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posted by martyb on Monday December 11 2017, @05:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the big-brother-is-morally-judging-you dept.

On December 7, a Magic: The Gathering player with a YouTube channel called "UnSleevedMedia" ( https://www.youtube.com/user/mtgheadquarters ) was banned for life from the game by the Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast for allegedly harassing others in the MtG community on social media. As a consequence, he immediately lost access to all the virtual items he's previously purchased while receiving no refund, and he may no longer play online, partake in tournaments, or cover events on his YouTube channel (details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIh3ykLBzOM ).

The ban was issued after articles appeared on gaming news sites Polygon ( https://www.polygon.com/2017/11/29/16709796/magic-the-gathering-cosplayer-harassment-youtube ) and Kotaku ( https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/11/magic-subreddit-on-lockdown-after-cosplayer-quit-due-to-alleged-harassment/ ), where a cosplayer accused UnsleevedMedia operator Jeremy Hambly of persistent harassment. (Note: While the articles report on the controversy, neither present any actual evidence for either side.)

While Mr Hambly claims that the allegations of threats and harassment are demonstrably false, and that the evidence against him is based on excerpts from Twitter/Facebook posts taken out of context, he now says he's uncovered something quite chilling while investigating the case: evidence that employees at Wizards of the Coast are trawling the Internet looking for social media activities going back years in search of conduct they might find "objectionable".

In at least one instance they've allegedly requested and gained access to a closed Facebook group only tangentially related to the MtG community, and then issued bans and warnings based on the contents of conversations therein. This includes a one-year ban against professional player Travis Woo, who has now effectively lost his job. Mr Hambly presented the evidence for these claims in a YouTube video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGFcLvDRJNQ ) on his other channel, "The Quartering" ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfwE_ODI1YTbdjkzuSi1Nag ).

In response to this, he has started a change.org petition ( https://www.change.org/p/hasbro-wizards-of-the-coast-must-reinstate-travis-woo-jeremy-hambly ) asking people to boycott all Hasbro products until such time as the bans are reversed. His main argument is that corporations should not be allowed enforce End User License Agreements that dictate what a person may or may not say or do in their spare time on social media.

(Disclaimer: I've signed the petition, as I wouldn't like to see a future where a Twitter spat could cost someone their Steam games.)


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Monday December 11 2017, @05:46PM (3 children)

    by melikamp (1886) on Monday December 11 2017, @05:46PM (#608345) Journal

    Good points. This sort of player abuse is virtually guaranteed in any ecosystem where the software is nonfree (and especially when closed source), and so designed from the ground up to exploit and subjugate the user.

    As far as virtual items go, it would be interesting to see a game with its own crypto-cash built in, so that item ownership is checked against a block chain. Not an ideal system, but notably less centralized, and much harder to abuse with respect to banning than the current bank-style setups, where the same party has the total and exclusive control over game code, the virtual assets, and all the player information.

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  • (Score: 2) by Virindi on Monday December 11 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)

    by Virindi (3484) on Monday December 11 2017, @05:51PM (#608349)

    Rules ahead of time could even solve this problem. If the company made a strong public guarantee, included in the user agreement, that "virtual items" were immutable, it could be enough.

    Instead though we get weasel talk and "all rights to do anything we want for any reason". And people don't mind this until it is too late.

    People seem to think that the mob will save them in cases of injustice, so it's okay. Live by the mob, die by the mob.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Monday December 11 2017, @06:15PM

    by JNCF (4317) on Monday December 11 2017, @06:15PM (#608361) Journal

    I haven't played this, or even read the white paper: https://novablitz.com [novablitz.com]

    In online card games, players want to trade and sell their cards, and they cannot. Players want their cards to grow in value, and they cannot. Even worse, your cards are not your own - they are licensed from the developer, and the developer can revoke that license at any time.
    [...]
    Nova Blitz will solve that with the Nova Token (“NVT”), an ERC-20 token. Holding NVT allows players to:

    1. Own all their cards
    2. Earn copies of every new card, based on proof of stake of NVT
    3. Sell cards for NVT on the in-game card exchange
    4. Win NVT in tournament prizes