Last new years I predicted that EA would shell out a billion for another game company. I’m saying that their purchase of Jamdat Mobile is close enough to count as a score. Notice I also predicted a griefer attack that took out the SL grid. I’m just wiping the floor with Cory and his wimpy predictions. Anyway, I have to ask if this is a good thing for EA. I mean they get all kinds of groovy cell phone games with this acquisition, but they DON’T GET TRINGO!!!! It will be interesting to see if they mess up cell phone games as badly as they mess up their attempts at MMORPGs.

OK, Jack Thompson is turning up his offensive on EA for Sims 2 mods. Earlier we reported his statement in Gamespot that Sims 2 is “worse than hot coffee” and subsequent to that we posted his letter to the attorney at EA (copied to Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman etc). In his latest missive he has sent the appended letter to EA and major media outlets (like the Herald!) and copied congresspersons etc. He now has his eye on the Very Strange Sims site, which does have some gnarly sheeet, including the giant baby mods pictured above and the pic which he appended to his letter below. Be sure to see the Wikipedia article on JT. Quite interesting.

following is Jack Thompson’s most recent letter to EA. Screenshot attached to his letter:

Mr. Bene (VP, EA):

Please explain why EA doesn’t go after the copyright infringements exemplified by the below:

http://www.verystrangesims.com/contenttwo.html [for others, including Congressional staff on the blind email list, only scroll down if you want to see this graphic material that Electronic Arts is collaborating with the “mod community” to place on the “T” rated Sims 2 game:

One more thing: one modding site allows parents to tone down the sexual content in the shelf version of the Sims 2 University Pack so that kids can play it. What does that tell you about the unmodded sexual content of this “T” game?

Keep scrolling down for graphic Sims 2 material

keep scrolling

Pulling up a lawn chair, donning pith helmet, cracking open a cool one…

Steve Bené, Attorney
VP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Electronic Arts Inc.
209 Redwood Shores Parkway
Redwood City, CA 94065 fax: 650-628-1422 email: copyright@ea.com

Re: The Sims 2 and Porn

Dear Mr. Bene:

Mods are readily available via the Internet to turn the characters in your company’s The Sims 2 into nudes with exposed genitalia. This includes the children in the game. EA has made this modding easy by making it readily possible to remove “the blur” from the genital areas. Even the New York Times’ web site is providing this cheat code to remove the blur.

Adult “porn sites” are featuring, via free downloads, the mods that allow the consumer to customize the appearance of the labia, nipples, pubic hair, and penises. As you know, The Sims 2 already features reproductive activities in this “T” rated game.

Such modding is made more likely by public statements by the game’s creator, Will Wright, that he supports the modding of the game.

To the extent that your company does absolutely nothing to crack down on this apparent infringement upon EA’s copyrighted material, which is in possible violation of its various software agreements and warnings, then EA collaborates, in every sense of the word, with the modders to put this material into the hands of consumers, many of whom are children, given the inviting “T” rating on the game.

I urgently ask Electronic Arts to stop this modding activity by appropriate means, otherwise the “T” rating given the game by ESRB means, for all practical purposes, nothing and breaches trust with parents.

Regards, Jack Thompson

Copies: Media
U.S. Senators Clinton, Lieberman, Brownback, Santorum
California Assemblyman Leland Yee

Just yesterday we were predicting that “the other shoe tree” would drop on EA in the wake of major media discovering dirty mods. Today it is not only dropping, but it looks like a full-on Imelda Marcos shoe tree full of trouble. Gamespot is reporting that Miami Attorney and anti-gaming activist Jack Thompson has taken aim at the Sims II, claiming that it is WORSE than GTA San Andreas. OK then.

