With virtual world’s forming into the next big thing on the horizon, the real world is starting to play catch up. Traffic stats are increasing and the money pouring into virtual worlds is starting to translate into real world money that cannot be ignored. Second Life LogoJust recently a report was released by Screencast.com, a business research and intelligence gathering company, that listed subscription sales for online virtual worlds rising to $526,000,000 in the US market in 2006 alone.

With all this money pouring into the virtual worlds and attention being given to these markets, entrepreneurs and business minds come alive. Just as if it were in the 1800’s and dreamers were running into the California gold rush, people are now running to virtual worlds for entertainment and business.

With business savvy and genius creations comes the bad side of the virtual world progression of litigation, scams and regulations. Lawsuits and discussions are rising in the area of virtual worlds and if real world laws and government regulations apply to these new worlds.

Probably just due to the fact of the mention of sex, the lawsuit coming out of the virtual world Second Life is setting boundaries. Second Life is one of the leading virtual worlds in self ownership. Second Life allows users to own land, collect rent, invent and sell and products and basically participate in a replica of real life, hence the name, Second Life.

The opportunity at Second Life has inspired entrepreneurs like Kevin Alderman to create virtual products for the virtual world. Alderman has created many products but one of his most successful products involved in a lawsuit is called SexGen Platinum. The SexGen program allows virtual world participants in Second Life to add a little bit of sexual flair to their Avatars (or characters they use in the game).

Business was going great for Alderman and his company Eros. However, just like in the Gavelreal world there are thieves and copycats and people that try to sell products as their own. An online persona naming himself, “Volkov Catteneo” started copying the program Alderman wrote for Second Life and selling to others at discounted prices. This issue is not about pennies here, the full program goes for a retail price of $45 US dollars. When Alderman contacted the person illegally selling his program the guy just mocked him and said, “What are you going to do? Sue me?” With that attitude, Alderman filed a civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida.

This specific lawsuit is very important to the virtual world industry as it will set standards in defining how much freedom people do have in virtual worlds and whether they have to obey every real world law. It isn’t often when avatars from the games start throwing around lawsuits but other litigation in the virtual world industry is not new.

Lawsuits are happening frequently that target the companies actually running the virtual worlds. In regards to Linden Labs, the makers of Second Life they run into lawsuits when they punish users for making bad deals or making the virtual world less fun for others. One recent case that was brought against Second Life was from a man named Marc Bragg, an attorney that used Second Life. The story is well covered in this Wired Magazine story here. Basically Marc Bragg was able to aquire cheap virtual land through underhanded methods and Second Life shut down his account. Since virtual land and products have a real world value, Mr. Bragg’s decided he would sue for the real world value of these products.

Currency ExchangeSome people question whether these virtual items really have any value at all. The real answer is they do in fact have a value when converted to real world dollars. For instance, in Second Life you can exchange your Linden dollars for U.S. dollars. The exchange rate has ranged anywhere from 200 - 350 Lindens to each U.S. dollar. This exchange rate almost rivals some of the world’s currencies in exchange value. Since people spend the virtual dollars on everything from real estate to avatar enhancements, they are spending money on items that do have a real value. The money making prospects has sent people into full time careers making money off of these virtual worlds.

What now remains to be seen is what standards and laws get passed on over to the virtual world from the real world. As lawsuits get settled people will learn the limits their avatars have and can quit making silly statements like, “What are you going to do, sue me?” Until these disputes are taken to the courts most people fight over who is right and wrong through companies that facilitate the transactions. PayPal has had a growing number of disputes due to virtual world disagreements. Until the values reach epic proportions most financial virtual world disputes will probably be settled by companies like PayPal and Second Life internally.

Do you think the courts should stay away from setting laws and regulations for virtual worlds or should the same laws and regulations apply to virtual worlds?

Canadians are used to paying more for games. Games have typically sold for roughly CAN$10 more than the US version—a difference often attributed to the exchange rate. When it comes to buying games through online stores, however, things are a little different. Usually, prices are listed online in the native currency and then the exchange rate is left to the credit card companies, offering fair and up-to-date pricing. However, the respective online stores found on the current generation consoles from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo don't follow this trend, and the pricing may not be as fair in the Great White North as a result of the rising Canadian dollar and a system that obscures what you're actually paying for games. 

Microsoft's pricing is region-specific, though the prices of points do not appear to be fluctuating with the Canadian dollar. Like Nintendo's system, Microsoft uses points to mask the true dollar value. There is no exchange rate conversion; each chunk of points carries an absolute value, no matter what value the native dollar is trading at. Currently, 500 Microsoft Points sell for US$6.25 through the Marketplace, whereas the price is CAN$7.75 for Canadian users. The games cost the same amount of points in both markets.

At the moment Canada is paying more per point than the US, and as the Canadian dollar gains value, Microsoft is basically pocketing the difference; having a set value for points that doesn't change in this case means the points themselves do not cost significantly more for Canadians. With the recent parity in currency, that means Canada is paying CAN$2 more for an 800-point game. It's not a lot of money, but that difference adds up, and there is very little reason for the difference to exist at this point.

