OT: Censorship in Everquest

Seems Verant, the company that makes the wildly popular massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) Everquest has banned one of their players (who goes by the name Mystere) for a story they posted to a message board. The story *is* disturbing, so I’ll warn you about that before you follow this link to it, but it was not posted to a Verant messageboard.

This Everquest message board (I think it’s the official one — no, I don’t play) is discussing this, with some people arguing that Mystere’s story violated copyright, and that’s the reason for the ban. I’m no lawyer, but I do know that the first reaction to a copyright infringement is almost always a cease and decist order, not something like this.

On the second page of that board, you’ll find out “Wytche” contacted a Mr. Scotto in Customer Service who said that Mystere was banned because they feel he is not the ‘kind of person’ they want playing Everquest.

Is Verant now responsible for policing the activies of their players outside of their game and their own message boards? What’s next? Will they demand inspections of player hard drives in order to search for pornographic images?

Unfortunately, with their EULA (End User License Agreement) they are completey within their rights to ban any player for whatever reason they wish, however that doesn’t make what they’ve done right. This is censorship, plain and simple.