Virtual Property paper

Bookmarked.

Thank you, Argent!

Thanks cute lil Ferret.

It's mostly about Warcrack and the like, but does mention SL in a completely misleading way.

Wot a surprise.

It is an interesting paper, but is only tangentially applicable to SL. It is more focused on virtual property rights to "property" in games, which is not truly "made" by the user, such as creating characters, levelling them, "crafting" items in them, et cetera.

I agree with the conclusion, though. I think it should always be left to the developers how they apportion "property rights" to their own property in relation to their customers.

For SL, though, it is a rather different kettle of fish.

Speaking of fish, what's the game where you mine fish again?

In SL? 7 Seas Fishing?

my RL hubby plays FFXI online..(Final Fantasy 10) and farms for fish....looks kinda...yeah.

That possibly it?

~Brie

In SL? Neo-Realms allows you to drop depth charges in the water now and scoop up whatever fish they kill which come to the surface.

Nah, I'm talking about some RL "RPG" or resources game where you get resources by mining them, and one of the resources you can get is fish.

("RPG" in quotes because when they made the transition from tabletop RPGs to computer RPGs the bit that got left out was the actual role playing)

Well, I know you get fish using fishing skill in a few MMOGs. Horizons, I know for sure. Though you use a fishing rod for it.

What's really funny in that game is getting water, milk, and eggs. The "tool" used is a wooden bucket, but the animation is the "axe chop". So, you get milk from cows by beating them with the bucket. Same with eggs from chickens and water from a well. *THUNK* "You receive 8 milk." *THUNK* "You receive 3 eggs."



Yeah, computer games are not really a RP-supporting environment, even when they are multiplayer. Single-player RPGs are more just interactive fiction, whereas MP games are exercises in twinking and loophole delving. Occasionally, you can find a few real RP players in MP games who will only use the game as a setting for a good RP session, but it is kinda rare. Most of the time, it is spoiled by god-moders and drama/attenion-whores.

Second Life is about the only 3d online environment I've found that really fosters role-play.

What I have found, being an avid table-top RPGer from the late 70s, is that, for many people, table-top tends to foster imagination a bit more than computer-generated environment. While you can actually get to see *something* that looks like a cool setting to RP in on the computer, people tend to let the actuality of what they see override their imagination. In other words, their imagination becomes constrained to what they see, and it tends to limit the RP, because the computer setting can't even remotely approach the speed or extent of what the imagination can conjure up, for RP purposes, anyway.

Even in SL, I find it more enjoyable to have a rather modest "setting", but augmenting it with imagination along with the other "players". It's at least as good as any other MP CRPG I have played in, with the additional bonus of player-created content.

The paper argues that applying property laws to virtual resources doesn't make sense.

I don't buy the philosophical argument. Property rights didn't come into existence as the result of philosophical argument. The philosophy came about as a way of understanding the way property rights were actually perceived and enforced.

I'm uncertain about the economic arguments. I need to put more effort into understanding the economic valuations presented, but even so, I'm unconvinced that the paper thoroughly explores the value of property rights.

It does seem biased towards the WoW model, where people get things of value by playing the game. In SL, much of the value is covered by existing copyright law, so the situation is very different.