14 DAY TRIAL // The issues regarding the Avatars and custom content created by users are pretty obscure to the general public. Most of them are happy with their avatars and keep them on a low level of complexity, but there are plenty of people who invest quite a lot of time and effort into building their avatars and getting custom items for them, and they sometimes find themselves with their creations taken away by game operators or administrators.
This is when the rights developers claim they have are subject to a lot of questions, and although they stress the fact that avatar creation is just another part of their game, like missions or quests, players often disagree with them. We have even seen cases going to court over the presumed illegal seizing of items and creations developed by users. PlayNoEvil recently carried a study regarding this quite delicate problem the gaming industry is dealing with. "Because developers don't consider the value that players put in their virtual "stuff", customer service is often not responsive to player complaints about lost items. Also, the game systems are not built to easily log, track, remove, and restore these items in case of loss or theft. In some sense this is ironic, the same game companies that argue vigorously that the virtual items have no value, at the same time are extraordinarily reluctant to restore players characters or virtual items after alleged theft. The argument is typically made that the players are abusing the system by allowing their items to be stolen (or, actually, selling them) and then making a complaint to the game operator. If the items have no value, then restore them."
This is an excellent argument that the gaming industry definitely needs to take into consideration, because if a developer actually invested in something that would benefit the user, it would surely bring it popularity. Also, developers whose games are already on the market would definitely learn a thing or two from this study.