Disagreeing to small part of Guild Wars agreement

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
---

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.