Consumer Rights in a Virtual World
“When people lack jobs, opportunity, and ownership of property they have little or no stake in their communities” ~ Jack Kemp
Eventually I’ll stop writing about this. But not today. I’m sick and feverish and unable to work, so prepare for one of those long-winded ones.
I used to think, with some inner sense of authority, that one of the major legal issues of the next decade will be consumer rights over virtual property. Over the last couple of years, I have remapped that in my mind to be: I *hope* one of the major legal issues of the next decade will be consumer rights over virtual property.
There is a worrisome nag in me that thinks people have become so complacent as consumers and dependent upon the next trend that they’ve abandoned the ability to advocate for themselves. As virtual products become more and more fundamental to our everyday lives, that’s a frustrating and somewhat terrifying prospect for the future of things I value like, say, free markets and democracies. When the general population just rolls over in regards to their own rights to privacy because Facebook is fun, a little slice of my hope for humanity dies. When they give no thought to their rights as consumers because a product or service isn’t physically tangible, the same happens.
It’s always harder to rebuild brand and value once the public takes a view that something isn’t worth defending. The “oh, it’s just a game” or “oh, it’s just a gadget” mentality allows corporations to take liberties with virtual goods they could never dream of taking with physical property. Given the amount of corporate influence in the political sphere these days (which doesn’t seem likely to lessen anytime soon) people have only themselves to trust in as advocates of their own rights. So what does it mean for a democratic republic when people will not behave in their own best interests and don’t teach their children to behave in their own best interests?
And how do you marry this tendency to abandon personal self-interest with the entitlement “I want it now” mindset that only seems to get worse as technology increases the speed with which “the new” is made available? At some point that feels like two trains speeding toward one another on the same track. I don’t know what the crash will look like, I just know it feels inevitable. And, let’s face it, “I want/deserve it now and I don’t care how I get it,” isn’t the best mantra for an advancing civilization. Leaving the morality aside, it tends to lead to other bad things like the fall of Rome and being on the losing side of wars.
By and large, my experiences with customer service in Second Life have been far more positive when dealing with residents and content creators than in dealing with the format itself. Smaller and more savvy content creators will almost always behave in good faith, despite dealing with a customer base that can lean a little over-entitled (Linden Lab’s dismal customer service history and policies are well established in my blog and others, no need to rehash). Just like the content available “in world,” the best examples come from members of the community and not from the platform itself (which should be setting a better example, but I’m trying really hard not to go there…again).
As big-name designers and design houses emerged, however, customer service standards in SL began to fluctuate more. For me, personally, Armidi was the first big example of that. The SIM was always packed with lots of active shoppers (not just traffic bots) and yet I never once got a response to numerous customer service inquiries (including delivery failures, accidental double-purchases due to SIM lag, mismarked/labeled products, among other issues). I’ve never known anyone who had a concern with Armidi that was ever addressed. As far as I can see, their policy was to put out their products and walk away. I’d have less of a problem with that, if they’d put a “shop at your own risk” sign out.
To be certain, providing good customer service in SL is difficult. There are often cultural differences and language barriers that can make interactions frustrating. When my texture store was in full swing back in the day, I developed an inner sense of “ugh” toward French and German inquiries — it’s much the same feeling I get when talking to someone who is obviously from Jersey — just because I knew the interaction wasn’t going to be easy. Consumers in SL often don’t understand the imposition of time custom requests impose upon creators and don’t hesitate to ask. I was frequently asked for custom requests that would have taken hours of Photoshopping, but for which the customer only wanted to pay L$250 or some other ridiculous amount. Telling these customers no, however gracefully, often led to rude responses. Other times, customers are just needy or crave attention and will chat you up at their leisure without bothering to ask if you are busy or expressing any concern for your own time. Still others will be hostile out of proportion to the situation when you just cannot do what they want, or cannot address something right away. Customer Service is a thin wire to navigate. It is an ironic axiom of SL, however, that often the people with the least to gain provide the best customer service experiences.
Second Life, as a platform and a community base, started out with the right mindset. They gave residents the groundbreaking SL permissions system (I like to think ithis was an idealistic gesture, although I’m sure there was the understanding that it would invest people into the platform). In the early days, sharing a creation was a pleasure because it was understood you were giving something that was yours, and I’m sure that mindset still exists, although the willy nilly tendency of people just to throw badly made crap into the inventory of others makes me wonder if that is completely lost. There is a difference in sharing something you invested time and care into and something you just want to throw at someone for attention, or in the hopes they’ll do something nice back. Too many people in the real and virtual worlds will never learn the differences in those acts.
