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2016 Wis. L. Rev. Forward 79 (2016)
Regulating Virtual Property with EULAS

handle is hein.journals/wlron4 and id is 77 raw text is: COMMENT REGULATING VIRTUAL PROPERTY WITH EULAS JAMES BONAR-BRIDGES* Introduction ................................ ...... 79 I. The Virtual Property at Stake in MMORPGs ............... 80 II. The End-User License Agreement ............... ...... 81 A. Minor Parties .............................. 81 B. Cheating the System. ........... ............. 82 C. Who Owns In-Game Property Under the EULA? ............ 84 III. Are EULAs the Best Tool for Regulating Virtual Worlds and Virtual Property? .............................. 86 A. Is the EULA an Enforceable Contract? ............. 86 B. Justifications for Using Contract Law over Property Law .. 88 C. Consumer Protection Laws ..................... 90 D. Criminal Law ............................... 90 Conclusion. ................................. ..... 91 INTRODUCTION Online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life are intensely successful products that have changed the face of modern entertainment. Part of their appeal is that they are as much social networks as video games: players create online identities (or avatars) to complete quests, collect items, and interact with other avatars in a fully realized digital world. As such, a large share of their value to prospective gamers comes from what other users are doing.' In * J.D. Candidate, 2016, University of Wisconsin Law School. The author wishes to thank Professor Stephanie Tai, whose research project led to the earliest version of this comment. 1. One only has to look to failed games of this genre with huge budgets and familiar licenses to see how easy it is for games dependent on an online user-base to be relegated to history. See, e.g., Neil Herndon, The Resounding Whimper of the 'Elder Scrolls Online' Release, FORBES (July 20, 2015, 9:32 AM), http://www.forbes.com/ sites/archenemy/2015/07/20/the-resounding-whimper-of-the-elder-scrolls-online- release/ (discussing the slow start of a game based in the popular Elder Scrolls universe); Matt Purslow, Marvel Heroes: How Gazillion Reversed the Fate of their Comic Book MMO, PCGAMEsN (Apr. 3, 2015), http://www.pcgamesn.com/marvel- heroes-2015/marvel-heroes-how-gazillion-reversed-the-fate-of-their-comic-book-mmo (explaining how the online game based on Marvel Comics characters-perhaps the hottest license around-reversed its disastrous launch by focusing more on its community).

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