Computer Games vs Law: Virtualization and Transformation of Political and Legal Institutions

Abstract

The paper provides an analysis of virtual reality as a subject of regulation while underlining the similarity of principles in gaming and regulatory activities as the elements of virtual reality. A deeper insight into the relationships between regulatory and gaming activities allows to make a statement that gaming provides a tool for situational analysis to identify the most rational action among the available alternatives thus offering a way to construct a legal reality. Assuming that people will make decisions by weighing costs and benefits to maximize the “utility”, and will interact with others by balancing preferences and constraints, the immersion into the gaming environment and observation of the process of rational decision-making will allow to construct predictive and explanatory models for pubic authorities to organize a relatively efficient law-making process. Moreover, the reciprocal influence of the gaming and legal environment has been persistently ignored by the law enforcement practices, only to result in legal gaps. A careful and comprehensive study of gaming as a legal phenomenon is thus a prerequisite of balanced and adequate lawmaking as well as enforcement. Therefore, this study purports to examine the points of contact between the gaming and the legal reality, and assess the existing legal gaps and prospects of creating and eventually applying “virtual” law. The methodology of the study includes general philosophic and scholar methods (analysis, synthesis, logical and systemic methods), specific research and legal methods (including formal legal analysis). The authors propose to make a definition of virtual law and to identify the levels of virtual environment. In analyzing the virtual environment, the authors conclude that it needs to be viewed through the lens of legal regulation since the virtual nature of computer games gives rise to socially important and potentially controversial interactions between players, platforms and developers that need to be mediated. The authors finally conclude that superficial and skeptical attitude of jurisprudence towards the gaming industry is unacceptable while regulatory problems have to be addressed both in science and law. Internationally, the legal systems are already developing a set of provisions — virtual law, Internet law — designed to regulate socially important aspects of computer games