How Responsible Is a Communications Provider?
Eve Online's publisher, Crowd Control Productions, denies any liability for content carried in their massive multiplayer online game specifically. By this, they avoid contractual obligation for publications made by users in their forums. This protection seems obvious and neccessary in the case of chat service providers, email carriers, and private content under Freedom of Speech statutes. However, we begin to cross a line between Free Speech and marketing objectives when the ESRB are asked to certify the content of a product designed for sale to Ages 13 and up. The fact that the drug community in Eve Online is strong and far from subtle about their beliefs and intentions serve to blur the lines of a 'fantasy' product deeply and create a chilling image of knoweldgable consent and support based on recent experiences.
Unlike ad-hoc services with dozens of servers and millions of users, Eve Online has only 8-12K active users online simultaneously at the time of this writing. The characters compiled at left were obtained in a 5 minute search using tools which are built-in to the end-user client searching two keywords: "weed" and "crack". They are not the majority of results found in this search, but typical to a growing theme that the publisher seems to shirk.
Eve Online is almost entirely managed by SQL (standard query language) databases, making simple searches like this one a trivial administrator task. Why, then, are some of the characters visible at left over one year old?
As it was put to me by my counterpart in the UK, Europeans just don't take drug references as seriously as Americans do. Its not like the other players are "putting a needle in their arm and showing them how to shoot up". Normally I would agree in principle, with respect to mature players own judgement, citing the presence of 'narcotics' as usable items in games like Black Isle's "Fallout Tactics". Talking about drugs as a plot element and a usable in-game item with detrimental effects is certainly within the realm of 'mature' audiences and science fiction.
However, what has been observed recently in Eve is somewhat different. The use of drugs as a trade commodity, acquired on some 'player missions' as contraband for retention and sale by the player character. Further, the description of many drugs in the 'Narcotics' section of the Eve Marketplace are very positive in terms of effect, combined with images that resemble white power in little bags, vials of hallucinigenic liquid, and medical 'pill' tablets. As a plot device, viable primarily for trade and resale by players to generate in-game revenue, this goes a bit further.
Personally, I didn't think much of it until I started encountering pro-drug organizations in EVE and observing a trend of indifference by support staff toward this content. Again, this would not have been a concern were the game not still being sold at Amazon.com and major outlets under the ESRB 'T for Teen' rating - designating age appropriateness for 13 year olds and above.
It came to a head for me when I asked myself, "Are public attitudes against drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and the drug trade really so different in the home countries of these players?" I also became concerned as large in-game organizationsof 100-150 players 'Chief Executive Officers' related pro-drug slogans in their bios and content. At an organizational level in a game officially aimed at ages 13 and up, this seemed highly inappropriate and damaging. The system also allows these groups to attack other players in designated 'safe zones' for a weekly in-game fee to the attackers. This design has all the neccessary elements to permit cohersion by such a force against other players who are critical of these elements in or out of the game. Ultimately I performed a WHOIS lookup on the legal party responsible for the organization bullying my region of space and publicly asked why they supported "booze, intravenous drugs" and similar language in a 'T for Teen' product, while making the nature of their behavior in Eve a matter of public record based on my observations and experiences.
In response to this criticism CCP banned my account for 3 days, citing violation of their anonymity clause against relating 'IRL' (In Real Life) information about a player. The ban was initially one day, but after removing the direct information from the posting to satisfy any concerns for safety the subject may have had, the ban was extended to 3 days. The subject altered his bio to referr to drugs as 'boosters' rather than intravenous and 'booze', but added a 'winking smilie' ;) to the bio instead. No evidence of a similar ban for his bio, despite CCPs action to prompt its change, was taken to my knowledge.
This demonstrates a very real bias and tolerance for the 'drug positive' movement in Eve by its support staff, combined with cohercive reprisal against criticism and reporting of the problem as outline in the RICO ACT - aimed at eliminating organizations that support and promote drug trade for commercial gains. The difference between 'real' controlled substances and 'fantasy' drugs is clear, however, until you step back and look at the trends and evidence as a whole. Tolerance for themes and content like the well known references at left, combined with reprisal behavior against critics and support of organizations who openly support use of drugs - despite obscured language for legal defense with terms like 'boosters' instead of the more pre-revision language, and finally the target market: Ages 13 and up.
