A World of Warcraft World 457
An anonymous reader writes "On ebay people are paying real money to buy WoW gold... while some guy in Korea murdered another guy over a rare sword that existed only in an MMORPG. This essay looks at the way more and more people are failing to draw a distinction between their real and online lives and takes it to its logical, yet utterly insane, conclusion." Amusing, and with more than a few ounces of truth.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
violence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that people care so much about a silly game is, however, pathetic in my opinion.
Re:I was taking this article somewhat serious... (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't the biggest reason of releasing something into the public to get acclaim or notice from it? It doesn't matter if this person was trying to get onto /. or not. What matters is if the article itself holds water, which imo it does.
Why distinguish online vs. offline life? (Score:5, Insightful)
Without these "hobbies," people would be little more than animals -- eating, sleeping, reproducing in the endless cycle of life that we share with even the lowliest bacteria. What distinguishes humans from animals (perhaps only quantitatively) is the extent that we can move beyond the mundane activities of "real" life and explore such a wide range of alternatives.
For the record, I, personally am not into online gaming or sports -- this post is not a personal rant -- but I can see how these activities can become a major part of a person's identity and daily life. As such, it is important to understand and respect (in a love-of-freedom sense, not a politically correct sense) the fact that different people value different things. Its not that some people go overboard on online life vs. real life, its that some people become immersed in a life that is different from the utilitarian vision of a standard life.
Re:The Real Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet in playing the game you must understand that everything within the game mechanics is fair play. Exploits are another story. And its even worse when you get exploited and the parent company does not admit the exploit exists and wont make you right. Or even worse when they deny it exists, then you see a fix in for it a month later, but no reimbursement.
I play eve-online.com and its a blast. But you can't forget its a game. But those unreimbursed exploits!
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, yeah, it's 1979 D&D all over again! (Score:5, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons#C
These people behave irrationally not because of the game, but because they are irrational, sick, or sociopathic people.
If these same individuals were in a knitting club, they'd be stabbing each other's eyes out with knitting needles and paying stupid amounts of money for fancy-assed wool to turn into butt-ugly sweaters and scarves. But we don't hear people telling us that knitting is evil -- probably because other people outside the knitting community understand what it's all about.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Renting dvd's also tends to end up being cheaper. Cost of getting to the theater, $10+/ticket in a lot of places, and soda, popcorn, etc. by the time it's all said and done, if more than one person is going to see the movie, it's actually cheaper just to buy the bloody thing in the store when it comes out on dvd.
Avoiding rude people is just kind of an added bonus.
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
"End of evolution"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:WGet a Grip... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the point the poster is making is that here in the US, violent crime is so common as to be generally un-news worthy, and that the US have a very high violent crime rate. Of course I am not going to quote you numbers, but I'm suggesting that this idea is not arguable.
Who is called Sulva? (Score:3, Insightful)
In That Hideous Strength [amazon.com] , Merlin asks Ransom, "Who is called Sulva? What road does she walk? Why is the womb barren on one side? Where are the cold marriages?"
In part, Ransom replies, "... the womb is barren and the marriages cold. There dwell an accursed people, full of pride and lust. There when a young man takes a maiden in marriage, they do not lie together, but each lies with a cunningly fashioned image of the other, made to move and to be warm by devilish arts, for real flesh will not please them, they are so dainty in their dreams of lust. Their real children they fabricate by vile arts in a secret place."
Lewis had modernism pegged way back in the '40s.
Re:GP Score 2???? (Score:5, Insightful)
GGP makes a statement. Thin skinned GP take offense at what he obviously believe to be an attack on the U.S. and P spouts inane trolling crap.
And here I am answering for some reason to that crap.
I'm not the GGP but I'll take the liberty to re-phrase what he said:
"A lot of people have been murdered for less than $3000 in almost every country in the world."
There. I believe it's still faithful to the spirit of GGP's post which was something like:
"The man wasn't killed just for an imaginary object in an imaginary world. That object had a value of about $3000 and that is why he died."
Disclaimer: I'm not american nor I live in the U.S. I don't hate America, tho I probably hate a few americans. I also hate people in several countries in all continents. I'm probably a very spiteful person. A country is an abstraction. I can't hate a country any more that I can hate the color blue. But that's just me.
There's no such thing as "real" money (Score:5, Insightful)
"Real" money is just a fantasy substance that people barter for. Money is not a fancy piece of paper, it's a delusion, that we all politely buy into to make trading easier.
Like some third-world currency that suffers boutes of inflation and counterfeiting, MMRPG money is ephemeral and unstable, but from a mathematical standpoint, economics does not care if there the resources are real or imagined.
Markets have judged the supply and demand and the perception of inflation/permanence have assigned it a conversion rate. And because there are a great many unknowns in how a game will develop or be managed, the markets may from time to time exhibit irrational exhuberance, have pyramids and bubbles, just like the "real" world.
It's not entirely impossible that some day a court might rule that income tax will have to be charged on game money for the simple reason that there is a market for it - just as if it was money earned in another country.
