Another Massively article on closing MMO's

[thunderforce]

But even after I said that you decided to continue it in more replies so I assumed you insisted on continueing.

Er. I'll continue the discussion if I think it is worthwhile. You continue the discussion if you think it is worthwhile. You said it wasn't, so I inferred you would stop.

I think you know your statement that ncsoft should by law should be forced to either give up their property or allow someone else to have it is not very wise. Of else I'm sure you would have explained it by now.

I have. Bluntly, it's not my fault that it went over your head. I don't want to put words in someone else's mouth, but I suspect you'll find Segev _understands_ my position, even if they disagree completely, just as I understand their position but disagree completely.

Along with your statement of it being like taxes and eminent domain.

Which in the sense that they illustrate that it is already the case that "some external force does have a legal right to tell people what they must do for the good of the community with their property", it is, which is the context I made that remark in.

[JaguarX]

Which in the sense that they illustrate that it is already the case that "some external force does have a legal right to tell people what they must do for the good of the community with their property", it is, which is the context I made that remark in.

Oh you infered I would stop, while you continue with the straw man talk. Easy way to get in a cheap shot huh. "oh since he isnt going to continue the discussion I'll keep it going and add some insult to it while purpose missing the entire point." is what you thought. If you took it seriously, then you wouldnt try to keep it going. you would have still left it alone. So dont throw that up now. I was done with it. You choose to reply, I chose to oblige. You wasnt ready  for the convo to end, you looked liked you needed some stuff answered, and thus I did. Now you want to say "I thought you wanted the conversation to end when you cant explain your logic, saying that a superhero make believe video game is like taxes and eminent domain. Saying that NCSosft should be forced to keep a game running. Yeah of course there some laws that dont give total ownership[ rights but should the government tell you to give up your property in you garaage or storage to the needy because it would be good for the community? Should a person with more than one car be forced to give up one for the good of the community? Should you be forced to work at your job with no pay 7 days aweek for the good of the community? Should you be forced to kill yourself to cut down on thep opulation, for the good of the community? I mean since we are putting silly stuff like games on the same level taxes and eminent domain, how about any property from clothes you can no longer fit to money you are not using. Should you be forced to give all of that away for the good of the community? There are plenty of countries with no property rights, and if that what you are looking for, you can find them and feel right at home. But...interestingly, most of those countries never had COX nor have much MMOS for that matter. Go figure.

Good for the community. yea yeah  of course, but how is a game, on the same level of seriousness as taxes and eminent domain?

My point is that it's nowhere the same thing. Sure we say we are a community. Call a city planner and say that NCSOft should be forced to keep their game running because it's like taxes and eminent domain and good for the community and see what they say. I can call one tomorrow and see what they say. My guess they either will hang up thinking it's a prank caller or or laugh/ Why? Because saying that NCSOft should be forced to keep their game open under the definition of good of the community as taxes and eminent domain is a stupid statement and you know it. You cant even explain it and is why you keep dodging it. You have no logical explanation for it. Its just some whacko statement you brought up because as far as you concerned, it was a game you played, damn all the other games that ncsoft shut down and other companies shut down, you dotn give a crap but they shut down your game you're angry and because it was your game that means it's on the level of good for the community of taxes and eminent domain. That is a pure slap in the face to people that actually lost their home to eminent domain so the economy can make millions and slap i nthe face of tax payers in today's economy to actually compare those things to the loss of a game. Very insulting and you should be ashamed. Go talk to people that actually lost something due to eminent domain and been voted out because the new shopping mall is said to create 10,000s of jobs and bring in 100s of millions into the city economy a quarter which is no way in hell logical as, you cant even explain it, on the same level of a video game.

They had property they chose to continue to provide their property anymore by the laws of the US and the excercised those property rights by those laws that have been established, which until they did you probably had not a single thought of wrong about them until it affect you. You are not coming from the nagel of "good of community. You are coming at this for the good of you. You want to play COX and threw "good for the community" in there to make it sound good. There is no law that I know of where it explicitly states that you havea right to play as a non-owner of City of Heroes for however long you see fit for personal pleasure without buying it andbecoming the owener of said property. If you wanted it to be that way, maybe you should have created City of Heroes yourself that way you could have kept it up, "for the good of the community". But you didnt, and thus it's in someone else hands and they made a decision that was good for their community. NCSoft exec community.  Do your "rights" over ride their community rights? Maybe they do and then maybe you should go after them in a legal manner then. Claim eminent domain for COX see how that pan out.

