Journal lemming's Journal: Virtual Property 4

I've been saying for a long time that, IMO, the chief reason "gold selling" is disallowed in most MMOGs is for lawsuit protection--the more precedence for in-game property to have value, the more likely the game company can be sued for, say, suspending an account.

I may or may not be right, but that's what's happening in this case, at least. Second Life interests me because they officially maintain an exchange rate (from a non-gaming standpoint, it's by far the most interesting MMO out there--check it out at Wikipedia). Their TOS clearly state that Linden Labs has the right to shut down an account at any time for any reason, but the fact that they maintain an exchange rate between dollars and lindens (in-game currency) seems to contradict this somewhat.

I think it makes for very interesting consideration--it brings into play a superset of the usually addressed IP concerns. Here's the question I want answered:

If you posses virtual property on someone's server, that at some point in time has some "value", do they have a legal responsibility to preserve that value to any extent?

It's well within the power of those running the game to, instead of taking away your in-game money, just multiply everyone else's wallets by an amount sufficient to render what you have worthless. It's tricky to apply any traditional metrics to this sort of thing. (Of course, this example is simplified when you consider that the dollars/lindens rate has to change similarly.)

Anyway, IANAL and all that. Whuddya think?