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

Matt says my attempts to analogize online roleplaying games to more familiar contests like chess or automobile racing are “just silly.” But his response appears to reinforce my point rather than refute it. It is the responsibility of the gamers and gaming organizations to create and enforce rules. People violating those rules are subject to sanctions by the gaming organization first, but it’s hard to imagine how any contestant who follows the rules of a (legal) game can be subject to legal sanction.

I said as much in my comment on his post, naming sports and game organizations like the World Chess Federation, National Scrabble Association, and National Hot Rod Association that have been successfully enforcing and arbitrating game rules for years. But as better examples of the well trod path between law and game rules, I might have offered smash-up derbies or boxing. Outside the game, drivers and fighters would be subject to civil and criminal penalties, but inside the game, where participants are expected required to be aware of the rules and the risks of the game, we find ourselves intolerant of legal interference. Not that the overall legality of violent sports like boxing hasn’t been question, but that where it is legal, the game rules are the first (and often final) authority in the ring.

tags: game, game world, game worlds, gamers, games, gaming, in game, law, mmo, mmorpg, multiplayer online games, online games, online role playing, online role playing games, real world, real world violence, role playing game, role playing games, rpg, story world, video game, video games, virtual, virtual economy, virtual world, virtual worlds

Matt and I have been talking about online role playing games lately. He’s more than interested in the new challenges they pose to our legal system, the new media opportunities they offer, the ways they’re altering culture. We got into a conversation about how companies are taking advantage of them in marketing campaigns, so I asked him, “in what presidential election year will we see the first in-game campaigning?”

He seemed to think it might be as late as 2020 before that happened, but immediately embraced the concept. He offered the following idea: if a candidate had a child involved with video games, that child would be an outstanding asset in the marketing of that candidate to youth. How effective? With just one MMORPG claiming a million US players (each paying a monthly subscription fee, by the way), and many others in the market, one might imagine that in-game campaigning might someday have the same revolutionary effect as the internet did in 2004.

Politics, we understand, is more than message. After all, how else can we explain the way moderate young men were drawn to vote for the Governator in the California recall? Now, imagine if the Bush daughters were gamers…imagine a campaign that carefully handled that? How many otherwise moderate — perhaps progressive — gamers would be more than tempted to vote for the Bush guild?

tags: campaign, campaigning, election year, embrace, game, gamers, games, gaming, in game, in game campaign, in game compaigning, in game marketing, marketing, mmo, mmorpg, online role playing, online role playing games, political gaming, politics, presidential election, role playing game, role playing games, rpg