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Florida Paper Details WoW Gold Lawsuit

South Florida's Sun-Sentinel surveys the legal landscape relating to virtual game goods in a pair of articles from today's edition.

The paper's primary report covers an attempt by World of Warcraft gamer Antonio Hernandez to ban virtual goods peddler IGE from selling WoW gold to players who lack either the time or commitment to earn it for themselves:
The case is thought to be the first of its kind -- a lawsuit filed by a player seeking to ban "real money trading" within a virtual world. Hernandez wants a judge to certify the case as a class-action lawsuit, another potential first when it comes to lawsuits involving online role-playing games.

"The real significance of this case is, 'What are the rights of the [virtual world] community members when they go online?'" said C. Richard Newsome, Hernandez's attorney.

IGE's attorneys argue that players cannot sue because they have no ownership over WoW's virtual world. Moreover, IGE claims it no longer sells gold in World of Warcraft.

For his part, Hernandez argues that gold farming operations damage the game's virtual economy, making it harder for players to earn enough gold to compete with those who purchase it from IGE and similar operations:
This loss of time, conservatively, amounts to hundreds of thousands of hours of subscriber time and causes the irreparable harm of driving subscribers away from World of Warcraft. The economic harm incurred by this loss of time is in the millions of dollars.

Hernandez' suit enjoys the blessing - if not the active participation - of WoW publisher Blizzard. Exec Paul Sams told the Sun-Sentinel:
We believe that shutting down gold farming and real-money transfer is in the interest of all World of Warcraft players and that a victory in this case would have a positive long-term effect on the online gaming industry as a whole.

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