Out of Pod Experience

Supported, although people will probably manage to hack the code to pieces and run it in an emulator anyway.

If it was really good and had enough players explayers will make emulator.
If it is not good enough for somebody to make emulator then maybe not worth bothering about anyway.

MMOs are subscription based. When they take the server down, you are no longer paying a subscription. Why do you think you should be entitled to get for free what you were paying for?

edit: And virtual goods are virtual, and the property of the developer rather than the player.

Ok I was thinking about how I could better explain this to the idiots who think they know it all but don't or people who may not understand the monetary assets section of this petition due to wording which may seem a little longwinded.

Simple explanation

Micro transaction stores that use special credits are like bank accounts. When you deposit money (buy store credits) you are making a deposit of monetary value.

Now say you deposited money in to a real bank account. A year down the line that bank then decides it wants to discontinue your type of account, but refuse to refund you any of the money that you had already put in to your bank account. Would this be fair? No. Would you say never mind and move on? Likely not. Would it be considered legal? I highly doubt it.

Yet this is what nearly every micro transaction store that does not use real money to directly pay for items says that they may do in their ToS or EULA. What's more is they say that the money you have deposited in to you account is no longer your money.

Now you may say that they could continue to do this even if the EU brought in legislation but in the EU any agreement that contradicts the law is not enforceable. It is also the right of any citizen of an EU member country to petition the EU parliament and it is important that people exercise that right to speak out against things that are wrong.



In the context of EVE

Again for people who find the actual petition difficult to understand because of the wording used I will try to help you understand what this would mean using EVE as an example.

ISK

No. You do not get reimbursed for isk. It's a feature of the game and has no real value outside of the game. You can not buy isk with real money. You could say "but I can sell plex for isk" but I'll cover this in the next section.

AUR

Yes. AUR would have to be refunded. You can only obtain AUR though depositing money with CCP and until this money is spent on items it is exactly that, a monetary deposit which should, if not be refundable, should at least be refunded if they decide to end their service.

"But I can buy PLEX with isk then turn it into AUR." Yes. Yes you can. However PLEX may also only be obtained through the use of real money and therefore, until they are used to purchase a service, represent a monetary deposit. This is why isk obtained through the sale of plex would not count. In exchange for in-game assets you are transferring that monetary deposit to the person who bought it of you. Think of it like an IOU. Better yet think of it as a bank note, which itself only represents a monetary value. Many of you should be familiar with the phrase "Please pay to the bearer, on demand, the some of".

So if the person who is then in possession of the PLEX uses it on game time, it is spent. The balance has been used to pay for a service. If it is converted into AUR then it still represents a monetary balance, and should CCP decide to close the EVE servers down, should be responsible for returning said deposit as it has not been used to purchase any service off them.



I hope this helps some of you who legitimately found this difficult to understand rather than simply being out to cause trouble. So please, if you believe that this practice is wrong, feel free to spread the word of the petition whether you are in the EU or not. Even if you want to view it from a purely selfish stand point once there is presedence for it somewhere then other countries may see the sense in enacting such protective measures.

The simple premise behind it is that trade should be fair for both the seller and the buyer. This is not meant in any way to take money away from developers nor allow other people to profit from their work. It is aimed at products that have been discontinued by the provider that you may have sank a considerable amount of time, money or any other asset in. That is why the petition also states that legislation should be put in place to prevent other people from profiting from the developers work i.e. they may not charge subscription fees if they decide to make any server they host accessible to the public but allow them to take voluntary donations towards hosting costs.

It's like the new law in the EU that states people can resell licenses they acquire. Whilst this is a good step for consumers it has to be implemented in a fair way. Since the law states that the original seller of the license is responsible for hosting the download even if the license is sold onwards it would be unfair to prevent, for example, steam (lets not get into the whole issue of whether or not you own your steam games this is just an example) charging a small commission on any facility the provide for the reselling of the license, which they would be obliged to do under EU law. Again lets ignore the whole "do you own it or is it a subscription" argument since there is good arguments for both sides (e.g. steam codes sold as part of the game not bought off steam have been advertised as you purchasing them and games being bought under older steam EULA/ToS) and since that's not what this petition is about. This was just an example of how things must be fair to both sides.