Did you mean “We could go on making groups of *reasonably large* PC gamers”? How do you target that demographic? Your game comes in a box of waffles?

Or did you mean “We could go on making reasonably large groups of PC gamers”?

Snark snark snark… :P

Sony wouldn’t be the only company providing a specialized service for which it charges a fee. Most MMOs are willing to move your character from where you put it to where you want it for a fee because the fee covers the cost of the service provided. It neither establishes nor refutes ownership in the same way that FedEx does not establish or refute ownership of the Picasso.

And sales tax has nothing to do with establishing anything; the government uses the term “sales tax” to cover both item and service sales. It’s not a good basis for determining ownership. My brother may buy a car and I may pay the sales tax for him, but that doesn’t make me the owner of the car.

In my mind, if you’re going to try to make a game character the intellectual property of the player, you’re going to have to prove that everything (and I mean everything) about that character originated in the mind of the player; that it was neither inspired by nor fettered by limitations imposed by the game system; that the same character can be transfered between mediums to those exact specifications; that you have established ownership via legal registration (trademarking, copyrighting) or a bill of sale; that when the game company goes out of business you are still in possession of your game character; that you can license the use of your game character however you see fit to whomever you see fit. If these proofs of property rights cannot be applied, then you don’t own it.

For some players, simply playing an MMO is a step outside of their comfort-zone. Trying to force people to be “more social” tries forcing a primarly-introverted person into an extroverted-role.

Were the person mostly extroverted, passtimes other than video games likely would hold that person’s focus. Games that try to force socialization are run by people guided by a false view of their target market.

Part of the market may be overseas military personnel, who are used to working in isolated jobs. They still may want to solo, since any real-life interruption could occur at any moment, causing them to abandon their group in an instanced-section. Until games instantly reconfigure the instance based upon the group’s composition, unexpected interruptions discourage many from grouping.

Those bridges in Shoushi weren’t there for nothing. :)

It wasn’t tactical or strategic, but it was really, really fun to see if you could make yourself twist around before plunging into the depths.

I miss the unique AC2 classes. The healers/tanks, the basic DPS… not so much. But hivekeeper? tactician? mentalists?? Crazy, neat, inspired ideas that never got the chance they deserved (not for your lack of trying though… you fought the good fight).

As a user of Second Life, I know that it’s basically a world where everything is user created content. From the shape of your avatar, what clothing it wears, and the stuff you carry. Another user, somewhere, figured out the system and created it themselves. Photo-shopping for clothing, sitting in hours in the script or build interface to create a program or item respectively, or (as I sell in Second Life) working with an animation program to make new animations avatars can use to modify their visual behaviors.

By my records, I made $1000 worth of cash last year off Second Life. Not in game cash, REAL cash. Second Life ties their in game “virtual” money to the dollar in the real world. It even has an exchange rate, like any currency. For comparison, if I trade in close to 100K of their in game cash, I can make about $500 dollars US. So this takes the whole idea of virtual property in a new direction. Now, I’m not only creating original work via a provided interface, but I’m making real world money off it. This is more of a dilemma then I would have if I just kept playing my Warlock in WoW (In which all items and customizations are provided by Blizzard).

Just some food for thought.

- Polecat

Also remember that in order to enforce sales taxes, laws typically take a broad view. For example, in many states car leases are taxed on the full valuation of the car as if it was sold, despite the fact that it is a ‘right to use’ contract. It’s sensible to understand why, without broad view of what ’sale’ and ‘property’ are, sales taxes would be unenforcable — as everyone could just write non-terminating right to use contracts.

I can believe a fixed price transfer fee is legitimizing the item as property, and in that case it may limit what a supplier can do to take that item away from you in the eyes of the court. (though it would have to be worth a court battle). Further, charging a percentage transfer fee sounds quite a bit like the actual value is being legitimized, and I can imagine this running right into interesting property ownership and taxation laws. Several states are going after itunes for sales tax on music downloads, that lvl 80 sword a couple years from now could be next.

This was an interesting part of a comment above - “feelings of resentment and distrust arise, and then alternative means of trade are searched for.” Circumventing the rules because they don’t like them is never going to get players a day in court to test their very shaky theory. The IP still belongs to the company, the only entity entitled to feel any resentment and distrust because the rights being violated are theirs. A frustrated and angry burglar is still a burglar when it comes right down to it.