“Whose Game Is This Anyway?”: Negotiating Corporate Ownership in a Virtual World

This paper explores the ways the commercialization of multiuser environments is posing particular challenges to user autonomy and authorship in massive multiplayer online role-play games.

Abstract

This paper explores the ways the commercialization of multiuser environments is posing particular challenges to user autonomy and authorship. With ever broadening defi nitions of intellectual property rights the status of cultural and symbolic artifacts as products of collaborative efforts becomes increasingly problematized. In the case of virtual environments ‐ such as massive multiplayer online role-play games ‐ where users develop identities, bodies (avatars) and communities the stakes are quite high. This analysis draws on several case studies to raise questions about the status of culture and authorship in these games.