Second Life has granted their players Intellectual Property Rights which one resident, Kermit Quirk, is reeking the benefits of. He has designed a game called Tringo within Second Life which captured an active audience and several participants. Infact he has just sold the worldwide licensing rights to Donnorwood Media who will now focus on commercial success outside Second Life. And then on the other scope of the MMORPG industry, Blizzard has just banned over 1000 accounts in World of Warcraft because of gold farming.
I can completely understand Blizzard for imposing these rules to keep WoW a game a.s.o. at the same time I do feel that intellectual property rights within MMORPGs are definitely an issue. I don’t think that what Linden Lab has done in Second Life can be properly done or enforced in WoW, but if you spend over 30 hours a week playing the game and actively participating in it’s evolution, you have to have some rights. At the very least, I feel that the so called ‘gold farmers’ deserve some form of ‘virtual trial’ so we are completely sure that these are troublesome to the game or actually helping it evolve. Am I making sense? I feel that it is too brutal to just cut someone out without justification or a chance to explain oneself. We are completely dependent on Blizzard’s own judgment on this, so they can expel anyone they see fit. This is where I feel they are a bit to harsh. What do you think?