Sock Master did some outstanding work tracing the lineage of video game controllers from 1977 to now without missing any of the weirdness in between.

Sure you played Asteroids and Defender, but did you play these?

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

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 started talking up the weird issues developing around multiplayer online games a few weeks ago. Then soon after he blogged it, a story appeared in On the Media (listen, transcript)

Short story: online gaming is huge — one developer claims four million paying customers. More significantly, the interplay between real and virtual worlds might create new challenges for this real world legal system. “Theft” of in-game money and equipment among players in the online world is possible, but it’s lead to the real-world arrest of at least one person and the murder of another when authorities refused to act.

One argument is that these games occupy players time and cost money, so in-game theft results in real-life loss. Baloney. Chess and Monopoly occupy great deals of time, but try telling the cops I rooked your knight. Money? A huge number of Americans invest time and money on building and racing cars on the approximately 1800 racetracks around the country. Real time and and hard-earned money are lost when cars crash, but the track has its own rules “rubin’s racin, Cole” — and none of us would excuse a driver for off-track violence against a competitor.

tags: crime, game, game money, game world, game worlds, law, loss, mmo, mmorpg, multiplayer online games, murder, online games, real world, real world violence, role playing game, story world, theft, video games, video game, virtual, virtual economy, virtual world, virtual worlds, weird issues