[thunderforce]

I'm afraid that is too incoherent to reply to at all. It would help if you responded to the arguments actually put forward, rather than grabbing six words and flying off the handle based on something they might possibly mean. As far as I can make out, half of that is an enraged response to the idea that keeping a videogame open is somehow the same thing as eminent domain, which is quite simply something I didn't say.

[JaguarX]

I'm afraid that is too incoherent to reply to at all. It would help if you responded to the arguments actually put forward, rather than grabbing six words and flying off the handle based on something they might possibly mean. As far as I can make out, half of that is an enraged response to the idea that keeping a videogame open is somehow the same thing as eminent domain, which is quite simply something I didn't say.

There is nothing in there that is enraged. Nor flying off the handle.

Again you simply refuse to stick to the point. You keep dancing around it.

All I'm asking is how is it even in the same category. Ok disregardng all your other statements saying it is in the category, as you what you said in this post that is not in fact the same thing, which is the point, that it's not the same (just in case I lost you already), I was making. So there was no point in bringing in eminent domain and taxes into the comparison since as you just so right now yourself, it isnt the same. So then it goes back to the original question. Why should they be forced to keep the game running or turn it over to someone else by law? I dont think you have an answer for why. You dont know why. All you know that you want ot play that particular game and since you cant because you dont own it then NCSOFT should be forced to keep it open so that you can have the game that you want to play. It has nothing to do with that "good for the community" stuff or anything. It's merely that this game, COX, is a game you want to play and you're salty as hell because you dont have the power to make that decision of whether or not it stays open or not. There is one way to solve that so you can get what you want. Buy it. Other than that, the property rights are with the owner. Just as if you owned it or created the game, you would have been able to make that decision of keeping the game running forever. Unfortunately you dont. Sorry, that is the perk of ownership. If you want those perks, be the owner.

[ROBOKiTTY]

NCsoft did not create CoX and therefore has no moral right to it. CoX was created by Cryptic and maintained by Paragon Studios. All NCsoft did after purchasing the franchise was provide (rather poor) support as a publisher. Given that CoX was giving NCsoft more than it took from their resources, NCsoft had and continues to have every ethical obligation to give the franchise away for fair compensation (e.g. the price NCsoft paid to acquire it, adjusted for inflation) when they no longer had the will to support it.

What NCsoft did is the equivalent of a similarly despicable practice in real estate. A company purchases a low-rent housing complex from its original owner. The company do very little to maintain the building, leaving most work to its tenants. Because of low profit margins, the company decide to evict all tenants, despite the years they spent there and kept the place in good shape, and turn the building into a warehouse. The company may have every legal right to do so in its jurisdiction (at least until a court decides otherwise), but from ethical and social standpoints, this is completely unacceptable.

To put it more bluntly, [intellectual] "property is theft".

[Sajaana]

I find that it's a real good sign that more and more people are talking about this issue in the wake of the CoH closing.  Frankly, it wasn't even seen as an issue before.

Indeed, the CoH closure exploded a few myths I had about MMORPGs:

1)  The myth of persistance.  I used to buy into the notion that these games were played in a persistant world.  I typically thought that persistance was a world that didn't go away just because you did.  And, for awhile, that definition stuck.  But what I have come to realize is that these games--far from being persistant--were some of the least persistant games in the history of games.  Some games in this genre don't even last a year, and when they are gone, there is no way to get them back.

2)  The myth of profitability.  I used to think that if the game made more than it cost, there would be no reason to take it down.  What CoH taught me is that profitability alone will not protect you or your game if the owners have other plans.  If they think you are "old hat" or you aren't part of a demographic they like, your fun will get canned for their peace of mind.

3)  The myth of ownership.  They have tried--very hard--to make the purchase of digital goods seem like the purchase of real goods.  When you buy something, you felt like you owned something.  But this ownership isn't real ownership.  It is merely the illusion of ownership: an illusion that is revealed as such as soon as its in the publisher's interest to cancel you.