But, I digress…
The early blogs at the time reflected the understanding of items as consumer products. One of the things I am most proud of when people stop to tell me about their early experiences with Linden Lifestyles is that they appreciated how we actually reviewed the products; we didn’t just plaster photos of ourselves up and call it a shopping blog. In fact, the way we took and presented photos on Linden Lifestyles was focused on making sure the product was presented truthfully so a consumer could get a realistic idea prior to purchase instead of aiming to make ourselves look like fashion icons. I don’t have any moral objection to fashion photoblogs, but it saddens me to see a million photos taken only to highlight the blogger’s photo skills or avatar slider settings while claiming to represent the products. They don’t want to be consumer advocates, and I understand that, but I do wish there was less “look at me” and more “let’s talk about the fit” in at least a few of the blogs.
Yes, I know there are many reasons for that. Consumers in SL can be taxing and hostile, but so can content creators. More often than not, unfortunately, content creators are unable to handle objective criticism of any kind and are only too willing to go crying to their facebook fans when someone has the audacity to point out their seams don’t line up, or the fit of their clothes is outside the norm for the average fashion avatar.
Case in point: I have nothing but admiration for the work of Aikea Rieko, the creator of Plastik, who, in my opinion puts out some great content. But not long ago she altered her profile to state that she did not provide blogging samples to critics. That Pick has since been removed, but I remember it because it floored me. I had been considering asking for a review sample and it completely turned me off — not just from blogging the outfit I’d gone there to find, but from purchasing at the store for a long while after. It blew my mind. Here was one of the better content creators in SL declaring an opposition to having their content truthfully reviewed in a critical blog. To this day, the only reviews listed on Plastik’s official blog are written by Plastik staff.
I know that when I want an objective review I go to the creator’s best friends for my info.
Sure, this is calling Aikea out a little and that’s not entirely fair to her — at least she is honest about her policies. Far more content creators hold grudges and play favorites and scheme behind the scenes rather than be upfront with their feelings on the subject. I use this example because what’s most shocking is that this is a creator that few would/could negatively blog about — the products offered by Plastik are almost always of high quality. For a product line of that level to be insecure and afraid of critical review demonstrates a sincere problem in the understanding of the purpose of consumer review. I understand blog samples being limited to only those blogs the creator finds deserving of samples via the blog audience, the quality of the writing/presentation and/or the tone of the blogger, but to restrict it only to people guaranteed to provide a happy, shiny uncritical review? That’s unfathomable to me.
Maitreya has a similar policy — stating that they don’t take requests for blog samples, but only bestow their product samples on bloggers who have “come to their attention.” Riiiiiight. I love a lot of Maitreya products – and I begrudgingly blog them because I take a great deal of offense to their pricing structure. That said, on the two occasions I had to deal with customer service for Maitreya products, it was handled promptly and politely. But I also take offense to the “don’t ask, we’ll give them to you if you please the crown” attitude toward blogging.
So, I have sympathy for bloggers in their dealing with drama breathing content creators. I have sympathy for content creators dealing with entitled, oblivious consumers and vindictive bloggers who just enjoy saying vile things to generate views. I have had my share of dealing with all of these things, and far more than most.
Despite this imperfect and somewhat exhausting system, there still has to be a place for consumer rights to be aired if Second Life is going to last, even as an avatar customization and/or activity format.
Here’s a depressing postcard from the current state of affairs regarding the new golden child of the grid: Meeroos.
Recently, I had to deal with Meeroo Customer Support.
Because of my involvement in the beta program I was awarded with an ugly green rat as a “gift” for helping them test their systems. One of my friends who still plays with rats said she wanted it because it could be worth L$5 – L$10k on the secondary market. So I dropped the “nest” on her. When she attempted to rez it, it didn’t rez and it didn’t return to her inventory or L&F, even after reboots with cleared caches, etc. Although I’ve never had that happen in SL before, I’ve heard of SL just eating no-copy objects, so I supposed they had to have a system in place for her to find redress (the object had been given into her inventory, so I figured anything that needed to be taken care of would be handled by her).
A few days later, I was IMed and asked if I could deal with a Meeroo CSRep because their system still showed me as the owner. Expecting they’d just drop a new rat nest on me, I said sure.
The CSR asked for a teleport to my property and asked to be taken to my Meeroo stump. I explained that I had only participated in the beta and wasn’t playing the game, so I didn’t have a stump. She then informed me that I couldn’t get a replacement unless I purchased a meeroo stump. I was further told that the nest could not be replaced in its nest form, that only a “birthed” Meeroo could be supplied. All of this was couched in language to blame the Second Life format and not the limitations of the Meeroo system, starting with the beginning of our conversation when she stated: “SL didn’t register the transfer, so the nest is still under your name.”
It will seem pedantic to clarify this statement, but I feel it’s important. SL, did, in fact, register the transfer. It shows up clearly in my transaction history. What she should have said was that the Meeroo tracking system was unable, for whatever reason, to grab notice of the exchange from SL. One of those statements blames SL, the other accepts responsibility and moves forward to solving the problem.
