Blogger sued over game review

In a first for internet law, the owners of Evony, a massive multiplayer game, are suing veteran UK game blogger Bruce Everiss for defamation over assertions made on his blog about the game and its owners.

Evony is a multiplayer role playing game similar to World of Warcraft. Players can use real money to buy virtual weapons and equipment that enables them to build online assets and increase their status without the ‘grind’ of quests and killing monsters to accrue points.

An Evony Wikipedia entry states that Evony officially launched in May with 5000 active accounts on six servers. By September it had grown to 7 million players on 90 servers worldwide. Evony’s ads, “Play now, my Lord”, have spread throughout the internet recently.

Evony LLC was incorporated on May 6, 2009 in Delaware USA , but it is Warren McKeon Dickson Lawyers based in Miranda NSW who are launching the legal action under the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW). On September 14 the lawyers filed suit in the New South Wales Supreme Court, stating it was “following multiple rebuffed attempts to reconcile the matter”.

A lawyer’s letter of notice emailed to Everiss on August 25 claimed, “The articles [had] been published in New South Wales and other jurisdictions within Australia, by persons downloading the Articles and the Blogs from the internet, and viewing their contents”.

The lawyers say the Everiss articles contain false imputations and clearly defame their client, and list four pages of references to articles Everiss has published. The letter can be found on www.bruceongames.com.

Why is Evony taking this action in NSW? The NSW legal system is well known for being a tough jurisdiction to disprove defamation in, NSW and British law have a treaty for the enforcement of judgements, and it would clearly be inconvenient for a UK defendant to appear in Australian courts.

There is growing concern about some aspects of multiplayer role playing games, particularly with the use of real money to buy game tokens. Some commentators claim lack of controls in terms of age and the presence of gambling elements in the games can pose a danger to the unaware.

Evony has a large and loyal following of mostly young players who praise the clever structure and immersive thrills of playing in a planet-wide game.

This case will be in the global spotlight, with the blogosphere already whipping itself into a frenzy over fears the judgement may impact on freedom of speech and restrict the right to fair criticism.