Rakshasa #328 was contacted and he claimed that the Freemasonry #385 losses that threaten foreclosing of both the company and Rakshasa account, are caused by such a bug in the game mechanics that a rollback is the right way to remedy it. This would roll back money to Freemasonry and other building companies, and cancel the BLD produced.
Town Council court decision #1 concerning the caseWhereas,
FREEMASONRY (385) has a balance of -693,511,465 M ;
The account is an ingame corporation managed by RAKSHASA (328): 1,044,378 M ;
Who also owns the said corporation fully, without any stock issued or documents ;
Whereas,
The markets in the game opened in 2016-9-1 ;
Gamemaster made the decision that overdrafts need to be covered under threat of foreclosure ;
FREEMASONRY assets are far insufficient to cover the overdraft ;
Whereas,
when (the player behind) RAKSHASA was contacted, he made the claims:
1. The overdraft was caused by bug that caused the Building module to be unusable so that BLD did not have any sink.
2. This made BLD unsaleable.
3. The company did not have possibility to adjust operations and was bound by agreements with another company to continue.
4. The bug should have been fixed or the game paused.
5. Since this was not done despite his calls to action when the situation was ongoing, the faulty production should be rolled back and NPC cost credited (to all the building companies in the said period, approx 1644-1647).
6. There was no negligence in operation and the accrual of the overdraft was prudent. Before the situation started, FREEMASONRY had 300 mil in possession, and when the game was paused, the BLD accrued, was worth more than the overdraft.
7. RAKSHASA should be isolated from bearing FREEMASONRY losses because the accounts were managed independently.
8. The Town also owes him 6 weeks of admin salary.
Whereas,
the members of the Town council support that:
1. The principle in the game is, and has always been, that operations in the game, its markets and production, happen entirely at the player's own risk. Consequently the player's belief that BLD would continuously have use, does not bind the game to actually ensure this is the case.
2. The markets remained open and during all this time, BLD was being traded. Merely the fact that selling a large amount would have crashed the price does not mean that selling was impossible. Managing market risk is one of the central tenets of the whole game.
3. Companies are self responsible for their actions.
4.
All bugs need to be fixed, and the game
was paused. Initial attempt by GM to pause the game was voted down.
5. Rollbacks happen when the action itself is performed wrongly, eg. if BLD had been produced in 10x the quantity, or only the cost of the production charged with no production happening. This is not the case here, the production happened exactly as it should. Whether BLD was usable immediately or not, or if there was a bug causing illegitimate repairs at no cost, only causes the actual faulty actions such as free repairs to be rolled back. Loss of opportunity is not, and has never been, a cause for a rollback.
6. The policy with overdrafts is somewhat unclear. The operation of year change scripts requires that overdraft must be possible, but it is still forbidden to cause oneself to run on overdraft, or perpetuate it.
7. Having a 100% self-owned and managed additional character capable of running protracted overdraft (which player characters usually cannot do themselves due to the need to buy food, only possible with positive balance) does not create limited liability.
8. King said the "employment contract" had effectively terminated when there was no agreement on the continuation of work. Nevertheless the Town never issued an order to stop working on earlier responsibilities.
So, Therefore,
the COURT finds:
I The production of BLD has happened correctly, and the situation in the game, on balance, does not warrant a rollback of the production or its cost. The direct effects of the bug/s have been, and will be rolled back. The game was sufficiently operational that the production could have been sold, or cut down, or funding arranged, partners recruited, deposited, etc. What happened was market risk becoming true.
II 100% self-operated and managed side characters do not enjoy limited liability.
III Whether RAKSHASA was negligent in operating the company, in the scale of (criminal, criminally negligent, grossly negligent, negligent, prudent), the negligence was not big. Company was operated with high risk and the decision to take protracted overdraft when the assets still were in excess, was risky but not unusual. Especially since Rak himself rallied for the game to be paused, it is questionable to not sell the product in advance. On the other hand, the magnitude of the XMR rise (which caused this to become a problem and a court case), was unexpected. All this is, however, of no consequence since because of (I)&(II) he is anyway liable for the overdraft.
IV Town must pay RAKSHASA 750 EUR/month for the admin duties for 6 weeks, which translates to 86,600,000 m (final). EUR-denominated debts stay EUR-denominated until they are converted to M for payment.
V Because the overdrafts need to be covered and the game does not have jurisdiction to cause (the player behind) RAKSHASA to deposit to cover them, all the assets in RAKSHASA and FREEMASONRY are not likely to cover the overdraft, and the situation in the markets is precarious,
Characters #328 Rakshasa and #385 Freemasonry are swept to #395 GSIC. This causes the overdraft to disappear because it is merged with the GSIC positive balance. Depending on how much the assets can be sold for, GSIC shareholders take a hit of about 400 mil ($5,000).
VI The verdict is executable. There is a court of appeal (King) and parties (RAKSHASA/FREEMASONRY, TOWN, GSIC) have 7 realdays to show disagreement. This session is free of cost.
