Disagreeing to small part of Guild Wars agreement

I was quite shocked by reading a certain detail of the user agreement that Guild Wars presented my yesterday. The agreement is basicly denying ownership of our accounts and all virtual characters / items where we invested so much time in. Because thye disagree button completely denied access to the account I wrote this e-mail to ArenaNet's community e-mail address:

I wonder what you (Guild Wars players) think about the agreement.

this is to prevent selling something that you "own" as a virtual thing.

completely normal to me. O:

You don't "own" anything.

Your characters, items and titles are just figures in a database.

Nothing in that database is yours.



The only thing you have is the privilege (by no means the right) to play their game, which happens to rely upon you acquiring certain in-game assets.



On the other hand, relax, it's legal mumbo-jumbo to protect them (and us) from the scourge known as gold farming and botting.

They'd be pretty damn daft to delete our characters and items.

I suppose that even in the extremely unlikely eventuality that Anet has to close up shop, they'd release an offline version of the game and the ability to download your characters.



Remember that they're a commercial company.

Any good business has customer satisfaction as their primary goal (along with making money).

You read it? oO

I just click 'accept'

this is pretty standard with most MMO's and i knew it was the case when i got GW originally, especially that i was kind of renting the use of the game, rather than buying full rights to it, like a normal offline game... so yeah, doesn't bother me in the slightest

Yeah all games are like this. All yours chars, items and whatnots are just little bits of data stored in their database. They own all code related to their game.

As Mokone said its normal.

And if they want to they can sue your butt for selling there stuff.

The reality is that what you pay for is the right to use the account, characters, servers, etc.. and as long as you do it the right way (I'm NOT going into this, we all know right from wrong, we're not 5 year olds), they won't bother you. That's basically the agreement for all games. Play fair and enjoy yourself.

This is always so with computer data: The 'owner' is the creator/developer or the company who pays for developing the data. You pay for using it. A user areement should make this clear and also provide guarentees for the usage. The only problem I have with user agreements is that you never can say 'no' after purchasing and installing the game. Because you won't get your money back.

Normal for games, though I don't like that we don't own the account. But what can we do? Nothing illegal or anything about that agreement.

it's actually normal for all commercial software. if you look carefully at your microsoft window's EULA, it will mention the same thing. you do not OWN that copy of windows, you've merely bought the PRIVILEGE of using it.

I think it should be worded differently, to properly protect the interests of the player and state the intent of the rule. Anet and NCsoft can't afford to have the legal status of a virtual stock exchange put upon them.

Otherwise, it makes sense.

Its basically there to stop sale of items/accounts for reall money (you can sell what you dont have.)

As pointet out already, anet would be pretty bad at moneymaking if they ever acted upon this part of agreement without good reason (duping bans, etc...)

Besides, there are way worse things in EULAs generally. (BTW: this is NOT legal binding, its just worthles piece of paper at court in civilized world, dont worry about it)

LoL why do u want to own something that is pure fantasy anyways? Wouldn't that mean you have a problem...

Yeah, I know it's not an agreement counting for law, at least not in my country (NL). I also understand for the need to protect against gold sellers. But I think there is a better way than this.

This kind of agreement is not only in online games, but in a lot of business to business applications as well.
The thing is, by playing guildwars, you are using a service. You are not the owner of the game.

This has not only to do with gold / item selling, but with account ownership in general.
When you are the owner of an account, you have more rights than when you are the user of a service.
Granting access to a service while denying user ownership prevents a lot of legal liability.

And may I remind you the end-user agreement does count in The Netherlands, but there have not been many court cases about them (yet).

If you become owner of this, then you need to handle the taxes that come from it as well.

Investing hundreds, or even thousands of hours into something could by regulation be considered a craft.

If online services were to transfer ownership to players, players would be required to be eligible to own property (goodbye under 16/18/21 demographic), and you'd need to file acquisition of property with IRS (or whatever the tax collection agency you oblige to), and you'd need to pay tax for every single item you obtain this way in a game.

Even if it were loot, people are required to pay taxes on lottery and other gambling winnings.