A tipster sent us PDF document which looked like an outline of features for Battlefield 3. The three page document is apparently prepared for investors which should get it by December of this year. It details basic features of BF3, and are as listed:

* Release in late 2008
* Powered by “Frostbite DX”
* Set in year modern day (just like BF2, ed.)
* Will ship with 8 maps, each supporting up to 40-players per team
* Two playable factions, NATO and MEC (Middle Eastern Coalition)
* Same “ticket-based” gameplay style as before
* Maps are mostly urban, based in Middle East
* Squads and Commanders are present, introduced are “Battalions” which consist of three to four squads.
* Five playable classes; Sniper, Assault, Engineer, Medic and Support
* Will feature 48 different vehicles (24 for each faction)
* Will feature 34 different weapons (17 for each faction) and another 22 unlocks (for both factions), in total 56 different weapons.
* Other unlocks include different types of ammunition, body armor, helmets, camouflage and accessories.
* Possible public beta in “Summer 2008″
* Online stats tracking, awards and “real world ranks”
* “Soldier” feature, looks like MMO-styled characters and avatars
* Ranked servers will be available for resellers weeks before the game ships (for testing, apparently, ed.)
* In-game replay and recording feature
* VoIP, friends list, in-game IM-client and “extensive clan support”
* Built-in auto software updater (no more patches!, ed.)
* Widows Vista and OS X (no XP?!, ed.)
* Announcement and teaser trailer in January 2008.

A map is mentioned by name, called “Baghdad Burning”, and appears to be a massive urban map, similar to BF2’s very popular “Strike at Karkand”. The game is powered by “Frotbite DX”, currently the Frostbite engine is used in Battlefiled: Bad Company on PS3 and Xbox 360. The “DX” could refer to DirectX (10?), a PC version of the Frostbite engine.

Please note that none of this is confirmed, we’ve emailed a few people from EA and DICE (Battlefield developers) and will update the article as soon as we know more. Also note that we cannot, for obvious (legal) reasons, release the PDF document. Stay tuned for more info.

[Update 1] A few wanted to know if the document mentions in-game advertising, it does not, but wouldn’t be surprising, considering BF2142 had in-game advertising.

[Update 2] EA responded to the rumor with a “no comment” statement. Still waiting for a reply from DICE (which will probably be the same).

[Update 3] For clarification, the document doesn’t say that XP is not supported, it only lists Vista and OS X.

[Update 4] Further investigation reveals that EA DICE owns the domain “battlefield3.com” (not so important, since it was registered in 2004, so was battlefield4.com etc.). Still no reply from DICE. Stay tuned for further updates.
[Update 5] EA and DICE have responded to the rumor.

Just when we thought the Manhunt 2 drama was over, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has refused to rate the game yet again.

Initially rejected by the BBFC and rated AO (adults only) by the ESRB back in June - circumstances that rendered it essentially un-marketable - Manhunt 2 has been edited by Rockstar to obfuscate many of its most violent scenes. It has since been granted an M (mature) rating by the ESRB, allowing it to be sold in North America, but UK censors are still not biting. According to the BBFC, the game's content is still too grisly.

"We recognise that the distributor has made changes to the game, but we do not consider that these go far enough to address our concerns about the original version," said BBFC director David Cooke.

"The impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone, or the essential nature of the gameplay, is clearly insufficient.. There has been a reduction in the visual detail in some of the 'execution kills', but in others they retain their original visceral and casually sadistic nature," he added.

According to the BBFC, the only route left now is for Rockstar's parent company, Take Two Interactive, to make a formal appeal to the board.

Bungie's split from former parent company Microsoft will allow the Halo 3 creator more room to grow, says Bungie content manager and company spokesman Frank O'Connor.

"One of the things we're doing now is going forward and expanding the staff sensibly and at a manageable rate. In the future, that means we'll be able to work on multiple projects simultaneously," he told Wired News today.

While the newly independent developer is free to work on whatever it likes, O'Connor said that for the foreseeable future, Bungie will stick with Xbox 360. "We like the 360, it's a very comfortable environment for us to work. For the types of games that we make, it is the most successful platform for us to work on, given the types of titles that we work on... We're happy to grow that platform and make it a more logical place for us to stay."

The full text of our interview, below.

Wired News: So, what would have happened had Microsoft said, "No, Bungie, you can't leave?"

Frank O'Connor: Honestly, there's no -- it's a pure hypothetical question; "I have no idea" is the honest answer. Obviously, things would have been different, but we have no way of predicting how. Would it have been acrimonious? I don't know. Would things have continued pretty much as they were? Honestly, I don't know.

WN: What was the rationale for going independent? What was holding you back from doing what you wanted?

