Virtual Worlds - Real Laws: What Every MMOG Designer Needs to Know to Avoid Jail Time

Lecturer: James E. Dunstan, Garvey Schubert Barer

Next generation MMOG designers face significant challenges as games morph from “dungeon crawls” to sophisticated virtual worlds complete with their own economies and telecommunications infrastructures. As games evolve away from a monthly subscription model, designers are looking for new ways to monetize game content, everything from in-game advertising to microtransactions to sale of goods. And with MMOGs now part of mainstream entertainment, governments are stepping in to apply some real world regulation to virtual worlds. This session will tease out some of these issues and provide some practical approaches for dealing with “the man,” including:

Communications issues: Use of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for in-game communications. Does CALEA apply? What about the FCC’s various VoIP regulations? Use of encryption in server-to-client communications. What you need to know about telecommunications carriers targeting high bandwidth users and blocking or delaying packet transmissions.

Federal Trade Commission: In-game advertising: Use of webtracking malware and FTC “truth in advertising” laws.

FBI: Have you inadvertently created an online casino?

Duties to your on-line communities, including privacy rights vs. threats of immanent harm (abductions), demands for use of private data by courts; and are you a bailee for the virtual property bought and sold in the game?

International legal issues including European privacy law; individual country limitations on violence and sexual situations in game; Chinese laws on limiting playing time; UK and Japan both exploring photosensitivity seizure regulations for computer games.

This session provide some practical solutions to a number of these issues including:

• Building a regulatory compliance plan into your design documents;
• Building in the necessary legal budget to get this accomplished;
• Negotiating publication agreements that land as little of the liability on you as possible;
• Using third-party vendor contracts to either push these obligations off;
• Having a CSR plan for identifying legal issues and immediately taking them up the chain.
• Crafting End User License Agreements (EULAs) that make the necessary disclosures to be compliant with laws and regulations and shift burdens to players.

Although the session is set in a lecture format, it will be as interactive as possible and audience participation is encouraged. Just make sure you preface your questions with, “hypothetically speaking” or “I have this friend who is designing this game . . .”

Intended Audience: Game designers, producers, publishers; middleware providers

Prerequisites: Basic understanding of MMOG game design.

Format: Lecture

Track: Business/Legal

Date/Time: Wednesday, 2:00 PM

Room: Seaport

Dunstan - Virtual Worlds Real Laws.ppt