Property rights in virtual and augmented reality: Second Life versus Pokémon Go
Hannah Yee-Fen Lim · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2018
Video gaming has undoubtedly been revolutionized by the Internet. Single player games no longer seem to be as attractive as dynamic, networked games, such as virtual worlds. A number of nonlevel-based, social interaction three-dimensional virtual worlds have become hugely popular in recent decades. Two of the better known in the Western world have been Second Life There.com. Aside from the virtual-world games, in 2016 the augmented reality game Pokémon Go was launched worldwide and reached unprecedented popularity. Being an augmented reality game, which necessarily intrudes upon the real physical world, the game has raised a number of serious legal issues, certainly more than virtual-world games. This chapter focuses on the rights related to land arising from both the virtual world Second Life and the augmented reality game Pokémon Go. For Pokémon Go, it will analyze the various rights related to land from the perspective of a number of different parties, namely the game developer, the players, and the real-world land or property owners/occupiers.