Hernandez drops HK IGE - Florida Economic Crimes Office investigates
by Tateru Nino 
Jan 4th 2008 at 12:00AM
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Economy, Events, real-world, MMO industry, Legal
If you've been following Hernandez vs IGE, you'll probably be a bit surprised to find that the Plaintiff (Hernandez) has dropped Hong Kong Internet Gaming Entertainment Limited (IGE) from the Defendants. USA IGE US LLC (the other IGE) remains on the docket.
The Plaintiff alleges that IGE is gold-farming, spawn-camping, devaluing gold, spamming chat, and generally screwing up the experience for everyone else.
The Plaintiff had to drop HK IGE LTD as a Defendant, as they were unable to serve process within 90 days. Serving process across international boundaries is subject to the Hague Service Convention, which was enacted to avoid the use of slower consular and diplomatic channels, but frequently takes a good deal longer than 90 days.
Additionally the Florida Economic Crimes Office is reported to have issued a subpoena for documents "pursuant to the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act in the course of an official investigation."
Copies of the documents and both excerpts and a fuller analysis are available at virtual worlds law blog Virtually Blind, who are providing excellent coverage of this case in depth.
"The subpoena is extensive, seeking detailed information about IGE's gold farming activity, business dealings in Florida, relationship with Affinity Media, and much more," said Benjamin Duranske, editor of Virtually Blind.
This subpoena is essentially the first shot in a US Government investigation that is treating virtual goods/services on a par with more tangible ones - so it's going to be extremely interesting to follow, whatever stripe of MMO or Virtual World you're involved in. It may set no precedents, but it will doubtless have flow-on effects in the virtual spaces you spend time in.
[via Virtually Blind]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ghen said on 8:07AM 1-04-2008
That is interesting. Who would've thought the feds would be that hip?
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Jinintaanik said on 12:34PM 1-04-2008
Thanks for the link to Virtually Blind. Cool stuff.
I'm curious about Blizzard's stance on this case. I WANT to believe that they would get involved and help stop the farmers. They'll probably ignore it or turn a blind eye towards the "paying accounts".
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Tateru Nino said on 1:51PM 1-04-2008
It is our understanding that Blizzard supports the action in principle. Whether that translates to practical support of the legal action in any substantive way, we'll have to wait and see.
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Benjamin Duranske said on 3:47PM 1-04-2008
Blizzard did a press release saying they support it. Here's how it may play out.
The theory of this case is "third party beneficiary to a contract." That sounds complex, but it's basically saying that everybody who plays WoW is the "beneficiary" of the agreement Blizzard makes with all the other players, including IGE's gold farmers. So everybody (the class) is suing IGE, and saying that when IGE broke their contract with Blizzard (by farming gold, spamming chat, camping spawns, etc.) they hurt everybody else.
Here's the key -- for the lawsuit to work, "everybody else" has to be the *intended* beneficiary of the contract, and that's usually really hard to prove.
But if Blizzard supports this, all they have to do is file a declaration saying that everybody else *was* the intended beneficiaries, and the problem largely goes away.
I'm oversimplifying some, but basically, yes... it's a very big deal that Blizzard supports it, and if they put their money where their mouth is when it comes time to file a declaration, they could significantly help the case against IGE. My guess is that they did that press release (available at the link below) as a shot across the bow of IGE, and that they will step up when it comes time.
http://www.igeclassaction.com/?p=5
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