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Croquet is a powerful new open source software development environment for creating and deploying deeply collaborative multi-user online applications and metaverses on and across multiple operating systems and devices. Derived from Squeak, it features a peer-based network architecture that supports communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation between multiple users on multiple devices.
Every part of the system is designed around enabling real-time, identical interactions between groups of users. Croquet's architecture is designed to make it easy to develop deeply collaborative applications without having to spend a lot of effort and expertise in understanding how replicated applications work.
Using the Croquet Software Developer's Kit (SDK), developers can create and link powerful and highly collaborative cross-platform multi-user 2D and 3D applications and simulations - making possible the distributed deployment of very large scale, richly featured and interlinked virtual spaces.
An avatar, in the context of online video games, is the in-game physical representation of the human player. In today’s multiplayer games, an avatar is often the three-dimensional character whose actions are controlled by the player. Usually, when the player first plays the game, the avatar is a simple character based on a common template. As the player advances in the game, customization of the avatar allows for individuality within the virtual world. This is similar to the real world, in which differentiation and specialization of persons as they age creates diversity and uniqueness in the community.
When an avatar develops autonomy in its own virtual world, akin to a human achieving self-reliance in the world, what type of legal and moral rights, if any, should it have? When users identify with their avatars, the term to define the human-avatar being is a cyborg. The article discusses cyborg rights in virtual worlds and their relevance to real world law. Although online games still exist primarily as a means of gaming entertainment, there is already overlap between the virtual and real worlds as demonstrated in virtual goods trading. In the future, as this interaction grows, it is imperative for some type of legal understanding to exist between virtual law and real world law.
When avatars are abused by other avatars in the virtual worlds, players sometimes complain. To resolve such conflicts, some communities punish players by lowering their rank, having groups of other players attack the violator, and/or other in-game mechanisms. To some, this issue seems trivial. Can virtual characters have rights? Avatars do not hold rights in traditional games such as the board game Monopoly. The distinction here lies in the commitments and influence of games on players. A study found that two percent of all players in the popular MMORPG Everquest devote over 60 hours a week in the game developing their avatars. Edward Castronova found that 12,000 gamers consider the virtual world Norrath, of the game by the same title, their true home. While these extreme scenarios may be attributed as addictions, the social implications of online games, virtual worlds, and avatars cannot be ignored.
Especially when game owners have ultimate control over avatars and can oversee all their actions, there will undoubtedly be issues of privacy rights. Clearly then, the problems that grace the real world will develop in virtual worlds too as they grow. Unfortunately, none of these questions and concerns is easily solvable. Eventually, communities and their players must realize these problems and craft laws most suitable for their unique situation. In the end, the authors of this article conclude that virtual law cannot be dictated by real world law. They are, after all, two separate worlds.
In this introductory essay for the Symposium issue of the New York Law School Law Review, Noveck explores the role of law in virtual game worlds. In order to develop a foundation on which to base law, it must be acknowledged that cyber worlds are a social community and there is a delicate relationship between the game players and the game creators and owners. This relationship, when extended to ownership, remains blurry and incompletely outlined. Hence, there is growing debate over the application of the real world law to virtual worlds.
Online role-playing games steadily grew in popularity since their mainstream start in the early 1990s. The steep increase in fan base correlates with the acceptance of Internet connectivity as an essential component of the average household. In turn, game companies realized the earning potential of online multiplayer games. By investing in sophisticated game physics and functionality, popular games could lure in users for long-term play.
Virtual worlds, at their core, are social networks and communities. They have traits which mimic human interaction within real-life communities. Property is created, goods are accumulated, and currency is traded. Instead of simply studying the laws of virtual worlds, Noveck suggests study of laws in virtual worlds as a way of learning about how law functions. Virtual worlds do not have written laws which govern player interaction. In fact, they are similar to real-life law in which it is continually revised and developed by new situations and new circumstances. However, there exists a basic constitution which is rarely, if ever, touched. Recognizing this, it may be possible to simulate a fictional law system to test in virtual worlds. This represents an application of virtual worlds towards possible benefit in the real world. These trials show a modern method of applying technology in order to better serve current real-life law models.