Needless to say - property in MMOs is a thing governments are itching to tax, since they are looking at billions upon billions of revenue per year.

eBaying or trading in-game items would then become subject to trade laws - scam someone in game (sell items under the market price) - go to jail. Real one, not a virtual one.

This is a topic nobody wants to touch with ten foot pole, since it has so many ugly sides, that it would instantly kill online gaming.

Be careful what you wish for.

Second-life is pioneering this area, and serves as poster child for legal aspects of virtual property. So far, whenever government pressed on them, they removed that part from the game. Recently, this involved gambling. Could you play guild wars without loot? Would you want to play GW, where someone files a lawsuit against you for selling items for 100k, when their market price is 5k?

Go look at SL - it's happening daily.

This isn't you're game, It's no ones game, it is Anets game, and they can do whatever they want with it. You have payed and agreed to use *their* service.

It's really easy enough to understand that, when you look at it logically, if you break their terms of service or disagree with it, then you cant use it.

*No player owns guild wars, they just have the right to access the service and use it, under the terms and conditions of the EULA*

Every program agreement I can recall reading always states that you do not own it - you are simply paying for the right to use the software. This is standard procedure.

Drop it, or don't agree and stop playing.

EDIT-
Thought I would mention that agreeing to the EULA does give you the right (not privilage) of using the software, as long as you abide by all terms of the agreement. However, as soon as you break it, the contract is void and you forgo this right. And the EULA almost always includes a We can change this when we want - in which case, if it is changed, you must agree to the new EULA to retain your right of use.

Although the text previous to this sounds like a logistical nightmare if it is anywhere near true, I wanted to clarify one thing with the quote.

The above quote requires the seller to be directly or indirectly fabricating (read: lying) the market price to the buyer. In other words, I tell you that Item X is worth 100k or more, and that is what everyone else is buying/selling it at, when in actuality it is around 10k.

Otherwise, to use a real-world example, the re-sale of used cars (or anything used) would be an entirely illegal process if we just followed the quote as is.

The Market Price is determined by (drum roll!) the Market, in other words, the people buying and selling. The "price" of an item is only how much the buyer is willing to pay. The encompasses persons buying for higher and lower than the "market price." Since market prices don't magically change when we go to sleep, it requires the buy/sell variance to push it either up or down.

So if I offer an item for 100k (or $100 for real-world examples) and you pay it, but in reality its only worth 5k (or $5), that's fine so long as I didn't attempt to deceive you into believing my price is what everyone else is currently paying.

Remember the old Adage, buyer beware.

And as to the EULA statement, if we "owned" our characters we would have the ability to modify them, as in direct code changes, which opens up a big can of worms as to trying to maintain a uniform game.

If it makes you feel any better, remember, the EULA is non-binding. It is essentially a tissue-paper agreement, since clicking "ok" is not a signature (yet, see Apple for current attempts at new laws), so you are not entering a contract.

If you want to feel that you own the character, go right ahead and feel that way.

It is how every MMORG works.

If you owned your characters, then if A.net banned you for commiting some offense (botting, scamming, duping, massive and repeated vulgarity) they would be guilty of depriving you of your property and would be liable in court.

Summary: If you owned your characters, it would be illegal for A.net to ban anyone (which would not be productive towards gameplay).

I would bet that that is there to make it so that GW can ban people, and not end up with in a legal suit every other Thursday.

Imagine if someone sued Anet for banning their account, with good reason, and demanding an exorbitant figure (Holds pinky up to mouth and says $1,000,000) for loss of property becuase they had invested time in their game to get those items.

Imagine if all the bot sellers got together and said "Hey! we're only selling our property that we worked for" and sued Anet for their loss of revenue and anything else they could hit on.

Now think of this, what is this property that you worked for, that makes you disagree with section 4c? Armor, items, ingame currency, all are distilled down to magnetic pits on a hard drive that Arenanet owns and paid for. Granted, this would make them analogous to a bank, however most banks don't provide the items you place under their protection. Especially not at the great expense it took to design, code, and otherwise create those items.

