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eBay Delisting All Auctions for Virtual Property
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 26, 2007 03:39 PM
from the definition-of-what-is-real dept.
from the definition-of-what-is-real dept.
The growing popularity of Massively Multiplayer games has brought the issue of ownership rights in virtual worlds, and the appropriateness of what is called 'real money transfer' (RMT) into an increasingly public light. The success of the company IGE, as well as the launch of Sony Online Entertainment's 'Station Exchange' service would seem to indicate that RMT is now an acceptable part of Massive gaming. The well-known auction site eBay has recently made a policy decision that may throw these assumptions into a different light. Following up on a rumour that's been going around I spoke today with a media representative for the company, who confirmed that eBay is now delisting all auctions for 'virtual artifacts' from the site. This includes currency, items, and accounts/characters; not even the 'neopoints' used in the popular Neopets service is exempt from this decision. Read on below for the company's rationale for this decision, and a few words on the impact this could have on future RMT sales.
Mr. Hani Durzy, speaking for eBay, explained that the decision to pull these items was due to the 'legal complexities' surrounding virtual property. "For the overall health of the marketplace" the company felt that the proper course of action, after considerable contemplation, was to ban the sale of these items outright. While he couldn't give me a specific date when the delistings began, he estimated that they've been coming down for about a month or so. Mr. Durzy pointed out that in reality, the company is just now following through with a pre-existing policy, as opposed to creating a new one. The policy on digitally delivered goods states: "The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner." Given the nebulous nature of ownership in online games, eBay has decided the prudent decision is to remove the possibility for players to sell what might be the IP of other parties via their service. Mr. Durzy made it a point to say that initial listings of virtual property would not have punitive actions. Their assumption, he said, is that most users break with policies because they're unaware of them, rather than maliciously. Initial infractions will result in a delisting of items, and an attempt to educate the user on the policy. Persistent disregard for the policies, of course, will result in a removal of the seller's account.
We've spoken before on the possibility of taxation of virtual goods in the U.S. and abroad, as well as the economic impact these sales can have. With the removal of a very popular, very public source of virtual currency and goods from the market, what does this mean for the future of RMT? Will small businessmen who previously worked via eBay now turn to larger independent sites like IGE? Given that eBay is ipso facto declaring virtual goods to be the property of the game makers and not the players who 'earn' them, what does this mean for the future of virtual rights in general?
We've spoken before on the possibility of taxation of virtual goods in the U.S. and abroad, as well as the economic impact these sales can have. With the removal of a very popular, very public source of virtual currency and goods from the market, what does this mean for the future of RMT? Will small businessmen who previously worked via eBay now turn to larger independent sites like IGE? Given that eBay is ipso facto declaring virtual goods to be the property of the game makers and not the players who 'earn' them, what does this mean for the future of virtual rights in general?
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Just Sell the Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Examples:
- "level 60 epic gear warrior for sale" => "leveling services to get you a epic gear warrior"
- "5000 gold on Thunderlord" => "the five days of playing time it takes me to get you 5000 gold"
- "1337 item" => "time it took me to farm this item and give it to you"
I mean, are they safe guarding against this also? Because, in the end, what's wrong with selling people your time or services to them? Once they complete the service, you pay them. I don't know how they could find some way around this or tell which auctions for services need to be revoked.Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, I'd though
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not eBay being stupid, but it's not what they're saying it is either. If eBay thought they could make money providing this service, they would. The real reason is that the associated costs and risks exceed the profit available from these transactions. I'm sure that internally they have statistics that show the rates of disputed transactions, and the administrative costs of dealing with them along with the cost of liability insurance for the potential litigation associated with these transactions. They compared those numbers with the projected revenue and one side won.
This isn't a philosophical issue, or eBay trying to prevent anything. Companies don't work that way (usually). This is almost certainly purely economic.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
eBay policy: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/vero/ [ebay.co.uk]
Neopets ToS: http://neope [neopets.com]
There's a bigger reason (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, there is a certain amount of risk
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Parent took the GP's misconception of how and why economic decisions are made (that is, the idea that what the rep says has anything to do with why the decision was made) - and explained what was likely the
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:4, Insightful)
The truly ironic thing here is that you are dismissing the original poster for making a comment that you view as so obvious it shouldn't be marked insightful, yet the original comment isn't even valid. That is how a large company works in the theoretical, academic model. In reality, any sufficiently large corporation is governed by petty egos and politics and therefore any particular decision may or may not make any economic sense. Like police, economics is a corrective force, not a preventative one, once group dynamics are considered.
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:5, Insightful)
some games actually do this for a substatial number of items. While they couldn't do it for all items it has an added benefit of requiring people to grind for items themselves.
I'm no fan of ebay, but your argument makes no sense.
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:5, Insightful)
You paid for the game time and put the effort in to earn that copy of an item, so maybe it is yours. Artists at Blizzard created the item and it, just like everything else in that virtual world, is the intellectual property of Blizzard. Maybe the item belongs to them then.
There is also the issue that many MMO games have explict prohibitions against selling items. All it would take would be one publisher deciding Ebay was promoting violations and deciding to sue. Would they win? Doesn't matter because Ebay doesn't need the headache. They figure the listing fees wouldn't weigh against the cost of a court battle.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a few reasons.