4)  The myth of satisfaction. The hardest thing, for many here (myself included), is how empty we felt after the game closed.  Far from feeling satisfied at time well spent, we tended to feel empty, like a part of us was taken away.  Whatever we had just wasn't enough, and despite how exploitive the business model was, we continued to pour more time and money into something that would, by design, get taken away from us.  This shows me that MMORPGs are addictive, and are purposefully made so in order for us to throw more money into the illusion.  Veteran rewards, hero packs--even things like the day jobs--provide soft "carrots and sticks" to keep you in the illusion.  But far from making your time more satisfying, such incentives only served to deepen the psychological need for the game.  All the more reason why we were treated with such a lack of consideration at the end.  We were treated like the junkies we were, as things to use and throw away without a second thought.

5)  The myth that virtual worlds are a new paradigm in expression and community.  Surely we thought so, and the idealists among us are going to keep on reiterating about all the virtues of this type of society we build in these places.  But there is no society, there can be no society, when there isn't a parity between those who run the game and those who play the game.  I'm sure a compulsive gambler calls his card playing buddies and bookie friends, too.  But to the bookie taking the bet, to the casino owner who lends out the high roller suite, there is nothing special about the casino or the relationships made there.  It's a wealth extraction machine, not a place for friends and community.  When it ceases to be the kind of wealth extraction machine the owner wants it to be, he doesn't cry a tear when he tears it down.  Why not? It was always "nothing personal," just business all along.  They'll say it was our failing to think it was anything else, even though it was easy--far too easy--to actually believe differently.

You see, there is so much in our world that is miserable, drab, unrewarding, unsatisfying and lonely, that whoever can sell us an illusion of success, ownership, community, stability and fame will never lack for customers.  CoH was certainly that and more.  But we really don't get a sense of how easily exploitable we are until something like the CoH closure happens.  We discover, at that point, how vulnerable we are.

The best among us might swear off MMOs for good, but if there's one thing we all have gained from this closure, it's the resolve to demand better.  We won't be taking a producer's claims at face value.  We won't be playing games that don't have protections in place.  We won't be investing in games--financially or emotionally--as freely anymore.  We won't be taken in by the hype as easily.  And we'll build up our lives outside of the games, so when the companies do take away our fun, we won't be left empty.

[JaguarX]

I find that it's a real good sign that more and more people are talking about this issue in the wake of the CoH closing.  Frankly, it wasn't even seen as an issue before.

Indeed, the CoH closure exploded a few myths I had about MMORPGs:

1)  The myth of persistance.  I used to buy into the notion that these games were played in a persistant world.  I typically thought that persistance was a world that didn't go away just because you did.  And, for awhile, that definition stuck.  But what I have come to realize is that these games--far from being persistant--were some of the least persistant games in the history of games.  Some games in this genre don't even last a year, and when they are gone, there is no way to get them back.

2)  The myth of profitability.  I used to think that if the game made more than it cost, there would be no reason to take it down.  What CoH taught me is that profitability alone will not protect you or your game if the owners have other plans.  If they think you are "old hat" or you aren't part of a demographic they like, your fun will get canned for their peace of mind.

3)  The myth of ownership.  They have tried--very hard--to make the purchase of digital goods seem like the purchase of real goods.  When you buy something, you felt like you owned something.  But this ownership isn't real ownership.  It is merely the illusion of ownership: an illusion that is revealed as such as soon as its in the publisher's interest to cancel you.

4)  The myth of satisfaction. The hardest thing, for many here (myself included), is how empty we felt after the game closed.  Far from feeling satisfied at time well spent, we tended to feel empty, like a part of us was taken away.  Whatever we had just wasn't enough, and despite how exploitive the business model was, we continued to pour more time and money into something that would, by design, get taken away from us.  This shows me that MMORPGs are addictive, and are purposefully made so in order for us to throw more money into the illusion.  Veteran rewards, hero packs--even things like the day jobs--provide soft "carrots and sticks" to keep you in the illusion.  But far from making your time more satisfying, such incentives only served to deepen the psychological need for the game.  All the more reason why we were treated with such a lack of consideration at the end.  We were treated like the junkies we were, as things to use and throw away without a second thought.

5)  The myth that virtual worlds are a new paradigm in expression and community.  Surely we thought so, and the idealists among us are going to keep on reiterating about all the virtues of this type of society we build in these places.  But there is no society, there can be no society, when there isn't a parity between those who run the game and those who play the game.  I'm sure a compulsive gambler calls his card playing buddies and bookie friends, too.  But to the bookie taking the bet, to the casino owner who lends out the high roller suite, there is nothing special about the casino or the relationships made there.  It's a wealth extraction machine, not a place for friends and community.  When it ceases to be the kind of wealth extraction machine the owner wants it to be, he doesn't cry a tear when he tears it down.  Why not? It was always "nothing personal," just business all along.  They'll say it was our failing to think it was anything else, even though it was easy--far too easy--to actually believe differently.