FO: It's a combination of factors. One is that there was nothing holding us back per se other than a few tedious logistical measures. Such as the fact that as part of Microsoft, we had to do things the Microsoft way: use their contractors, all those boring bookkeeping issues. Microsoft never stood in our way in terms of creative endeavors or imagination-related events. If we came up with a cool idea they would have continued to fund it as they did our other endeavors.

The difficulty is in extending the studio to do that. That was the practical difficulty. As far as creative difficulties, the biggest obstacle for anyone is going to be manpower. So obviously one of the things we're doing now is going forward and expanding the staff sensibly and at a manageable rate. In the future that means we'll be able to work on multiple projects simultaneously. We're already working on two right now -- the Peter Jackson project, and downloadable content.

In the future, we'd just like to be a little bit bigger and a little more flexible, and of course we will own our own IP ongoing which is pretty much the single most important factor to Bungie staff.

WN: Can you give me a little more information, flesh out the two projects you're working on now: the Peter Jackson project and the downloadable content?

FO: The [Peter Jackson] relationship is a fifty-fifty collaboration at this point. We supply technical and creative expertise, and they supply technical and creative expertise. It's pretty much as fifty-fifty as it can be. Our guys are often in New Zealand, or on -- we've set up a custom video conference line directly between us and Wingnut Interactive in New Zealand. And there's almost daily calls to that. It's almost as if they're here in a way.

The downloadable content is the same setup as we had with Halo 2, only Xbox Live Marketplace and some better planning mean that our tools are better and there's going to be much less convolution next time.

WN: How many people work at Bungie right now, and what's your target for the near future for your expansion?

FO: We literally don't have any targets other than we will hire who we need to hire for projects as they come online. Right now we have about 120 full-time staff.

WN: But the intent is to get to the point where you can be a two-team company.

FO: If we decide that we're working on one project forever and ever, we'll… at this point we'd continue to have 120 people. But if we end up being a three-project or a four-project team, we'll just hire to suit. If you grow your company too quickly, you're going to make compromises in hiring, and we don't want to do that. So we will try to manage our projects as we hire our staff and let the two sort of reach some kind of equitable balance before we set off with new projects. But that doesn't stop us doing skunkworks, spitballing, and creative process on whiteboards.

WN: What's the relationship with Xbox 360 going forward? Are you committed to that platform, or do you want to explore other consoles?

FO: Legally, our only commitment is to our publisher Microsoft Game Studios. But we can of course work on other projects on other platforms. The reality is that we like the 360, it's a very comfortable environment for us to work. Realistically, for the types of games that we make, it is the most successful platform for us to work on, given the types of titles that we work on. So it makes prudent fiscal sense for us to continue working on it. And certainly all of our near- and mid-term projects are all Xbox 360. So in that regard, not only has very little changed but we're happy to grow that platform and make it a more logical place for us to stay.

WN: You mention "the types of games Bungie makes." Does that mean you want to keep Bungie's core competence in making the games that Bungie has always made, rather than branch out and do different genres?

FO: Different genres wouldn't necessarily imply a different scale. So if we made a driving game, for example, we would try to make the most awesome driving game ever. Which would still require the same kind of technology to do that, which would still require the same kind of human creative input to do that. So the genre has very little to do with the scale of operation that we run.

But there's nothing to prevent us from working on a small Xbox Live Arcade title, and obviously that wouldn't require a great deal of resources. But we'll just have to see what those ideas are, and what those projects are, as they come up in the future.

WN: One of the details that was going around before the official announcement was that Microsoft was going to have right of first refusal on the games Bungie was making -- or is it the case that Microsoft Game Studios is the publisher from here on out?

FO: Microsoft Game Studios is our publisher for two projects that we've announced, and beyond that I can't talk about the details of the deal, because we are a privately held LLC, but on the other hand Microsoft is a publicly held company, so they might be able to talk about those details in more depth than we can.

WN: What's Bungie's relationship with Halo going forward? Are you guys committed to making the next major first-person shooter entry in this series, or is that still up in the air?

FO: We are definitely working on two Halo projects right now: the downloadable content and the Peter Jackson project. I've seen rumors that were literally just speculation that we were sick of working on Halo. That couldn't be further from the truth. We always had and continue to have very tight almost control-freakish relationship with that IP, which of course belongs to Microsoft, but we're still creatively associated with it and Microsoft trusts us to make cool Halo stuff in the short term. In the long term, who knows, if we have a cool story to tell in the Halo universe it's certainly something we'd consider.

WN: What's Bungie's relationship with Halo Wars?

FO: We consulted with them in the initial setup -- Ensemble knows how to make RTS games, we just helped them with canon, and vehicles, and fiction, and that sort of stuff. And we continue to keep a close eye on it. But at this point we're an interested observer. They're making a fantastic product. And obviously we're looking forward to playing it.

WN: Finally, have you played Portal yet?

FO: No, I'm trying to get Doug Lombardi to send me a free Orange Box because I've been promoting the hell out of it.

WN: They sent me one, so you should definitely.

FO: I'd better give him a call.