Superpoke Players Sue Google

mikejuk writes "SuperPoke Pets is another casualty of Google's aggressive spring cleanup... But unlike other users of Google's trashed software, Superpoke users have decided to fight back with a class action. The aim is to recover the money they spend on virtual gold used as a currency to buy clothes for their virtual pets. The total 'amount in controversy' exceeds $5,000,000 — a sum that is credible given that there were at least 7,000,000 users. So if you are considering adding a virtual currency to your app you might want to think of the future."

Re:Implications for EULAs?

[0racle]

[citation needed]

Enforceability_of_EULAs_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

The enforceability of an EULA depends on several factors, one of them being the court in which the case is heard. Some courts that have addressed the validity of the shrinkwrap license agreements have found some EULAs to be invalid ... Other courts have determined that the shrinkwrap license agreement is valid and enforceable ... No court has ruled on the validity of EULAs generally; decisions are limited to particular provisions and terms.

Crappy Title

[Fnord666]

Just to be clear, this is about SuperPoke! Pets [superpokepets.com].

SuperPoke! [wikipedia.org] was a social media application that was made by independent developers and was later acquired by a company called Slide. It allowed social media users to do such things as hurl virtual sheep at their friends instead of just "poking" them. SuperPoke! Pets evolved from this, taking the same artwork and building a virtual pet environment.

Superpokepets.com [wikipedia.org] was created as a stand alone web application. People could migrate their pets from the social media sites if they wanted. All of this, plus several other social media applications, were owned by Slide when it was acquired by Google. Google allowed Slide to continue to operate semi-autonomously for some time, but has since decided to dissolve/disband it. Employees will be assimilated into the Googleplex and the apps will be shut down. If Google were to continue to support this application, they would have to fund enough servers, databases, support desk, etc. for a 7M+ userbase. Apparently it was not worth it to Google to keep it running.

I don't believe that the social media versions of this application ever had a virtual currency, but I might be wrong. From what I read, currency was added after the web application was created and I suspect that it was only available there.

Interestingly, Google did go so far as to create a standalone version of the environment that users could migrate their pets to if they wished to keep playing with them. Apparently this is a bit buggy, and does not support interacting with other users, but it was a good idea. Might be nice if they were to open source either the standalone application, the web application, or even both. From the sound of things it doesn't seem like they are looking to sell it off. My kids loved to play in these sorts of virtual worlds when they were younger, and if I had the code I would have been willing to stand up a small version for my children and their friends.