/mod note/ Up til now, this thread has been in the General Discussion section, but I think should be more correctly located in the Other Planets section, so I've moved it.
Despite receiving more than one request to delete this thread - due to its effect on Narfi's reputation - it will remain open for now as there are still matters being discussed about the trade of ingame items (particularly those from Next Island) that affect overall player confidence in the ingame economy.
I will however summarize the chain of events in this particular instance, so far as I understand them:
1. David Pope, or the NI dev team on his behalf, created land areas to be used for ingame promotional events. There is no suggestion at this point that the land areas would be sold to players in the future.
2. Two deeds for these LA's are apparently placed on Marius' account (MindArk has said there was no ingame trade), to enable him to carry out his contractual role of community development.
[Personal note: the same thing happened with the Calypso Community Adviser avatars who were given 'official clothing' by it being placed directly on the account. Although the adviser account was created in my name, at no time did I ever consider the items on that account to be personally 'mine', as it was created solely for a specific role on request of SDS. When the role ended, I left that account to be terminated and purged, including all items on it.]
3. Marius has said that he was told he could keep the deeds in exchange for services rendered, although there is no mention of the valuation of this transaction. From what he's posted, he appears to have continued to use his 'employee/contractor' account for personal use ingame, following the end of his contractual arrangement.
4. Marius, on winding up his avatar account, sold these deeds to Narfi. The support case shows that MindArk has said that the transaction between Marius and Narfi was carried out (ie the payment was made) outside the game. The value of this transaction has not been disclosed by either party.
The Terms of Use states:
You acknowledge that any transaction regarding Virtual Items, including PED, carried out using any service or system other than one of MindArk’s Approved Transaction systems is at Your own risk. MindArk reserves the right to take any reasonably necessary measures for the purpose of preventing and acting against frauds and non-Approved Transactions, including, but not limited to, making a reservation against a suspected Transaction, and Banning and/or Terminating a directly or indirectly involved Account, if MindArk determines that the transaction was not performed in compliance to this Agreement.
It is therefore a 'non-approved' transaction, and carried out at Narfi's own risk.
Narfi then spent some months trying to convince MindArk Support to legitimize these deeds, by changing their function from 'planet partner item created for community promotional events' to 'ingame asset'.
While MindArk never specifically stated he could not sell the deeds, I thought the support cases shown make it pretty clear that the deeds were never approved to be used as an ingame asset. They apparently allowed the deeds to remain on Narfi's account so that he could continue to negotiate some financial settlement with Marius and/or David Post.
5. Narfi sold the deeds to fatal in an ingame transaction, part of the balance of which is as yet unpaid. Although the deeds were known by fatal to be 'bugged', the chat shows that Narfi convinced fatal that it was a bug that could be fixed if fatal "filed enough support cases".
6. MindArk then removed the deed's from fatal's account - presumably to prevent further sales.
If the above is correct, then as I see it, there's issues appearing at several points:
1. If the deeds were to be 'a payment in lieu' to Marius, then the NI Dev Team had a responsibility to have this approved by MindArk
before making the offer.
2. If Marius' account was an official PP employee one, then imho, it should have been kept separate from any personal account, and used only for official purposes. [Note: this may have predated the current understanding about the use of official accounts by PP employees.]
3. In agreeing to transfer funds to Marius outside the game, Narfi implicitly accepted the risk in participating in a 'non-approved transaction' under the Terms of Use. I don't see that he can legitimately pass on that risk to another player, nor can MindArk 'roll back' his transaction with Marius. If fatal can be reimbursed by Narfi (even if that occurs over a period of time for financial reasons), then that would at least reduce the collateral damage of this chain of events.
4. Underlying all this, is the apparent abandonment of Next Island by its Planet Partner (David Post), and the ambiguity this creates over the extent of MindArk's responsibility for the planet's status, assets and future.
Clarity of this final point would go some way to showing how this specific matter might be fully resolved.
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