rights into virtual worlds.