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.)
(Score: 1, Troll) by NotSanguine on Monday December 11 2017, @10:23PM (1 child)
Yep. Everything you said is reasonable and, in general, true.
I've personally had the experience of a gym coming after me in exactly those circumstances. And when the collection agency called me (this is before VOIP robocalling) to *demand* that I pay up or they'd sue me, I informed him (per my state's laws) not to contact me by phone and wished him luck with a lawsuit and with collecting even a nickel. Unsurprisingly, that was the end of it.
But this guy *did* agree to the contract, and (at least AFAICT) received value and consideration -- for a time. As to whether or not the terms to which he *explicitly* agreed are enforceable, that's up to the courts.
Honestly, I'm not really sure why this is news at all. It reads to me something like, "Online jerk gets booted from online game and whines about that unfairness of the contract to which he agreed to abide."
There may well be a claim WRT in-game objects he purchased, as he no longer has access to those. Whether he should be refunded his money for those or just sent a file with the results of a SQL query like 'SELECT * from [in-game-objects-purchased-table] where USER=[user]'.
Depending on your ideas about what was, in fact, purchased, either one (or perhaps something else) might be reasonable.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arcz on Monday December 11 2017, @10:32PM
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if he paid real money for the items the part of the contract that made them able to cancel his account at any time was illegal and therefore he is entitled to a refund.
But it depends on what state he's in, since contracts vary by state.