Planes of Power: EverQuest as text, game and community

Abstract

This article describes EverQuest as a fictive text, a computer game, and an online community and explains how these three distinct frameworks lead to different legal regulatory modalities. In combining elements of fiction, game, and community in an integrated framework, EverQuest challenges a prospective legal regulator to weigh policy considerations in determining how best to respond to an object and social practice that entails the interplay of various authorial, strategic, and community elements. Ultimately, the question of formulating an optimal regime of legal regulation for virtual worlds like Norrath must be seen as a potentially new question to be addressed by the political process. ©2001 - 2009 Game Studies Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the journal, except for the right to republish in printed paper publications, which belongs to the authors, but with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings.