04-21-2005, 05:06 AM
I don't really see this as an issue of responsability of players or not. That will not change in any way thought this. As someone told, thae main underlaying structure here is still all the normal laws that regulate our lives, including online activities.
What I see as a more interesting problem is for Sony itself though. As mentioned, they have suddenly turned their game into something were one can make money. The difference between gambling is very narrow, you play the game, and thorugh luck, is rewarded with "winning" various ingame items that can be traded into different ammount of money (probably depending on their rarity/odds). Instant gambling!! This can potentially cause problem for them since many countries regulate gambling quite a bit.
In addition they are basically seting up a new service with monetary costs, this again, means that the actual game play and activities in the game is directly related to their service and its fees and money changing hands, that is also regulated through normal consumer laws dealing with services and/or sales and such. For example, they sell you something in the game, now everything that applies normally when you buy something applies here too. In general, many of those things are regulated through various consumer laws that one simply can't just sidestep through contracts. A whole host of problems is being born here I would say.
What I see as a more interesting problem is for Sony itself though. As mentioned, they have suddenly turned their game into something were one can make money. The difference between gambling is very narrow, you play the game, and thorugh luck, is rewarded with "winning" various ingame items that can be traded into different ammount of money (probably depending on their rarity/odds). Instant gambling!! This can potentially cause problem for them since many countries regulate gambling quite a bit.
In addition they are basically seting up a new service with monetary costs, this again, means that the actual game play and activities in the game is directly related to their service and its fees and money changing hands, that is also regulated through normal consumer laws dealing with services and/or sales and such. For example, they sell you something in the game, now everything that applies normally when you buy something applies here too. In general, many of those things are regulated through various consumer laws that one simply can't just sidestep through contracts. A whole host of problems is being born here I would say.
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