gamer stabbed over cyber sword

[Structural Integrity]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03..._gaming_death/

There are two points in this article, one of which I find slightly worrying.

Firstly, should virtual property be treated as real property?
I have mixed feelings about that, especially when it concerns games. Think of an RPG in which you have the ability to steal stuff from other characters. Could you sue someone if something was stolen in-game? Should this be covered by the game rules?
On the other hand, people put in a lot of time and effort, and perhaps even other resources, collecting these items. So perhaps such games are overlapping the line between business and recreation.

Secondly, people are taking these games VERY seriously. This I find worrying, this escapeism from the real world. Are so many people not satisfied with their real life? Becomes the online identity of people more important than their real one? Will real-life contact with neighbors or family slowly fade away because of this?

Sure, this is just an incident, but I think this kind of stuff might become more common when online games become more immersive and people are having more difficulty separating virtual reality from reality.
I recently watched ".hack//sign", which is an anime series about someone whose soul gets trapped inside an RPG game. Now that in itself was not very interesting, but the people around this character, who treated their online lives inside the game as if it was a second life and took their role so seriously, that left a certain impression.

The points of this thread:
will, in the future, the line between virtual and real reality fade away?
will, if this line fades, this cause psychological problems with people (ie: split personalities, irrational behaviour in real life)?
will society fall apart if real-life social bonds disappear if the online personality takes up a significant portion of a person's life?
does the law need to extend its arms into this virtual domain?

[Rikard]

games cause violence

[xtrasyn]

The Matrix Has You

[Ste]

When you start exchanging real money for virtual items then the line starts to become blurred.

[Ärketrollmannen]

Well people do spend time and money on aquiring the online property, so it has SOME value.

[Tactitus]

I think any claim of ownership would depend on the terms of contract. If you read the terms of service it probably states that what you're paying for is some level of access to the game, and not any virtual objects you may acquire. It probably goes on to say that any roids, er--I mean virtual objects, that you lose--due to other players, negligence, bugs, deranged admins, etc. is just too bad for you.

[Leshy]

A. All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Game and all copies thereof (including, but not limited to, any titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, character inventories, structural or landscape designs, animations, sounds, musical compositions, audio-visual effects, storylines, character likenesses, methods of operation, moral rights, any related documentation, and "applets" incorporated into the Game) are owned or expressly licensed by Licensor.

From the World of Warcraft EULA.

Basically anything inside the game is property of Blizzard, and you're not even allowed to sell your items. So yeah.

[NEWSBOT3]

Originally Posted by Leshy

From the World of Warcraft EULA.

Basically anything inside the game is property of Blizzard, and you're not even allowed to sell your items. So yeah.

also

It has come to our attention that certain individuals are selling Blizzard's in-game property for cash on auction sites such as eBay and on personal websites. The World of Warcraft Terms of Use clearly state that all of the content in World of Warcraft is the property of Blizzard, and Blizzard does not allow "in game" items to be sold for real money. Accordingly, Blizzard Entertainment will take any and all actions necessary to stop this behaviour. Not only do we believe that it is illegal, but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun. In order to promote a fun and fair environment for all our customers, we are actively investigating those individuals who engage in this inappropriate activity and reserve the right to take legal action against these individuals to protect World of Warcraft for all those who "play by the rules." If you are found to be selling in-game property (such as coins, items, or characters), for real money, you will lose your characters and accounts, and Blizzard Entertainment reserves its right to pursue legal action against you as well.

We also want to remind potential buyers in the game to please refrain from buying in-game property with real money. We understand the temptation to purchase better items, but Blizzard, and not the seller, does own all in-game property. In addition, we feel that characters can find ample equipment and money within the game through their own adventuring and questing. Please understand that if you do purchase in-game property from sellers on eBay and personal sites, we may temporarily suspend your account, and at the very least, delete the offending items.

[Yahwe]

that's mighty brave of blizzard given that the legal position is not at all clear.

[Radical Edward]

do you think one might be more likely to be able to get away with it if one sells "ingame posession of the item" and treat that, rather than the item itself, as a commodity? that way the item itself is not the thing being sold.

