World Of Warcraft: Hernandez v. IGE Class Action Litigation Update

VirtuallyBlind.com posted an update on the Hernandez v. IGE Class Action Letigation, a class action lawsuit filed in Florida on behalf of every WoW player against the largest virtual property company, Internet Gaming Entertainment. IGE set a motion to stay or dismiss the case, and the court will deliberate:

Plaintiffs' core claims read as if they come straight out of Richard Bartle's Pitfalls of Virtual Property. Plaintiffs allege that IGE, by running a gold farming operation, camping spawns, devaluing gold, spamming chat, and generally making gameplay less satisfying, has intentionally breached the World of Warcraft Terms of Use ("ToU") and End User License Agreement ("EULA"). IGE's employees must, of course, agree to the ToU and EULA in order to use World of Warcraft to accumulate and transfer WoW gold and other virtual property, and to level WoW accounts for sale. The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs were intended "third party beneficiaries" of the ToU and EULA between IGE and Blizzard, and suffered harm as a result of IGE's breach of these agreements. The amended complaint is here.

Generally, third-party beneficiary contract claims are hard to win because the third-party (here, your average World of Warcarft player) has to be the "intended beneficiary" (as opposed to the "incidental beneficiary") of the contract; most standard contracts include language stating that there are no third-party beneficiaries. However, the World of Warcraft Terms of Use and EULA, somewhat surprisingly, do not include such a provision. Moreover, Blizzard has publicly stated that it supports the goals of the lawsuit, which implies that Blizzard might be willing to file a declaration to the effect that plaintiffs were the intended beneficiaries of at least the contract provisions prohibiting gold farming, when and if a motion is eventually filed on those grounds. The suit has widespread support from players in the official forums.

Check VirtuallyBlind.com for the full update!