Even still, why shouldn’t my word have been enough for them to manually update the record in their database with the correct owner? I’m not a teenager trying to use Mom’s credit card at the Gap in this situation – my identity as the owner isn’t in question and she knows she’s talking to me because SL shows my identity to her clearly. It’s one of the few advantages of the system. Sure, Meeroo central may have showed me as owner, but if I say I give permission for the rat’s ownership to be transferred to my friend, that should be the end of my involvement. Right?
No. It turns out not so much.
Before I continue, let me say that I have a personal policy regarding going off on customer service staff, especially in cases of policy. I did express my disbelief over such an illogical system and my displeasure with it, but her company’s idiocy wasn’t her fault, so there was no reason to take her to further task. I don’t believe there’s ever a reason to be abusive to, well, anyone. As angry as I am, the most I can generally muster is really heavy sarcasm. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve behaved badly to a CSR and they were all cases of extreme emotional distress (like dealing with an uncooperative insurance adjuster trying to double talk me after enduring a natural disaster). There might be a healthy swear word or two thrown into the mix when I’m frustrated, but I am, by nature, almost unable to address that to a person directly. If I’m very provoked, I might huff out something like “That is the stupidest damn system I’ve ever heard” but I cannot fathom saying something like: “you are the stupidest damn person I’ve ever dealt with.” Badly trained CSRs will personalize any expression of consumer frustration and will not understand the difference between a consumer expressing displeasure over policy as opposed to the rep, but that’s bad training and you can’t fix that as a consumer. Their employer placed them on the front line and it’s not your fault they were sent out unprepared for duty. Consumers expressing frustration is one way companies get feedback on how popular/unpopular their policies are. So long as complaints aren’t abusive they are part of the consumer responsibility process.
I bring this up only to emphasize that despite feeling I was being deliberately misinformed and pressured into accepting a system that was disadvantageous to the consumer, I played nice. However, I fully expect a consumer with less experience and lower personal standards might have been voicing their displeasure in far more creative ways than I did. And, while there’s never any excuse for bad behavior, there’s also no excuse for Meeroo CSRs to employ tactics and carry out policies certain to inspire bad behavior.
At any rate, I got the stump, returned to my property L$250 poorer, and waited for the situation to end so I could go to bed. Unfortunately, the girl continued to try and “be right” explaining (without prompting) that the situation was a limitation of SL in dealing with their database, etc. Again, the language was to blame SL and used phrases like “only choice” and “no other way” that set my teeth to aching with the desire to retrain the girl on how to speak to customers. I’m pretty sure my avatar was twitching in sympathy with the nerves in my RL temples, but I just went to my happy place, lay back, and thought of England. Eventually I got the green rat, threw it at my friend, made sure she could rez it, and logged out.
It should be said, and LOUDLY, that there is no limitation presented by SL that would prohibit any product from being delivered to a consumer. That limitation is strictly with the Meeroo database and the coding of their product. Malevay Studios didn’t forsee or didn’t care about replacing products in the unbirthed state to consumers. They also didn’t forsee or didn’t care about returning products to those who didn’t have a Meeroo stump/home whatever (makes you wonder how they replace lost stumps). SL has nothing to do with these self-imposed restrictions. Shoving responsibility for them onto SL is nothing short of misinforming consumers.
After some venting, my friend also passed along a notecard of a customer service conversation between a high profile person in the Malavoy Studios organization and a third party customer. In that particular situation, the person had several items and Meeroos disappear only to be told they had no choice but to go to Linden Lab — that Malevay Studios was not responsible for replacing the objects (the person was later properly addressed by another CSR who took care of the situation). Apparently as far at the initial contact was concerned, all that back and forth scripted tracking between SL and the Malavoy database wasn’t for the protection of the consumer at all. Interesting point of view from a company claiming to be committed to providing top service to their customers. Maybe they were just having a bad day, but it’s curious that was such an early response from one of the top names associated with Meeroos, especially when you consider that such problems must certainly have been anticipated in the early stages of release.
I’m unable to find an official policy on the replacement of lost objects on the Meeroo site, although it might be buried somewhere in the dismally written lore — I can’t do more than scan that page. I’m also unable to find any area that addresses why Meeroo nests can’t be replaced except in their “birthed” form (conveniently, the form in which Meeroos consume food that has to be paid for with L$).
I’m not familiar enough with breedables to know how common it is for a company to be unable to replace a unit in the unbirthed state, so feel free to let me know if the other products do this as well. Pressuring your customers into accepting altered products for replacement is hinky at best.