You see, there is so much in our world that is miserable, drab, unrewarding, unsatisfying and lonely, that whoever can sell us an illusion of success, ownership, community, stability and fame will never lack for customers.  CoH was certainly that and more.  But we really don't get a sense of how easily exploitable we are until something like the CoH closure happens.  We discover, at that point, how vulnerable we are.

The best among us might swear off MMOs for good, but if there's one thing we all have gained from this closure, it's the resolve to demand better.  We won't be taking a producer's claims at face value.  We won't be playing games that don't have protections in place.  We won't be investing in games--financially or emotionally--as freely anymore.  We won't be taken in by the hype as easily.  And we'll build up our lives outside of the games, so when the companies do take away our fun, we won't be left empty.

Yep.

Many people joined the club. Still sad that they had to learn it through such a harsh lesson.

[thunderforce]

There is nothing in there that is enraged. Nor flying off the handle.

Of course not. "Should you be forced to kill yourself to cut down on thep opulation, for the good of the community?" is not any sort of overreaction to what I wrote.

All I'm asking is how is it even in the same category.

Because eminent domain is an example of how property rights are not absolute but can be overruled for the public good, and (inasmuch as "intellectual property" is property) I was suggesting that the "property" right in copyright might be overruled for the public good (as of course it is already in many respects). You'd know that if you'd actually comprehended what I wrote.

[thunderforce]

Indeed, the CoH closure exploded a few myths I had about MMORPGs:
1)  The myth of persistance.

I think part of my point is it doesn't have to be a myth. If I were in charge of marketing, say, Everquest, I would have been right on top of the CoX closure. I would be saying, "we promise you, we won't shut it down. We might stop developing it - although of course we had a content release quite recently - but most of our costs scale with the number of players. As long as there aren't fewer than 100 players who log in every month, we'll keep the game alive. We promise." subtext, so give us your money safe in the knowledge that you have persistence.

[JaguarX]

Of course not. "Should you be forced to kill yourself to cut down on thep opulation, for the good of the community?" is not any sort of overreaction to what I wrote.

Just because i asked the question doesnt mean I am angry or enraged.If this is something you say only when you are angry or enraged, that is fine, but everyone is not like you. By defintion anything and everything can be good for the community in someone eyes. Does that mean all rights should be over ruled for one person such as your definition of the common good of the community which seems to put a game on the same level as eminent domain and taxes?  .

Because eminent domain is an example of how property rights are not absolute but can be overruled for the public good, and (inasmuch as "intellectual property" is property) I was suggesting that the "property" right in copyright might be overruled for the public good (as of course it is already in many respects). You'd know that if you'd actually comprehended what I wrote.

And That is what I comprehended at first but you denied it in the next post. I know that property rights are not absolute and if you read what I said at first you have gotten that already.

"keeping a videogame open is somehow the same thing as eminent domain, which is quite simply something I didn't say." Now you are saying they are alike in some aspects. Which is it? Are you saying they are alike or not alike like you said in your previous post. Do you know? Or is it another tactic to dodge the question in explaining your own statements and logic? Man, you flip fop worse than a politician.

But as I said going by you now saying they are alike and like the first one, that is what I did comprehend it as, and that is how I came up with the question of how is that in any aspect of alike, is forcing NCSOFT to keep the game running and or tranfer it to another by law, like the common good definition under eminent domain and taxes?

Bascially how you would you approach the subject of the reasoning behind in what way is forcing NCSoft to do such action be defined as for the common good? Why would it be overuled? and Why should it be over ruled? 

[Sajaana]

I think part of my point is it doesn't have to be a myth. If I were in charge of marketing, say, Everquest, I would have been right on top of the CoX closure. I would be saying, "we promise you, we won't shut it down. We might stop developing it - although of course we had a content release quite recently - but most of our costs scale with the number of players. As long as there aren't fewer than 100 players who log in every month, we'll keep the game alive. We promise." subtext, so give us your money safe in the knowledge that you have persistence.

The sad thing is, I'm not sure people would believe him even if it was true.