It seems that Thompson thinks the blurred privates in the Sims are occluding genitals that are actually there. EA Vice President for Corporate Communications Jeff Brown has responded that this is “ridiculous” and contends that what is blurred is a Barbie-style genital free zone. Despite the fact that Jeff Brown says this it is probably true, but the problem, as we predicted, is that the distinction is far too subtle for the average person to sort out, and functionally it doesn’t make a lick of difference (in each case one merely needs to download a simple mod). This whole thing has me completely stressed out. Think I’ll steal some cars and shoot some hookers to calm down.

EA’s Vice President for Corporate Communications, Jeff Brown

Our good friend Jeff Brown (VP for corporate communications at EA) has scored the uncoveted “Bastard of the Week” award from Offshoring Digest. Not sure if there is an Orwell Newspeak Prize, but if there is he’s a lock to get that one too.

Well, as much as it just kills us to say we told you so, we told you so. Several weeks ago we reported that several EA executives were dumping shares of EA stock. Insider trading? Jeff Brown said no, which made us think: yes! And surprise surpise surprise, EA now has cut their earnings estimates and the price of the stock has dropped 13%. Gee, those execs were pretty “lucky” to have sold just before losing 13% of their assets. But we aren’t the only ones to notice the *cough* coincidental *cough* insider selling followed by stock drop. Some shareholders have too. And here come the lawsuits!

“Iwata-san [President of Nintendo] has the heart of a gamer, and my question is what poor bastard’s chest did he carve it from?”

“Games grow through innovations. Creations of new game styles that spawn imitators and whole new markets. The story of the past few decades is not about graphics and processing power, but startling innovation and industry. That’s why we love games. BUT IT’S OVER NOW!”

“First of all I don’t hate you, Will Wright. I just had one of those ‘I’m not worthy’ moments in the elevator.”

“How often DO they perform human sacrifices at Nintendo?? My friends, we are FUCKED. We are well and truly fucked.”

“I’m going to rant about How Sony And Microsoft Are About To Screw Your Game Design”

Our Cory responds to some of the Chicken-Little Apocalypse Now scenarios with a nod to Small Studios and Do-It-Yourselfers and also provides a sensible ‘Six Ways To Make Games Without EA’. Second Life is well-represented and the example for Way Number Six is ‘Tringo’ – which some SL residents, however, would point to as a sign that the apocalypse is coming.

If it is, maybe we can fool around with some games while we’re waiting? Cory argues, “…if you want to make games, MAKE GAMES! There has never been an easier time to make games. The answer is not to bitch about EA not wanting to hand you millions of dollars…”

Or is it? The debate rages on. Why not break out your Anonymous Coward avatars, your flame-throwers and your fire-extinguishers and jump into the burning rings?

Or maybe you’d prefer to never-mind-the-bollocks and actually answer Cory’s challenge? Linden Labs recently announced the Second Life 2005 Game Developer’s Competition. Maybe everyone will be talking about your crazy-ass GDC rant in a few months.

If those aren’t your style there’s some other interesting ideas in the original GDC rants to have a wank about. Brenda Laurel skirts the wang-toting machinations of the boys and tackles ‘social myths’ in gaming – invoking Guy Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’. I found this little tidbit fascinating (though doubtful):

“GTA. I talked to 22 little boys in LA, all of them wanted to see that game. With only one exception, the thing that they wanted to see was to be able to drive by their house. They weren’t interested in stealing cars. Or the criminals. Or the back-story. They weren’t interested in that, they wanted the simulation of driving by the house.”

Someone should send those boys some SL invites. Here they could simulating living in their house. They can simulate eating a goddamn bowl of corn-flakes for breakfast if they want to. But they shouldn’t be listing their copies of GTA on Ebay just yet. SL might have housing well-covered but people here still just laugh in my face when I try to carjack them. Feature-request for 1.7: Brass knuckles force object-transfers.

Let’s make it happen!

Neal Stewart comments on Eric Goldman’s draft paper ‘Speech Showdowns at the Virtual Corral’, where under-age cyber-prostitutes, free-speech, corporate censorship – and our very own Urizenus Sklar – are the topic of the day.

