ID:189133
 Oct 6 2003, 11:36 am
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Check out this article, it's pretty interesting.
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Oct 6 2003, 11:49 am
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Hedgemistress
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Yikes. Manipulating a game to steal a player's account is one thing... but an in-game theft should only be a crime in-game. Considering the "He stole from me, what are you going to do about it?" mentality of many BYOND players, I think I'm going to start putting something about this in a terms of service for my games.
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Evidently people don't consider online games to be games anymore.
In-game crimes are taken care of by in-game justice, nothing more. | |
Wow. The idea of real-world police policing what happens in computer games strikes me as ridiculous, and I spend hours every week in an immersive RPG. The article says, in regards to the roadblocks to policing what happens in games:
One problem she sees is that the auction sites and online stores that sell characters, money and artefacts from games are not good guides to the actual value of the goods in questions. The other problem could be convincing a judge that a crime has taken place because online games are, still, so far out of most people's everyday experience. The biggest problem that I see is that when you sign up to play a major game, you agree that all you have a right to is access to the game, and that even that can be revoked if you fail to follow their guidelines. You don't own the +20 sword of doom. You don't own anything. (Under these agreements, selling game items on ebay may be unlawful, but I can think of only one game company who felt it worth their while to prosecute, and I'm not even sure how that case turned out.) Maybe Korean game companies don't have their players sign such agreements, but I'd find that hard to believe, and I don't understand why the reporter who wrote the article didn't find or write up anything about such user agreements. Even if no game companies made their users OK these things, I still wouldn't want to see real-world law getting involved. The only case in which I can imagine finding that ethical and worth the resources would be in breach of contract cases, where a contract did state you were receiving ownership of whatever items you acquired in the game, and the ability to get in and use them, etc. And it's hard to imagine how that would even work. (Or where intellectual property was concerned. I wouldn't be real happy if I was telling someone my idea for a game while playing GemStone, and the next year Simutronics comes out with that very game under the same name.) It's good to see articles like that one, though, that show people are thinking about the various consequences of how we use technology these days. Z | |
It should only get involved if someone pays for an item or an account and they don't get it...
(meaning REAL money) | |
I am rather disturbed at the thought of being sent to court for murder after having 3 online gamers report me for dismembering their friend, and I tell ya I didn't do it, just because he was a Wyrm and I, a Lycanthrope, does not mean I was the one who killed him!
<<>>Kusanagi<<>> | |
Well, some items are valueable, but they shouldnt be. I think just because they are being sold, doesnt mean that they are worth anything. I have troubles paying a monthly fee for games, much less a buying items. Stealing from a game is stealling inside the game. If someone steals something from someone in china, Canada doesnt bust in and start arresting people.
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I think as long as it is part of the game, there shouldn't be a punishment for it at all. Stuff like hacking/exploiting a bug to obtain stuff like that, maybe, but not something that the game was made for. Games can prevent this, and not very many do because it is part of the game.
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Foomer wrote:
Evidently people don't consider online games to be games anymore. Exactly. It's pretty scary that people are trying to merge the real world with the online world. (Just think, in ten years maybe you won't attack anything but NPC's due too fear of getting thrown in jail for character murder) | |
If I can get some fool on ebay to buy a chewed pieces of gum that I found on the floor for $1,000, does that mean its worth $1,000 if someone stole a chewed pieces of gum that I found on the floor from me?
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Wow you know what I'm an extremely "hardcore" pvper in MMORPGS, I played UO and now play Shadowbane... for 5 straight years I've played MMORPGS.
I must say, I hope this works out. So many crimes are committed online, things stolen/destroyed, etc that are worth more then my computer in real life... I know people who DUPE(duplicate) money on online games and make anywhere from $10000-60000 a year just by selling DUPLICATED money. One of them is 10 years old, the kids got no clue about what's right or wrong, and is pretty sadistic because he is never punished for anything he does wrong (because most the things he does are sadistic but mostly online so no one gets to see it in his REAL life). I'm not saying they should throw little kids in jail who do this, or strap a 20000 dollar fee on them... I'm just saying there has to be some kind of judgement so that people in general learn that if you do something bad that eventually it'll come back around to you. Most companies can't afford to hire people to police their games, if you've ever tried petitioning someone in an MMORPG you know it's a complete waste of time, takes them an hour or 2 or days to respond... It's horrible. I mean the amount of time people spend in online games are clearly just as much if not more as they spend in real life... and if they game developers strictly state in their user agreement what we can and cannot do, I don't see why those people should get away with it. I remember having psycho's "camp" my house in UO for 8 hours for 3 days straight, constantly just waiting there for me to log back on so they could kill me just because they were complete asses, and I remember people using bugs to steal what some people worked for for years in UO to obtain. It's really not fair, you don't want someone in real life coming into your home and stealing your things, why should they be alowd to on a game that takes just as much time. Since everything in your house took money, and time= money then if everything in your game took time, and time= money I see no difference. | |
they're not foomer, they're real as long as the mind believes it so.