If there's one thing NCsoft has taught us, it's that when a developer says "we're committed to the long term health of the game," it really is true...for that day.  But it in no way obligates them to hold the same view tomorrow.

[thunderforce]

The sad thing is, I'm not sure people would believe him even if it was true.

I'd exploit that by entering into a contract with some appointed group of players' representatives, with a great song and dance.

[dwturducken]

Of course not. "Should you be forced to kill yourself to cut down on the population, for the good of the community?" is not any sort of overreaction to what I wrote.

It's a common allegory in science fiction, exploring the notion of worth, particularly of worth in advanced years. It's not an over-reaction at all.

[Eoraptor]

I don't much care for the way the author broadly insists that MMOs are "someone else's art which we are not entitled to" that's like saying that every digital photo or painting is the property of Adobe and Manga Studio because it was created using their software.

someone did indeed create the tools of City of Heroes, of Everquest, of Spellborn, etc... but the individual characters, the private stories, the story telling, that is art created by the individual users. so it's a joint creation, and those of us who created and contributed into it, particularly those of us who paid into it for years, should have been given much more say and much better tools to secure our digital legacies surrounding such games.

I do like the rticle rising questions about the accounts of the deceased. already places like facebook have perhaps as many as thirty million dead members amongst their rolls, and how should that be handled?

[JaguarX]

I don't much care for the way the author broadly insists that MMOs are "someone else's art which we are not entitled to" that's like saying that every digital photo or painting is the property of Adobe and Manga Studio because it was created using their software.

someone did indeed create the tools of City of Heroes, of Everquest, of Spellborn, etc... but the individual characters, the private stories, the story telling, that is art created by the individual users. so it's a joint creation, and those of us who created and contributed into it, particularly those of us who paid into it for years, should have been given much more say and much better tools to secure our digital legacies surrounding such games.

I do like the rticle rising questions about the accounts of the deceased. already places like facebook have perhaps as many as thirty million dead members amongst their rolls, and how should that be handled?

yes but you still have your characters or can still have them and the story to those player created characters.

Ya just dont have that particular brand of canvas. But that is also why most artists never rent their canvas and buy them outright.

[Mantic]

Insofar as your characters utilize elements unique to the game engine, NCSofts claim of ownership (and yes, they do claim ownership of your CoX characters) remains enforceable.

Blah. Fight the power.

I wonder if folks defending copyright as this boon to individual artists have ever worked as commercial artists. Almost everything out there is done as work for hire, in which case everything individual artists create, collectively or not, is viewed by the law as being a creation of the inhuman lich-beast corporation paying said artist a wage. If a human creator even gets credit it's a rarity (and you might want to check and be sure that cited "author" is not also an intellectual property of said publisher). Most artists rationalize this relationship by saying that the corporate publishers are incentivized to invest in risky new creativity by the rewards gained from their body of IPs. But that is just a rationalization to make everyone feel better about being at the mercy of corporate employers.

If you're an indie creator, sure you might hit the jackpot with something like the Teenage Mutant Turtles, and have enough of an overnight return to fund your efforts parleying that into a fortune of indecent proportions (ie, paying lawyers and agents). But that's a one in a million scenario. Most indie creators cannot afford to pursue the defense of their copyrights, and rely on a mix of decency from human individuals and lack of interest from corporate entities more than the protection of the law.

[Segev]

Properly from 1923-1981, when it actually was law for businesses to engage in ethical activities. The arguments of a few then-radical economists was that business must be amoral and unethical to prosper, which then became the mantra for a political movement, and we all saw what happened.

Sorry, I can't take this one seriously. Not only is that a horrid straw man of what capitalism and even objectivism (which is not what Reagan instituted) states, but businesses are not allowed to engage in "un-ethical" activities as a matter of deliberate policy now. Unless you mean the mercantilism (A.K.A. "crony capitalism" that isn't capitalism at all) that GE and others are doing by promoting Democrats and Republicans alike in order to get more regulations and laws and sweetheart government programs passed in order to close out competition and give themselves an unfair advantage on the taxpayer's dime. In that case, corrupt practice is, in fact, quite encouraged. But it's the incestuous involvement of government in business that causes it. Increased regulation and empowerment of the "big" companies (read: big donors) to police the whole industry. (Because like it or not, the big money businesses will influence any board you care to create to regulate their industry far more than the little guy who is trying to break in to it...and suddenly can't afford to thanks to regulatory costs.)