Basically, I think it's just a clause that makes it so that people Anet bans in the game can't sue them in real life for real money becuase they have no property, or lack thereof, to sue for. I wouldn't normally affect someone unless they did get banned, and if they had an itchy legal finger.

EULA
End Used LICENSE Agreement.

You license the use to the game. You don't own jack shit except for the game case. This is how it is for practically EVERY online game that uses an account.

Yep most if not all online games are like this. IIRC it started when someone tried to sue sony online entertainment for not letting them sell their account. Its pretty strait-forward we don't own anything ~

I'm not saying i agree with it but i totally see why, and we did all agree to it so

This topic is pointless. Its always been like this, someone who finally ACTUALLY reads the EULA and the goes ballistic that they don't completely own something to the atom that they payed for. Makes a topic and even emails Anet about it .... LOL

Personally I have read the entire thing along time ago. You never own anything physical when you pay for a service. Which is what this is, we pay to play... omg did I just say it? WE P2P for GW! Yeah we do, its not the same type of paying we relate p2p with but we pay to PLAY on Anet's and NCsoft's resources. This is nothing new, and you shouldn't be shocked at all by it.

anyway... back to GW:EN

Its not a privilege but a service, meaning that they grant you rights to use their database and servers for gaming purposes. If you or ANet breaks the rules there is a disagreement, ANet just terminates the services if they think the violation was unacceptable, however they cannot just cancel services without valid reason (well they can, but you are also entitled to get your rights anyway), you DO have rights.

This is standard, and has always been there as far as I know.

It's kind of similar to how you don't own your creditcard, and how cash is just a promise...

Since I opened this can of worms, I guess the burden of proof falls on me, so forgive me for the amount of links.

As it stands "now" a virtual signature (used here as clicking "I agree" or "Ok") and an ELECTRONIC signature (signed into law in 2000 by President Clinton) are two different things. An electronic signature is pre-established mark which verifies the party's intent and ensures no further alterations are made to the electronic document without being noticed. A third kind is a Digital Signature, which involves things like Biometrics.

EULAs are a very murky area at the moment. There is precedent on both sides of the argument of EULAs being "paper-thin" and fully enforceable. Typically EULAs are declared unenforceable when they go against Local/State law, ask unreasonable things of the party, or the such.

As some EULAs attempt to protect the Licenser from any damage to the license-holder's property... that wouldn't typically be upheld.

Now if a license-holder attempts to install say 100 copies of a program only licensed for one... that would typically be upheld.

A lot of it boils down to an almost case-by-case basis. As I said, it's very murky.

Current US Laws are "gradually been reducing the scope of handwritten signature requirements, and places the greatest emphasis on respecting the intent of the parties." Which would eventually make "Ok" or "I agree" (perhaps with a requirement to at least scroll to the bottom of said EULA) a wholly-binding method. Eventually.

Sources:
Infoworld
Kuner
PCMag
Silicon Valley
Google
Wikipedia - EULA
Wikipedia Adhesion Contract
Wikipedia - Shrink Wrap Contract
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Now don't take this as me advocating "forgetting" the EULA is even in place. My original intent of mentioning the EULA was paper thin was in an attempt to comfort said poster who felt that s/he had no ownership of their character(s).

And I really wish I could find that Slashdot article about Apple and "I accept"-type EULA agreements, because it really summed it up nicely.

Thats a clause in all RPG style games to protect them. When they ban your account for Gold selling on Ebay style sites then you can't come back and say "I'm just selling something I rightfully farmed and own" - Nope they own it. Loophole.

EDIT: As for how "binding" EULA's are - They aren't "officially" binding no (not protected under law). Its to the sole discretion of the court the case goes too. This is why often you see something like "All cases brought against us are decided in [X County/City]'s courts" - These are usually circuits that are favorable to companies in EULA complaints. But since thats written into the very agreement that being disputed, it can (and has) been overturned before, though unlikely.

This is standard because if you owned characters, ANet would need to worry about getting sued if a server failure "damaged" your property etc.

Another standard clause, which is just as unpleasant to consider is: 10 (c).

