[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Who owns my sword?

[Scott Jennings]

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003, Corpheous Andrakin wrote:

> The main concern and counter arguement I hear to this is that the
> company if it admits to the object having value, is then
> responsible for a whole HOST of lawsuits concerning bugs and other
> such issues.

This is not a trivial issue. The company I work for actually was
sued shortly after DAoC's launch over a similar issue by a group of
eBay farmers.  (It was eventually dismissed.)

America is a litigious society.  Using your examples of rental TVs,
while you yourself may not sue the rental company if your TV blows
up in your living room, I feel safe in assuming that many have -
there have been successful lawsuits for much sillier reasons. Making
companies legally liable for the percieved value of a character also
means that you could potentially sue them were they to, say, take
actions that make that character less valuable (not that any company
has ever done such a thing, cough).

If you make MMO companies as liable as doctors to malpractice suits,
many fewer commercial MMOs (none, in other words) will be made. I
suspect this is not something you want to encourage.

---
Scott Jennings
Programmer
Mythic Entertainment
http://www.camelotherald.com/
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