Raph's Website » Class action suit against IGE

Class action suit against IGE

May 31st, 2007 (Visited 5436 times) Tags:

Seems like a busy day for legal stuff.

Over here we have a complaint against IGE by a class of World of Warcraft players. In short, they claim that

IGE causes spamming, conspires with gold farmers, and does so against the TOS
IGE is also financially hurting the other players by devaluing their gold.

Because of IGE’s infusion of gold, virtual currency being held by honest Subscribers is constantly devalued. The devaluation of this virtual currency has an economic value in real dollars as reflected on Defendants’ website. This devaluation of Plaintiff and the Class’s gold, which was caused by Defendants’ sale of gold in World of Warcraft, is conservatively, in the millions of dollars.

I believe this is commonly termed “having your cake and eating it too.”

There’s another fun claim in there: because people can buy IGE gold, which makes them better in the game, they get better PvP Arena records, which causes honest players to miss out on the chance at real-world money prizes from the Arena Tournaments.

Quite a slippery slope here. Should Blizzard devalue their own currency, would a class action suit appear against them for that? Banking law, here we come…

Edit: some looking around for the source of this suit finds this press release and law firm.

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The Forge · Player sues IGE wrote on May 31st, 2007 at 11:36 am:

[...] Makes me wonder if the plaintiff planned to sue before Affinity Media sold IGE a little while ago. Raph has comments on this as well. [...]

Broken Toys :: Wut Oh, Part Two wrote on May 31st, 2007 at 11:45 am:

[...] you could see Blizzard entering into the suit… on IGE’s side. Because as Raph put it in his comments, Should Blizzard devalue their own currency, would a class action suit appear against them for that? [...]

MMODump.com » Wut Oh, Part Two wrote on May 31st, 2007 at 1:13 pm:

MMODump.com » Player sues IGE wrote on May 31st, 2007 at 1:13 pm:

WoW Forums -> Class action lawsuit against IGE!!! wrote on May 31st, 2007 at 1:39 pm:

[...] u o t e: Well, can you at least link us to the story on Raph’s site please? http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/05/31/class-action-suit-against-ige/ yeah, right on the heels of Bragg v. Linden, big day for MMO legal [...]

What Would Matt Do wrote on May 31st, 2007 at 10:11 pm:

s been pretty iffy. But I think the holy trinity of guys I linked above are on to something, this could have a big effect through out the industryâ€¦ Second, a Class Action lawsuit is being brought againstâ€¦IGE! I know, confusing, right. What are they charging in this lawsuit? Because of IGEâ€™s infusion of gold, virtual currency being held by honest Subscribers is constantly devalued. The devaluation of this virtual currency has an economic value in real dollars as reflected on Defendantsâ€™ website. This

RAY YU .: Ray of Light wrote on June 5th, 2007 at 7:23 am:

Class Action Lawsuit Against IGE…

Besides Blizzard’s lawsuit against Peons4Hire, the players have taken matters into their own hands by filing a class action lawsuit against IGE, citing:
IGE’s gold farming activities not only substantially diminish the enjoyment and satisfa…

ACC Verkauf - Seite 5 - daoc-guide.de wrote on June 6th, 2007 at 6:30 am:

[...] Zitat von Holzkohle Den hier find ich spassiger ;.-) http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc/spiel…_warcraft.html und Tschüß http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/05/31…t-against-ige/ [...]

Massive Update: Weekly MMO News news from 1UP.com wrote on June 8th, 2007 at 12:44 pm:

[...] a pair of equally landmark Massive-related court conflicts. Certainly the most sensational is the class action lawsuit leveled against IGE by a player in Florida. Essentially, IGE is getting sued because they’re devaluing the in-game [...]

Massive.Update++ at MMOG Nation wrote on June 9th, 2007 at 9:29 pm:

[...] the most sensational is the class action lawsuit leveled against IGEthey’re devaluing the in-game monetary worth (pdf) of every single World of Warcraft player. [...]

One gold spam thread to rule them all - Page 5 - The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ Forums wrote on September 21st, 2007 at 9:03 am:

[...] on the grounds that the sellers were degrading the plaintiffs’ paid-for game experience. http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/05/31…t-against-ige/ __________________ ——————— The road goes ever on and on… as long as you stop at [...]

Wut Oh, Part Two wrote on November 1st, 2007 at 7:52 am:

CmdrSlack.com » Lawsuits, Lawsuits, Everywhere! (Bragg v. Linden Lab and the IGE Class Action) wrote on December 9th, 2007 at 7:31 pm:

[...] on, we have another case reported by both Lum and Raph. In a move that I can only describe as “nutty” (which is a complex legal term), someone [...]

Steven Davis said on May 31st, 2007 at 12:06 pm:

I just don’t see how a TOS violation to which the other players are not a party - after all the TOS is between an individual and Blizzard can be used as the basis for a class action.

Also, if you accept Blizzard’s contention that gold has no value, then the second portion of the case disappears (after all, there is no real financial value to WOW Gold, from Blizzard’s perspective).

Given the danger of the second claim - will Blizzard take IGE’s side in the suit?

Kerri Knight said on May 31st, 2007 at 1:28 pm:

Is there something a bit more concrete to confirm this? I don’t see the case listed on the Southern Florida District Court site, other 05/30 filings are listed (though this is the government we’re talking about).

Raph said on May 31st, 2007 at 1:54 pm:

TerraNova has blogged it too:

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/bragg_and_ige_c.html

They are also hosting a local copy of it though they have a few more details.

Michael Chui said on May 31st, 2007 at 3:38 pm:

IGE is also financially hurting the other players by devaluing their gold.

Now that’s funny. I’ll have to read the actual lawsuit tonight.

BettyBlue said on June 2nd, 2007 at 3:30 am:

I guess this is the first secret strategic attack of Affinity Media (Brock) who sold IGE to Yantis recently. And the next step would be destroying the B2C and start C2C soon like Sparter.

suske said on June 3rd, 2007 at 8:17 am:

about time someone stepped up and said no to goldfarming! it will be interesting to see the industry operate if this guy actually wins.
will all game companies be expected to fight farming and transactions?

Andy Wright said on June 5th, 2007 at 3:41 am:

It’s ironic - as I type this on Raph’s site there are 2 ads immediately below the reply box selling “gold” (ISK) in Eve.

I’m of the opinion that RMT is by far the biggest threat to MMORPG’s extant today and anything that seeks to reduce it is “a good thing”. It warps game design since any in-game economic model has to cope with rampant botting,duping and farming. It also encourages criminal activity (i.e. keylogger injection via advertising), by offering real-world incentive to in-game cheating.

One thing that occurs to me: Could IGE’s activities not be compared to those of people who push “banned” (as opposed to illegal) performance enhancing drugs to athletes? Are there any other real-world comparisions that could be made?

Raph said on June 5th, 2007 at 7:04 am:

Andy, we keep trying to block the gold sales ads, but they manage to get through anyway. I am probably leaving hundreds on the table by blocking the single largest category of ad.

Chris said on June 5th, 2007 at 11:00 am:

If Blizzard were sincere about a solution, they would fix the in-game economics. They maintain a price structure for mounts that makes it prohibitive and drives players to an alternative means to secure gold. Also, the prices in the AH need to be regulated to avoid the massive overpricing of items. Items should be prohibited from being priced at more than 10x the vendor value, and if an item doesn’t sell the seller should receive the basic vendor rate and the item is then removed from in-game inventory instead of returned. Those are two relatively easy advances in eliminating the inflated price structure that drives the demand for gold.

Class action suit against IGE

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