7 Comments

Palsgraf taught us that “negligence in the air is not enough” to establish liability.

But now I guess that “detrimental reliance in the air” is quite enough.

Kip,

Interesting take. I have always confronted detrimental reliance claims with a grain of salt because it is generally an equitable remedy ostensibly to be invoked when there is no legal remedy, while still understanding that in a few—-very few-—rare instances it is a necessity to fill the cracks when there is a real wrongdoing without a cause of action to plead. But this does not seem to be that case.

I am interested to know what the terms of service for this particular online game says. I was under the impression that most TOSs state you cannot sell “virtual property” within the game (even if the hosts do not actively attempt to stop it). If this is the case here, I don’t think the plaintiff can claim detrimental reliance after agreeing his “virtual property” has no market value.

Tangible vs. virtual strikes me as a red herring here. I’m not sure that this is any different from an airline unilaterally altering the terms on which frequent flyer miles can be redeemed. As Brian P. notes, there’s presumably a contract here (in the form of the TOS), and it probably gives the company nearly total control of the game environment.

I don’t play these games myself, but I work with a few people who are into “World of Warcraft”. It is my understanding that a player pays a subscription fee to play these games. If these fees are time based, then in my opinion the player has paid “real” money for the time it took to gain the virtual item. To me this gives it tangable value.
I recently started taking lessons on flying helicopters. Some of my time is on actual aircraft and some is spent in simulators. I am charged for both the actual and simulation time. The simulation time counts in my logbook for the FAA and therefore has value. What’s the difference?

One might argue that in the helicopter example, you’re “grinding” in the flight sim to ultimately obtain a pilot’s license, something that clearly has value in the real world, separate and apart from any value that whoever designed the flight sim software might assign the license.

In WoW, you’re grinding to obtain some pixels and electrons that Blizzard Entertainment says are better than the current set of pixels and electrons your account presently has. Next week, they may release a patch that introduces a third/new set of pixels and electrons that you’re going to have to grind some more for, if you want to stay current in the latest pixels and electrons fashion world.

By contrast, the FAA isn’t going to suddenly say that your pilot’s license is no longer valid, or require that you grind more hours away in the flight sim to keep your current license valid (ignoring continuing education requirements, which have an entirely different purpose). Nor do you pay the FAA directly for the lessons to obtain the license in the first place – you’re paying a private instructor.

While I assume that, as with most professional licenses, there is an admin fee of some sort for a pilot’s license, that fee has no direct correlation with the amount of time you may have spent in the flight sim to obtain said license (beyond whatever the required number of hours is). It isn’t like you can accrue 2x the amount of required hours in the flight sim and get a “better” pilot’s license.

While it’s true that some of the most popular and well-reknowned games have Terms of Service contracts to limit the user’s response over the whims of the server operators, there is the peculiar case of SecondLife in which users are immersed in virtual commerse to buy original items created by other users, as well as a real-estate market.

The twist is that there are places in the game to convert your virtual currency, “Linden Dollars” to US Dollars (and vice versa, naturally). I suspect SecondLife’s operator, Linden Labs, has to tread very carefully when it comes to changing the rules. But SecondLife is a fairly libertarian realm (easily done since there’s no need for roads or utilities) served by benevolent libertarian gods (the Lindens), so hopefully none of the real-world profiteers will find a reason to sue them on this basis.

To add onto LAN3’s comment, and in response to Wheat, another potential financial benefit received by WoW (and other game) players is the opportunity to, first, increase one’s ranking in online gaming communities, and second, assuming one is of sufficient skill, compete for monetary prizes against other players in tournaments. So, there really may be some monetary gain to be had by playing online games. (The likelihood of success, however, is probably quite slim, but I don’t speak from practical experience – I have a ‘gamer’ in the family.)