So what should we do about Second Life residents who are into swastikas, cartoon child porn, sculptures of breast-feeding mothers, upskirt pictures, and calling other people naughty, naughty words in forums?

At ClickableCulture.com Tony Walsh – aka Second Life’s Zero Grace – recently drew our attention to a draft paper by Eric Goldman entitled ‘Speech Showdowns at the Virtual Corral’. Goldman, who is Assistant Professor of Law at Marquette University Law School, discusses in some detail The Sims Online controversy between TSO parent-company Electronic Arts and the SLHerald’s very own Peter Ludlow (aka Urizenus Sklar). Goldman argues that virtual worlds are no ‘different or special from a legal standpoint compared to other types of online services.’ And that he therefore sees ‘no reason why we need to distort First Amendment jurisprudence or create special rules to protect virtual world participants from censorship.’

What was the TSO controversy all about? The Second Life Herald is actually a refugee from Electronic Arts’ MMOG The Sims Online. The newspaper – then known as ‘the Alphaville Herald’ – is the brainchild of Urizenus Sklar, who’s Real Life avatar goes by the name of Peter Ludlow. Ludlow helps the University of Michigan with dwell traffic as a Professor in the Philosophy and Linguistics department.

The Herald didn’t pull its punches back in the TSO days either. Its vivid exposés of the game’s more seedier elements gained international notoriety (CNN, BBC Online, Salon.com) in December of 2003 with the publication of an interview with ‘Evangeline’, who claimed to be an under-age girl in real life working as a ‘cyber-prostitute’ in ‘brothels’ found on TSO. According to Evangeline, her text-based cyber-sex services earned her as much as $50 US per session in the TSO ‘simoleon’ currency.

Within two days of posting the story Electronic Arts terminated Urizenus’ TSO account. Their claimed justification was that Urizenus had committed an obscure URL-deep-linking Terms of Service violation in his in-game profile – an ‘offense’ that many players claim was, and still remains, a common practice in TSO. Furthermore, the account was permanently terminated after only 11 hours into a temporary 72 hour suspension.

Professor Goldman is unsympathetic to Ludlow’s case, compares it to other examples of companies firing their customers, and argues that members of online spaces like TSO (and arguably SL) are not entitled to free-speech rights. His paper is articulate and well-reasoned, and I say that in part because it is and in part because it’ll make me look good in the event that I convince you to disagree with him. We would also do well, however, to remember that his paper is currently only a draft and subject to change.

Taking issue with the term ‘cyber-prostitution’

One of the first points Goldman takes issue with is Urizenus’ use of the term ‘cyber-prostitution’. He writes, “The term “cyber-prostitution” implied that avatars were engaging in simulated sex, but nothing so lurid was taking place—indeed, the game architecture [TSO's] did not permit simulated sex.” The footnote he provides as evidence however is Amy Harmon’s NY Times article. In this article she states in no uncertain terms that, “Sims sex is, indeed, simulated. It consists mostly of players at a keyboard typing into a dialogue bubble displayed above the heads of their pixelated characters, perhaps while using the “slow dance” command or lying on a simulated bed.” Perhaps Goldman’s definition of ‘simulated sex’ is at odds with Amy Harmons’, in that he doesn’t consider there to be a ‘simulation’ if there are no graphics. The implicit argument here is hardly an uncontroversial one – to say that cybersex isn’t the same thing as ‘simulated sex’ – particularly in light of the graphics argument. Are you ‘simulating sex’ if you click on a sex button, then a partner, and your two avatars go at it, but not simulating it when you have two people interacting within a purely text-based, shared sexual narrative?

In any case, perhaps Goldman’s intent is to downplay the significance of Urizenus’ claims in order to make EA’s termination of the account more reasonable. It seems apparent however that Uri’s use of the term ‘cyber-prostitution’ was a play on the term ‘cyber-sex’ and in that context an accurate characterization. Princeton’s CogSci dictionary defines cyber-sex as ‘sexual arousal involving communication on the internet’. ‘Cyber-prostitution’ is therefore a reasonable term to use to describe the act of providing sexual stimulation via the internet for money – be it U.S currency or Simoleons that can be bought and sold for U.S. dollars.

