Recently (the 28th), there was a protest on the Argent Dawn server of World Of Warcraft. The protest (peaceful), was from the warrior community regarding the general feeling that Blizzard (owners of World Of Warcraft) were ignoring their plight. The warriors (which I am one of) were “nerfed” prior to the release of the game, making them less then stellar characters to play.
Anyway, to get to the fucking point of this post… If a company creates a virtual world
, (where the servers reside in a democratic nation such as the United States or Canada) should the members (or citizens) of that virtual world receive the same rights and freedoms as the parent world? What I’m getting at is Blizzard suspended the accounts of many of the protestors, citing that they were in fact disrupting the play of other individuals. Now that can be debated, as High-population raids (PvP wars) occur, more people are in one area then were in the protest. Yet Blizzard still strong-armed the warriors, suspending many accounts. Is it plausible that the citizens of this imaginary world could take Blizzard to court for infringing on their right to a peaceful protest?
Ok, so personally i think Blizzard is well within their rights to ban the accounts (let alone suspend them). It is their servers and they do have to look out for the good of all their players, and the protest did slow the server down, whether or not the crash that occurred later in the protest (near the end) was the fault of the protest or one of the normal crashes that have seemed to occur more and more frequently is still being questioned. I just wonder if some crazy twit with a lot of money and too much time on their hands could end up taking a company that offers a virtual gaming world to court over something like freedom of rights. Really some of the stupid shit that the courts in the U.S. do is just ridiculous.
US Constitution - 1st Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
source: http://www.midnightbeach.com/jon/US-Constitution.htm#A1