I’m not much of a gamer, but Matt got me following video game law with curious interest. And now, via ArsTechnica, I’ve learned of crazy things going on in role playing game economies.

To some, the only surprise in Jon Jacobs’s US$100,000 purchase of in-game real estate is that nobody thought of it sooner.

The first thing to know is that unlike most other MMORPGs, Project Entropia mixes its virtual economy with the real world. Money can be earned in-game, or “transfered” at a fixed exchange rate of US$1 for PED$10 (PED = Project Entropia Dollars).

The $100,000 purchase netted Jacobs a space station that he plans to develop into “a cross between Jurassic Park and a disco.” Visitors to the station can hunt dinosaur-like monsters and spend time in the stations nightclubs. The AP story quotes Jacob’s saying “I want to operate this thing at the level of a major nightclub in a major city,” and explains that he expects to make $20,000/month on hunting fees and other activities related to the station, though the article doesn’t make clear whether that number is in US$ or PED$. It’s also not clear how he’d extract his game earnings as US$.

He refinanced his house shortly after and considered investing some of the cash in the hot Miami real-estate market, but he realized that if he bought a rental property, it really wouldn’t generate any income beyond what he’d pay for the mortgage and repairs.
So he invested the proceeds in the game.

Interestingly, the article notes that IGE, “the leading MMORPG services company” has handled deals worth more than $100,000, “but would not provide details because of client confidentiality.”

tags: $100,000, $100000, game, game law, gamer, jon jacobs, mmo, mmorpg, real estate, role playing, role playing game, rpg, space station, video game, virtual economy, virtual real estate, virtual space station

Annalee Newitz tells me that video game developers are looking for cheaters by installing spyware with their games. Blizzard, developer of World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo is among the biggest names doing this.

Greg Hoglund, quoted at Copyfight, notes:

I watched the [software] warden sniff down the email addresses of people I was communicating with on MSN, the URL of several websites that I had open at the time, and the names of all my running programs, including those that were minimized or in the toolbar.

Warden is the name of Blizzard’s spyware app, and they apparently describe it in their terms of service. Here’s Newitz:

[It] snoops through your entire computer looking for “unauthorized third-party programs” that allow users to “hack” or “modify” the online game environment or “cheating of any kind.” Warden then “communicates the information” it finds back to Blizzard. This “communication” process is described in alarmingly capacious terms that make it clear Blizzard has the option of examining your PC’s hard drive anytime it wants.

I’m growing more likely to agree with Matt that video games — especially MMOs — are ripe for serious legal study. See also Wide World of Video Games and Game Law Redux.

tags: annalee newitz, blizzard, cheaters, eula, game environment, game law, online games, sniff, snoop, snoops, software warden, spyware, video game developers, video games, warden, world of warcraft