Peter Ludlow as cause célèbre

Another point that Goldman raises is worth addressing, although more of an observation on the issue than an argument. Goldman says that, “Not surprisingly, Ludlow’s claim received some publicity”. But he later comments; “What is unusual, however, is that Peter Ludlow’s story has become a cause célèbre. His termination was covered by the New York Times, the Boston Globe, CNN, the BBC and Salon, and influential professors like Jack Balkin of Yale Law School have supported his cause.”

Goldman here is a bit like a plumber who’s unimpressed with the Apollo 11 because it doesn’t have any toilets. Perhaps the overall tone of media coverage has been in support of Ludlow (that’s an empirical claim beyond the scope of this article) but Goldman, as a lawyer, seems to be ignoring some of the non-legal features of the story. As Salon reported, “Several other games have fan sites or newspapers that cover them, but experts could recall no other instance of clear-cut censorship.” Although the legislative debate around corporate censorship of customers featured large in some corners, the overall debate was not over what the U.S. government should do but what EA did do. The point of interest was the way EA handled customer criticisms and bad PR; some people saw their response as legitimate and others were appalled. In the latter, this was particularly the case with parents who felt that they were entitled to know the things that children – potentially their children – were doing on TSO.

Second Life: Stormy Roentgen with her PG-sim-banned breast-feeding sculpture (nipples).

Second Life: A banned Swastika flanked by also-banned Penii of Grief.

Switching costs and market failure

Goldman suggests that virtual worlds like TSO and SL are no different from other online spaces that are legally allowed to terminate member accounts for whatever reason they choose. He says, “The strongest argument I have heard to distinguish virtual worlds from other online spaces is that virtual world participants invest significantly in their online persona, and this investment creates switching costs for participants that impedes the ability of market forces to reward and punish virtual world providers appropriately. If true, these switching costs may create a market failure requiring regulatory intervention.” Part of his response is that other online communities have comparable switching costs (eg. email, webhosting, blogs) and that he ‘needs more persuasion that the switching costs in virtual worlds exceed these switching costs’.

However, if we visit Goldman’s blog he points out:

Some virtual world participants invest significant time and money in their online characters—earning (or otherwise obtaining) virtual money or items, gaining experience/levels, creating or customizing online "property" (such as houses or widgets that are for sale in the virtual economy) and forming social networks. In some cases, participants purchase items, cash or characters with real cash either directly from the provider or in a secondary market like eBay. All of these "investments" can be lost or diminished if a virtual world provider terminates the individual’s account or otherwise changes the rules or environment of the world.

These costs do not seem comparable to switching costs for email, for example. If I move from Hotmail to Yahoo, I can notify every person in my contact list or inbox accordingly. Anyone who’s written my address on the back of a cocktail napkin with lipstick is going to be out of luck though. With changing webhosts, my domain name will stay the same and the only switching costs will be the actual time taken to set up an account elsewhere and transfer all the webpages. For blogs, I may have to convert the archived posts into a format that is compatible with the new blog. This is generally do-able and in the worst case scenario the old posts can still be salvaged in a readable format. These are all tasks that are likely to take only a few hours at worst.

With Second Life, however, there’s simply nowhere else to switch to (no one else is even close). And even if there was, it seems unlikely that you’re going to be able to take much of your investment with you. An alternative virtual world would need to have a 3D-engine compatible with SL, such that you could somehow export all the objects/scripts you have ever purchased or crafted yourself, and import them into this new world. Even if the residents could sell off their land purchases before switching, they’re not going to be able to somehow get refunds on all their vehicles, buildings, clothing, avatar-attachments and weapons. In the past 8 months residents have spent a total of $L 117,986,520.00 (currently about $US 480,216.94) on direct purchases of in-game objects alone (although to be fair you also need to look at the number of residents, where the money originally came from and where the money has gone). When a lot of these items are crafted, it’s not like a MMORPG where your character gathers some wood and some paint and clicks on ‘Build Piano’. In SL objects are made the same way that designers, builders and artists do it in the real world – piece by piece and usually without blueprints. You can spend hours building individual piano keys by modifying primitive building blocks, and then you can embed an audio script that you have written yourself into each one. Furthermore, SL grants the creators intellectual property rights over these creations. There is also a huge range of complex social investments involved. So, overall the switching costs do seem to be significant and may result in market failure after all.

