FREE MUD!! A poll

[cratylus]

Interesting question popped up elsewhere, and I wanted to see what
folks here thought about it. Here's the scenario:

A commercial mud (it's legal for them to charge money) has these policies:

1) You can log in for free and play any part of the mud you can get to.
2) To get past level 1 you have to be a paying subscriber.
3) To get really good equipment you have to use "mudbucks", which can only be bought with real money.
4) If you are not a paying subscriber, your character is deleted after 24 hours.
5) Donations to the mud get you in-game rewards, like blessings for your weapons.

This mud uses this statement in its advertising: "Come play our mud! It's FREE!"

QUESTION: Is the advertising misleading?

[Tricky]

Technically no. However, I would expect the mud to make it plainly clear that "real world money" is required if you are to get anywhere.

If there was nothing other than "Come play our mud! It's FREE!" as it's advertisement then I would be extremely peeved once I found out otherwise.

Tricky

[cratylus]

Technically no.

It's a good point. Technically, it isn't a lie, and that's a valid position.

But my question is not so much whether it is *true*, so much as *misleading*.

-Crat

[Duuk]

It's misleading and fraud, albeit minor.

[Tricky]

Again, "Technically no", it isn't misleading.

If it is a commercial mud and has those policies then you only have youself to blame if you do not understand that payment is required to advance in the mud.

Tricky

[chaos]

I believe it is misleading, because of the difference between the technical sense in which "it's free" is being used and the common-usage sense which the advertiser is expecting the consumer to hear, and that it is not untrue or fraud, because of the applicability of that technical sense.

Slimy, basically.

[detah]

I think the real question here is whether the potential player is being defrauded by the advertisement. But I will address the question as posed by C. There are two scenarios. The potential player knows about points 1-5 or they dont know about points 1-5 when they see an advertisement.

If the only information provided about the mud is the advertisement 'This is FooMud. Come Play Our Mud, Its Free', then it is unquestionably misleading and not true.

If they player somehow knows or gleams the information about points 1-5, then the player has sufficient information to make a sound economic decision about the mud. And furthermore, at this point it should be completely obvious to the potential player that the advertisement is on its face misleading. I dont think a reasonable person will be dupped by this information. I think they have sufficient information to know what they are getting into by going to FooMud. So if they do go, they are not being hoodwinked, they are going in eyes wide open. So in this case, I say the advertisement is not 'deceptive'. But it is clearly untrue.

I think Cratylus intended that points 1-5 are NOT known by the advetisement reader initially. But rather that that information is learned about the mud in question later.

If I were a newbie and I was looking for a free mud, saw that advertisement, went to the mud, discovered it is not free (must pay to advance to L2), then I would be royally ticked off that I was dupped into wasting my time there by their advertisement. I would leave and never come back. You shouldn't dup new players into coming to your mud. All you will succeed in doing is alienating the people who rely on your statements in the advertisement.

Detah@Arcania