[CrashTester]

Originally Posted by Ste

When you start exchanging real money for virtual items then the line starts to become blurred.

Out of interest, can I ask how you should define 'real money'?

I ask because it occurred to me recently that although my bank statement says I have thousands of pounds, I never really get to see that much of it. Sure, I could go and draw it out and get some hard cash but for the most my money is just a number on a piece of paper that goes up and down according to as I 'spend it' or get 'paid'.

Surely in a way this is just virtual money. So why cant that be used to buy virtual items?

[roadrunner_0]

Originally Posted by Yahwe

that's mighty brave of blizzard given that the legal position is not at all clear.

why's this? they have said 'it's our IP we let you use it... but in the end it still belongs to us, therefore you can't sell it'

in essence, for your monthly fee, they are renting you the in game stuff, if you couldn't sell a TV that you were renting, why should you be able to sell blizzard's IP?


(note, i'm not actually saying that you should be able to or not as i don't care, what with not owning a copy yet i just wondered about the purely legal points of it all)

[djbass]

Originally Posted by The Register

A lawyer for a Shanghai-based internet game company countered: "The 'assets' of one player could mean nothing to others as they are by nature just data created by game providers."

Well, if you want to follow that line of reasoning, the 'assets' of one person could mean nothing to others as they are by nature just paper & metal created by federal reserves.

In response to SI:

I think under certain circumstances it is quite justified to treat virtual property as real property. I find the term 'virtual property' a farse anyway. Nothing is truely virtual, they all have a physical end-point somewhere. The virtual property consists of data stored on a machine. That data may be stored in physical form as a series of 1 & 0's represented by magnetic fields on a very real physically based metal platter.

That aside, time is an asset. Any number of professionals in fields such as IT, Technicians, Lawyers, Mechanics and simular should understand this concept very well. When I as a technician for example work on someones machine very little of the overall charge to the customer is represented in materials used on the repair, about 90-100% of what they pay is our hourly rate for my time spent doing the work. If time goes into creating or obtaining an asset then by all means it should be regarded as property any bit as much as a real life object.

As far as legal issues go, I think that to obtain someone elses item within terms of the game publishers own rules & license agreement should not be held accountable. I do however feel that if the item is obtained through nefarious means and in a mannor not within the bounds of what could otherwise be obtained by normal play (hacking etc) then it should be held accountable.

On your second issue, I agree that people should be distinct about the bounderies between real life & virtual life. However I do not think all motivation for such actions as the stabbing that took place can be attributed entirely to the individuals inability to distinguish between the two, but rather in part a very real life trust that was broken between what I assume to be two good friends.

Unrelated, I watched .hack//sign some while ago and thought it was possibly the most awesome animated series I've seen, and is the first anime I've actually liked. Also, I wouldn't say it was the characters 'soul' that was trapped, only her consciousness. I could only wish to live long enough to play an immersive game such as that (sadely I think it's pipe-dreams to think we'll have any realistic virtual world within the next 2000 years at least).

[xtrasyn]

Originally Posted by Structural Integrity

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03..._gaming_death/

The guy who was stabbed should not complain about it. Would he have been stabbed with the Dragon Sword iso a potatoe knife he would have died in a horrible overkill dealing him at least 65 normal damage apart from the 8-12 electrical and 8-12 fire damage. Now he can simply drink a potion of cure minor wounds and be on adventure once again, otherwise he would have to beg the party for a ´rez´.

BTW what is this ´real world´ you refer to? What server you play it on?

[Ste]

Originally Posted by CrashTester

Out of interest, can I ask how you should define 'real money'?

I ask because it occurred to me recently that although my bank statement says I have thousands of pounds, I never really get to see that much of it. Sure, I could go and draw it out and get some hard cash but for the most my money is just a number on a piece of paper that goes up and down according to as I 'spend it' or get 'paid'.

Surely in a way this is just virtual money. So why cant that be used to buy virtual items?

Yeh, at first i wrote it as 'real' money but i decided the quote marks weren't needed.

The fact that you can withdraw it and spend it on 'real' items makes it 'real' in my eyes.