One, they don't want to lose customers who stop playing the g
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to see both sides tackled in MMO gold selling. The only way to stop it is to make life difficult for the sellers and risky f
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, should this type of exchange become prevalent in the economy I'd suggest anti-monopo
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:5, Interesting)
The good news is that the damn fool who is farming is lowering the amount of time the damn fool spending money on virtual goods is spending on the game, freeing up the spender to do other actual work in the economy.
Entertainment is an economic sink, it disappears productivity into the (supposed) well being of the person being entertained. Placing a silly regulation on a form of entertainment because it is extra stupid is a bad idea.
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:5, Insightful)
or I can spend 3 hour working extra (or overtime) to make $30.00 and purchase 1000 gold.
what is your time worth to you?
What if it took you 3 hours to make 50 gold?
each game and even game server are different, but that was the exact exchange that many world of Warcraft players would face. Recently the market has shifted around, but at one point it was more economical to just purchase the gold.
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just Sell the Time (Score:4, Insightful)
IIRC, almost every WoW character being sold on eBay had the same disclaimer stating something on the lines of "By looking at this webpage you are agreeing that you aren't a Blizzard employee. The sale of this auction doesn't involve any possesions, instead you are paying for my services and time that I put into this character."
That's probably why eBay made the decision to delist all virtual goods, because people were always finding ways to circumvent their rules by changing the wording. Now they won't be able to do that.
How about Chinese Counterfeit goods? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about Chinese Counterfeit goods? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
It won't stop gold traders (Score:3, Informative)
For example, IGE.
If people still want to buy/sell virtual goods, there really isn't any way to prevent them.
Still, I salute Ebay for trying.
Nebulous (Score:2)
Don't game creators and server owners place very explicit copyright ownership clauses into their license agreements with users? People obviously break the rules without much thought, but isn't the e
shot in the foot.. and they're to blame (Score:3, Insightful)
This is insane. There's clearly a market for this activity. And there's clearly a way to handle it legitimately (i.e. IGE). Instead of setting up a parallel site (like eBay motors), they just decide they're not going to handle it at all. Way to serve your investors, ebay.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd guess the potential costs of litigation far outweigh any profits to be made from allowing these actions. It's not like Ebay is lacking in traffic in other, more legitim
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I
Can't you just offer real goods + virtual? (Score:3, Insightful)
What about games that encourage this? (Score:2)
There are games (and whatever you want to call "Second Life") that encourage virtual-to-realworld economies. Will eBay differentiate on a per-game basis?
But by definition, they have permission (Score:5, Insightful)
What about domain names? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this a great country or what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only can we buy crap we don't need, now we can buy crap that doesn't even exist. Whattacountry!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dangerous Precedent. How about CD sales? (Score:2)
The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner.
So, can I not sell used books, cd's, artwork or games?
Will eBay be shutting down Half.com?
Re:Dangerous Precedent. How about CD sales? (Score:5, Interesting)
Jesus H. Christ, have you never heard of First Sale Doctrine [wikipedia.org]? I assure you that ebay's lawyers have, and will not be advising that they cut out a truly absurd percentage of their revenue over something that is legal. Anyway the two situations are not remotely similar. In the case of a book, cd, artwork, or game, you are selling physical media which contains some data.
In the case of a digital asset, you are selling a promise to make an alteration to a game world. There is no physical good and furthermore there is no intellectual property to transfer! It's not even like you exported an item out of the game world and are transferring the file representing the object. You are trying to sell something that clearly does not belong to you. You are not your character in world of warcraft. That's not even a representation of you. It's more like you've paid a monthly fee to play with someone else's action figures, in their sandbox.
Re:Dangerous Precedent. How about CD sales? (Score:4, Informative)
If you're selling a physical item, you must be the owner of the physical item.
You don't own your WoW character. You own your CDs. You can sell your CDs but not your WoW character.
Done.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like a ripe opportunity... (Score:2)
Is eBay that lazy? (Score:4, Interesting)
What about games that do allow or will allow buying of virtual property? It seems to me that eBay would be shooting themselves in the foot by blindly delisting all virtual items.
On a different topic, now where will I shop for a level 70 blood elf paladin?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hypothetical situation:
You buy a piece of paper. That piece of paper is imprinted with the account and password (as a "free" bonus), the seller sends said paper through the mail and sends you a confirmation email containing the sam
That's nice, but... (Score:3)
Attention online item and gold buyers! (Score:3, Informative)
You DON'T need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on nothing!
Here's a link to website with a huge listing of charitable organizations. I promise you that giving 2 grand to help the needy or cure a disease will make you feel better than spending 2 grand on a shiny new level 70 rogue.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/ [charitynavigator.org]
Comprende?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming you put a value on your time, which you should.
Think about it, there is this great fun game, but there is one part which isn't so fun.
You can spend 100 hour doing the unfun stuff, and th
Virtual items = informational PDF files (Score:4, Interesting)
Lucky for me my hunter was so epic (Score:5, Interesting)
The kicker is that about 6 hours after I got the paypal payment for it, eBay sends me an email saying they have taken my auction down because it violated Blizzard's IP. The auction was already done! Hilarious work, eBay... not only did I get the money for my character, but I didn't have to pay eBay for the auction cost.
The other guy got my account;
I got money for the time I put into the character;
Blizzard got the money for the game CDs and my monthly subscription;
Paypal got their bite out of our transaction;
eBay lost money for the bandwidth, site design and hosting.
Directory of Virtual Marketplaces (Score:3, Informative)