Meeroos have tried to brand themselves as being a far more community-oriented and customer friendly breedable than past breedables, but they’ve already updated their policies to distance themselves from CS issues and have opted to hide behind a ticket system rather than hire additional staff. I can respect that to a point — ticket systems are good for keeping track and having a “paper trail” to follow. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have “on duty” CSRs to address immediate concerns, or issues that fall outside the norm.
There’s also a lack of commitment in educating consumers about their clunky product. Malevay appears, instead, to be choosing to rely on a badly written user manual that only addresses a fraction of consumer concerns and other players in the community to help new members learn how to enter the “game.” This is problematic when you realize that much like the SL fashion community, the Meeroo community is highly populated with fangirls and sycophants who will trounce anyone for expressing a concern or try to get a hard question answered in group chat. I dropped the Meeroo group after beta closed, but I’d seen enough during beta to confirm that I wanted nothing to do with most of the people who spent time in that group chat.
Recently, according to most of my sources, there is increasing concern over the Meeroo “Regard” point system. Information provided to users is sketchy and somewhat contradicts, leaving players unsure if there is actually a plan for Regard, or if Malevay is just making it up as they go along, hoping to capitalize on the competitive nature of instituting a point system without going to the pesky trouble of actually outlining the purpose of the system (or even having one).
During beta, it was expressed by the creators that Regard would play a key role in limiting “power breeders” from taking over the game and/or secondary market and that special rewards and traits would be based on Regard. They seemed to have walked that back a little, no doubt having realized that power breeders put a good amount of money into their product, but have not clarified in any official capacity that I can find. In notecards (distributed with permission) between creators and concerned parties, the Malevay position has been to state that they don’t intend to provide details of this aspect of the product because “figuring it out is part of the game,” but allude that they might have more to say in the future.
Guys? Figuring out the rules to a game is not part of the game. Rules are provided so people know how to play a game, then players figure out strategies and discover new aspects of play. Maybe Malevay shouldn’t be creating games if they’re that unclear on game concepts. Telling people Regard might count, or might not seems deliberately obscure and misleading to capitalize on confusion. You don’t have to tell people “benefit X is unlocked at Y points” but you should tell them if something new is, in fact, going to be unlocked upon reaching a proper score.
There were even comments made that Regard would only be used for reward merchandise, although that was not specified either. Is Regard going to only be something that contributes to getting a discount on coffee mugs and mousepads, or some decor product that has nothing to do with the game? Building a point system into a game that doesn’t have anything to do with game goals should be something players know from the start. Enticing people to invest money and time in something without giving them all the facts is a crummy way to run a lemonade stand.
Hiding behind “it’s part of the game” is a convenient dodge that customers shouldn’t be letting this company get away with. Under those conditions there will never be any obligation to clarify which aspects of the game are important or what will lead to reward. It also, obviously, cloaks errors from being recognized by players and provides no leverage on behalf of the consumer base to having them addressed.
Right now the reward system is worth nothing and encourages players to buy Meeroos, click on them once per hour for an extended period of time, and then delete them (“release them to the wild” in game terms). Think about that, if you’re building reward in your Meeroos. Without having any idea why, you have purchased a pretend pet, clicked it over and over, and deleted it in exchange for…points. And what are these points good for? You don’t know?
*facepalm*
I’m trying to imagine the response if Blizzard had said they weren’t going to reveal what benefits honor points would provide in their PVP system, or what you’d have access to with arena points.
The two biggest responses I saw to concerns like these while still in the Meeroo group chat were always:
1. “This is new, you shouldn’t be so hard on the product.”
2. “This is so much better than prior breedables, you should be grateful to them for making a better product.”
Dear Meeroo consumers,
Please, try to have enough respect for yourselves to recognize:
1. This product has gone live after a formal beta process and the creators/owners have made, conservatively, in the ballpark of $200k USD judging from an exterior examination of the product data available. This company is no longer entitled to play the dumb blonde *giggle* card. They can and should evolve and adapt their policies to fit their learning curve, but that does not give them a pass on answering the hard questions and accepting responsibility to properly service, educate, and inform their user base. If you give them a pass, you’re insuring that you will get a less enjoyable product.
2. No matter what bad product came before, there is never an excuse for poor customer service other than failure on behalf of the provider. If you think that it’s okay for a creator to provide bad service because someone else did, too, ask yourself if it would be okay if your credit card company neglected to refund you for a failed transaction just because other credit card companies might do the same. You are *paying* for this product and your reasonable expectations should be met, regardless of competing products. By all means, be patient, encouraging, and supportive of the products you like in SL. But when you forget to advocate for your own consumer rights because a bunch of make-believe rats are “sooooo cute” you’re sinking your own ship and assuring yourself that your choices in the future will be more limited and more draconian.
Okay. Juice now. Then sleep.