This reality wouldn't be real if you didn't believe it to be real. When you leave a movie theater after watching underworld, do you leave it saying that was neat, or is it hard to grasp reality again, even slightly? I mean when it comes down to it, doesn't a lot of our dreams seem real? I guess it doesn't even matter what is "real" to you, but if you put it in terms of money... if an item takes 60 hours to get, and time = money... and at minimum wage say 7 bucks, that's $540 dollars that you coulda been working for that you spent online instead, which peoples first arguement is. "Well that's their choice" so does that mean that people who are complete "JERKS" online and take pleasure in ruining other peoples LIVES, yes LIVES because some peoples lives are ONLINE. I've never played Everquest but I know people who spend months just trying to level their characters... I don't know I guess I have a lot more compassion and understanding because I've seen the blunt end and the shining end of online games for 5 years... I led a guild in Shadowbane that had over 1000 people in it and got to know quite afew people and saw a lot of HORRIBLE things that people do. I don't think it should go unpunished, not the slightest :P if it's causing emotional pain or physical, by say... being racist or discriminating against someone, what's the difference? | |
it's all the time = money theory man...
The items on e-bay, their prices are based on the amount of time it takes to get them. so like if it takes you 30 hours to "farm" up a million dollars on e-bay, then the average going price will be $100. Since some people make quite a lot of money in real life, and don't have much time to play when they get home, they'd rather enjoy themselves by buying the money on e-bay (saving them 30 hours of boringness) so they can play the game to the full extent of what they wish. There are some items that just sell for a lot because they'll never be created again, or possibly not for a very long time which is what we call an "artifact" or a "rare" item. | |
You've got to remember, it is a game. It's not there fualt you take it too seriously. I do understand these guys are jerk's, and should be punished, however they should be punished in-game.
If my Tamagotchi was like a child too me and you borrowed it then lost it, it would be rediculous to take you to court as if you lost a real child. | |
but the arguement isn't that we're seeing it as a real child, we're seeing it as the amount of time spent in the intangible object to receive it and their wrong ways of stealing it from you.
I guess it's almost like weighing an object, no one cares if you steal a pen, but if you steal a car it's a big deal. There is definately items worth car values in video games now days... People spend their lives online to say the least. I am one of the people who sell items and make a good amount of money (I've made probably $5000 online) and just recycle a good chunk ($500 or so) back into the game so I can just enjoy playing it instead of having to spend endless pointless hours doing what others think is fun but I don't. | |
Ok, let's say the game is about gather apples, and you can steal other peoples apples. I decide I'm going to sell apples by the hundred (Which will take me hours to get that many) when suddenly a player steals my hard earned apples.
I wouldn't take them to court, because stealing the apples is part of the game. Despite how much these apples are worth, I was gambling them by playing. Your beef seems to be with the people who abuse bugs and such to steal items, destroy characters, ect. Dealing with these people should be done by the administration in charge of the game, not the real world law. The game may be real to you, but that reality is owned by the administration. They are god, they are the law, they own existance. | |
a few quotes that might intrest in form you (hey, and they're even semi-relevant!)
Reality is information altered by perception. Everyone sees something slightly differently, the "truth" is what lies inbetween. The only difference between a god and a madman is that a madman lives in his dillusion, while a god makes EVERYONE else live in his. | |
I must say, I hope this works out. This is just plain stupid. Even if some dumb government official decided to come up with some wierd rules to solve the problem who's going to enforce and monitor these rules? Sounds like extra government jobs that will cost tax money best spent elsewhere. Who's to decide what's fair and what's not in each MMORPG? Would you want some goverment laws imposing how you play? What if you accidently stole someone elses kill without knowing about it, would you be willing to take real life consequences for something that happined in a game? And I think Foomers point was entirely valid, just because someone will pay some high price for something mundane or otherwise worthless except in some digital game doesn't mean it's actually worth that. It's a game so just get over and get yourself a real job if you need the money as I'm sure if you worked out how long it takes you to get the rare stuff and how much it sells for you're probably making less than minimum wage. | |
OK... time = money theory is the stupidest thing in the world when it comes to online games. Most of the time, the makers of the game PROGRAM the ability to steal items. You seem to be thinking (from me reading all your posts) that this should be counted as real life theft. The only times something like this should be considered real life theft is if you buy the thing off of ebay or something similar, and they don't give you the item/in-game money. If you think otherwise... you really need to get back to reality.
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