Which basically means that when GuildWars stops making a profit, ANet can switch off the servers, which only makes sense after all.

That's true, but at an extreme case, if they did that say a week after releasing a Guild Wars product, the court would more than likely overrule that based upon intent - goes with consumer protection. EULAs are more like what the company wishes the court to uphold should it come to that. Unless it's declared law by your local, state, or national government, it is open to interpretation by the courts, REGARDLESS of what you signed or agreed to. Agreements aren't law. In most cases agreements a considered acceptable by the court and will be upheld, but in many cases they are not. You can't arbitrarily put restrictions on someone that don't make sense, regardless of what they sign or agree to.

Well if you 'owned' it, they would never have a right to ban anyone's accounts, would they?

My general feelings on this one are that the clause is a Cover Your Ass (CYA) thing. As someone stated above a EULA is murky to begin with, even further who "owns" something like a game account.

So, before I explain my view - I am not a lawyer, I am a software engineer. As to how good what I am about to say is - dunno. In the end legal things like this mostly come down to the judge and jury. These are interesting things that different elements of the field hold different views, until it goes to court no one can know for sure.

The hard part here is two fold - one what rights does ownership confer and who has possession.

The first - what rights - is VERY murky. If you own that character can they ban you? Can they delete it? Can they do skill or item updates? Hard to say, after all if you own it how can they come through and, for reasons all of their own and without your permission, change everything - or even more how can they simply delete or ban them? More than likely if *you* owned it they could not.

Then again, there is the idea of possession - the account information is stored on their servers, cost their money to upkeep, cost their money to access, and you aren't paying for it. If possession counts then all you possess is the client - which you payed for and is ruled under different laws. If possession doesn't count then there are all sots of nice things they can do with the game client they now own.

My general guess is that you do not own the account anyway - it would destroy too many businesses out there and doesn't really make much sense. Anet has sole possession of you account (note this would be different with a single player game where the account is in your possession) and your one time purchase does not even imply continued upkeep forever at Anets cost. At best I would suspect that while they may decide you own it Anet has no obligation to store it or pay for you to access it. I can't see anyway that your "ownership" of the account will make it very far in the courts, would probably be more or less seen as a physical storage facility.

However, this statement does make it MUCH easier and MUCH more likely to get the correct ruling. It's kinda like having to sign the back of a speeding ticket - technically you do not have too do it but, in the end, it doesn't matter (and in fact you are better off signing it) and is simply a way for the authority figure to save money in case of litigation.

The parts you should be more worried about are the things about how they can change it anyway they want and you are still bound by it - but then the opposite there is true. Good luck any company that actually tries to push it.

All MMOs work that way.

Its to prevent the selling of accounts, to smite gold sellers and other offensive account holders.

As a laywer I just say:
Clever EULA, covered bots, gold or item selling for real world money...

If u don't agree don't play it no one is forcing u. If ur doing it by the book then why worry?

Remember, Auto Assault was put out of its misery at the beginning of this month...

But in all honesty, it was trying to crawl into a hole to die, better NCSoft capped it before it started stinking up the place...

But yeah, did NCSoft refund anyone who played it? nope, because it was in the agreement

Correct. That would mean people could hack, exploit, scam, and insult all they want with no consequence to the account. Not to mention, lawsuit-happy idiots would sue ANet for the slightest skill change or drop change, and mentioned above.

I'm okay with them owning everything, because they won't do anything with it unless I screw up. To really be worried about this, you'd have to think everyone's out to get you, and that ANet will go out of their way to screw just you over. :P

So guys, did any of you under 18 age noticed your parents / guardians?

This is nothing different from most games.

You cannot exclude specific portions of the User Agreement, nor can you decline to agree to it.

This is standard in the game industry; this is standard in the larger software industry. And there's nothing in the agreement that should "shock" or concern someone, if s/he is playing the game in the normal, intended fashion. The protections for the company (and incidentally the community) involve those who are trying to profit from the game in real world currency, which, in fact, causes in-game negative consequences for every legitimate player.

The User Agreement is a good and necessary thing.