Telephones, malls and public spaces

Putting Professor Goldman’s paper to one side, the central problem of this great debate seems to be whether or not worlds like Second Life and The Sims Online are the same as real-world community spaces where residents are entitled to free-speech rights that overrule private property rights. The most common tack has been to make an analogy to telephone services or malls.

If you can say whatever you want over the telephone without fear of the phone company canceling your account, why isn’t it the same in online worlds? There are clearly similarities but the features of online worlds seem to strain the analogy to breaking point. Although Linden Labs are primarily hosting-providers, technically they are also content-providers. They create all the land for example, preside over disputes, release currency and make rule-adjustments to prevent inflation. But they are also content-removers. The terrain is wide, complex and controversial; allegedly, sculptures of nipple-exposed breast-feeding mothers are deleted from PG sims, swastikas are deleted from Mature sims, residents can be banned for Nazi-based group names or taking ‘upskirt pictures’ of residents, cartoon child porn, or ‘personal attacks and inflammatory statements’ in secondlife.com forums. Both The Sims Online and Second Life also have ‘any-reason’ termination clauses (“Linden has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to suspend or terminate your Account…”). Check out the Community Standards and Terms of Service.

In the phone analogy – even without the censorship elements – Linden Labs’ presence effectively amounts to a company employee actually participating in the phone conversation, occasionally initiating or guiding the dialogue, chipping in with rejoinders and commentary. So the mall analogy becomes more attractive.

With the mall analogy, however, free-speech takes a hit. In the U.S. there are only six states that have legislation preventing mall staff from removing you if they don’t like what you say. In the others you’re fair game. But in either case, who really cares? Do we actually need these public spaces? In ‘Reclaiming and Remaking Public Space: Toward an Architecture for American Democracy’, Kevin Mattson writes:

The relationship between public space and democracy is crucial. Democracy requires places where citizens can gather together to discuss the issues of the day and work on solving problems ... This space... facilitated the potential gathering of strangers. Only in public can citizens meet and talk with fellow members of society they do not associate with in the realms of work and family life (the two other central places in most people's lives) ... public space cements the necessary basis of democratic citizenship--the ability to associate with other citizens in a civil manner, respect other citizens, and join with them in common projects involving dialogue.


If this is the primary purpose of public spaces, why must they be limited to local areas with grass and gravel? Can’t virtual spaces facilitate civic interaction more effectively than their physical counterparts, by gathering an even larger number of ‘strangers’ from a greater variety of locations, with an even wider range of views? Today it seems that town commons, public squares and parks are rapidly shrinking while privately-owned commercial spaces are becoming all the more pervasive. If so, do these private spaces then somehow become the new public spaces, legally assuming some of the same responsibilities and privileges? Is there a virtual world model that can simultaneously maximize profitability and free-speech, while also minimizing legal liability? Or are the three fundamentally at odds with one another? If so, what impact will this have on democratic societies?

Wowzers, no sooner do I post the story about 7 EA execs suddenly dumping stock in EA (NOT insider trading, we are assured), but a friend points me to this article — Wire: Bing Takes A Chair At USC! It seems that EA has endowed a chair in interractive entertainment at USC. Very nice, but who will hold this chair the first two years? Why none other than EA Founder and CEO: Bada Bing Gordon! It’s good to be the Emperor. Meanwhile, my friends who teach at USC are soooo proud…