Some users of Eve will tell you that the average age of the player base are consenting adults, with minors making up a minority of full-time players. Three of my corp are ages 15-17 and the exposure to the permissive drug language and trade as present in Eve most certainly has colorized their view on drug use. Further, the game is ESRB certified for this age group, which means the publisher certifies the content to be fit for that age group where it is within their control. They may plea an inability to control such language and content due physical monitoring limitations, but lack of action or action in defense of such content is quite the opposite. Further, static elements like character names, titles ("Industrial Drug Hoover", for one example) is well within the ability of a competent SQL administrator to scan for and query or remove. As of December 2004, 18 months after commercial release of the product, that process is certainly not being performed at all.
Now, we all admit there are cultural differences and different positions on the role of drugs in our society worldwide. Specifically, as CCP license states, they choose to utilize the laws and standards of Iceland in their defense. Use of overseas law and tort law to protect the online promotion of drugs is clearly covered in RICO, citing NEXUS - the physical presence of assets or personnel, as grounds for applying local legal statutes against such International behavior. Online solicitation and promotion can be considered NEXUS as well, if marketing claims for a product prove false or misleading in detailing violations of local ordinances. CCP has also reported to host its EVE Online game database in London, England, where drug laws are somewhat more strict than Iceland, but retains legal 'governing law' in Iceland despite this fact. While these are observations of a mere layman, they seem to indicate a premeditated preparation for the consequences of their actions and content regarding foreign drug enforcement policy.
Regardless what you think about the ban, the cited bios, cited companies, and parallels to law regarding public and private 'status' for leaders of organizations and designated fantasy 'CEOs' on the Internet, the parallels in law for real world corporantions and CEOs, as well as merchant behavior and 'Truth in Advertising' laws over product labels speak very badly of this sort of behavior. Modeling a children's game off of commercial business structures of this scale forces us to re-examine the serious roles and responsibilities these games play in our society, as well as the stewardship of their administration and its responsibility to the public and the safety of children.
I in no way see how the sum of this evidence justifies a rating of Ages 13 and up for this product, nor does permissive content carry any warning to parents during the Holiday season who might purchase this product for their children. Requirement of a credit card to play is not essential, nor does that excuse the current product label. Further, questions regarding the impartiality and bais of the games administration leave serious doubt the current pro-drug culture of Eve Online is wholely the responsibility of its user base. Punative behavior including arbitrary disconnection before attack, sudden attack without substantiated in-game ability to attack, and pre-release feature use by notably abusive players, combined with online support denial of the existance of 'exploits' and investigations which consisted mainly of briefly 'asking the offender if he cheated' cast serious doubts on the legitimacy and integrity of CCP's administration of Eve Online.
As a parent, knowing what I know now, I could not endorse or recommend Eve to a child under the age of 18. As a professional gamer since 1988 (Mr. Allen would have been in Jr. High, not making him able to start his 'professional' anything at this point in life), I cannot in my 12 month experience with Eve Online, certify its administration to be fair, impartial, or effective at enforcing civil behavior. Quite the opposite - I find that unless you keep your head down and take the beating prescribed you can expect significant reprisal through mechanical system abuses and outright coincidental product failures. As a network engineer and telecommunnications administrator working for leading companies in the past years, I can also testify the instability and failures present in the product are not consistent with 'network error' or other Internet related causes, remaining mostly on the client and server side of the product. Publisher claims the product is able to accept a large client base (in network terms - two to three times the present load) are in direct opposition of its single IP address architecture. All of these things together speak volumes about the moral and ethical integrity of the negative and growing trend in the current Eve Online game.
Failing that, just look to your left and ask: Is this really all the users fault? Is it really T for Teen content? Is it worth $149.95/year for your child? And is this not enough visual and chronological evidence to justify an apparent link to narcotics trafficing as "part of the game" in a highly realistic fantasy at best, if not more?
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