Re:violence (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you could possibly say I was that 'stereotypical' looking jock/prep guy in highschool (just graduated, 3.6 GPA, so not a 'dumb' jock either). Yeah, I've done an assortment of drugs, not really to my regret either, started out small, escalated, and I still do them at parties on the weekends, though nothing really 'hard'. By hard, I mean essentially using a needle to do it, but used to snort 80s of OxyContin among other things.
However - I'm also what you would call a 'nerd' to an extent, I've worked in computer businesses for two years (two seperate businesses for a year each - both went out of business and I was with each from start to finish). I took state three times in wrestling, twice in collegiate and once in Greco-Roman, but I'm not a violent person at all, I party a lot but I don't get into fights, I don't rape women or anything like that, I adhor violence honestly.
So essentially, I'm a jock that plays MMORPGs (Lineage II, EverQuest, fyi), wears Abercrombie, uses Linux, used to do coke a lot, has never taken advantage of a woman, and yet still bound to these petty stereotypes? Sorry, but grow up and get your head out of your ass, the world needs stereotypes about as much as they need racism.
-Brandon
No kidding. (Even though the article is a parody). (Score:3, Insightful)
I work a regular, decent job like any other normal person. When I come home, my wife and I play World of Warcraft together. This is opposed to sitting ourselves down in front of the TV for 6 hours like many people do.
We have formed a guild with other working adults who treat WoW as a game, and not a replacement for life. We have a great deal of fun when we play without needing to be pressured by others to be involved in raiding or other activites every waking hour.
Yes, there are some people we know who are in the game at least 18 hours a day and treat raiding Molten Core as if it were more important than life itself. Yes, it is pretty sad. But if it weren't WoW, they'd most likely be squandering all their time obsessing over some other activity.
Real money - right... (Score:3, Insightful)
"On ebay people are paying real money to buy WoW gold."
No they aren't.
They're connecting to a virtual auction house (ebay) to exchange virtual money (credit card/paypal/whatever) for virtual goods (MMO junk).
I'm half inclined to go an about the value of various pieces of paper (greenbacks) vs. blank pieces of paper and the implication of the phrase "real money" - which is a lot like saying "real promises of value", or even "virtual wealth". But I'm not going to, because I've already put more thought into this comment than I think the author of the article or the post did.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Other forms of obsessive gamer (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about murder, but people do suicide over it (a recent event in the stock exchange where I work confirmed this to me).
Come to think of it, there's an awful lot of commonality between an MMORPG and the stock exchange. Hmm... you listening, Sony? I can imagine my level 63 Vah Shir warrior wandering into the main bank at PoK, right-clicking the banker and investing in the international equities market. All on the credit card. Corporate takeovers could be PvP raids. Thwack!
I can draw a distinct line (Score:3, Insightful)
And we take offense to these remarks.
There was a time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Nowadays we have panzies who cry a river because their sword was stolen. I'm a hard core gamer (or was) but I've discovered that there is so much more I'd rather do than just play all day. This is the problem with most gamers. They do not know when to draw the line.
I personally prefer to build my body healthy than to let an interface make me think I'm healthy, because in the long run, being a fatass will kill you VERY unpleasantly. Most fat guys and girls aren't in the best of health. (Try bending over at 5'10" and 300+ lbs to pick up whatever you've spilled and you'll see what I mean.)
Most people are inherently lazy, so perhaps forcing them into a virtual world is a benefit. It will leave the REAL world open for those of us who like being outside in nature. (And yes I'd probably have a laptop with me, but I unplug a lot more than I used to nowadays.)
I love gaming, but I also like being able to know that I'm not just living for the benefit of having an alter ego, which once deleted, would leave me as a poor slob without any alternatives but to start over without a hope. (Hard core MMORPG beta testers will tell you how aggravating it is to build a character and have a server-wide character wipe at the next set of upgrades that invalidate half the items and skills youv'e "earned").
Oh, and when "thieves" loot items. Best choice is to kill them or get them killed. The reason "real life" is boring is because those with connections can usurp the law and use it to crush those without resources. In games, you can still appeal to the godlike Game Masters to change things for you if you're cheated. Removing thieves from a Dungeons and Dragons like world is like pulling someone's gums out, because you already got all their teeth in your pocket.
Re:The Real Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, they had the Internet back then.
Just a little food for thought (Score:2, Insightful)
OK.. all that said.. my points I want to mention are:
1. Most MMORPG players are average people. :p ) But mostly, NO.
2. A few news stories about someone commiting murder or having a heart attack in association to games makes it the games fault?
3. There is a REAL economy that directly impacts the in-game economy. Right now, companies like Sony are coming up with in-game auction systems using REAL money. (they want to bring it in game for 2 main reasons a) they can protect their customers from fraud b)they can charge a service fee to make a little extra $$$) Anything involving REAL money tends to increase the focus that a human being will put into that task.
4. Using online games can actualy be stimulating to the mind. Each game is a new peice of software . Each game provides puzzles and quests that the player must acomplish to succeed. And in the case of MMO's specificaly, it requires a certain amount of social skills to succeed. Unhealthy? only when used in excess, like anything else. (even forum trolling
I could (probably should) write a book devending gamers, but that's a whole different story.
(Oh yea, I also sold an online toon for aprox. $750US :p so while y'all bicker.. i've gotta get back to my game!)
Re:Why distinguish online vs. offline life? (Score:5, Insightful)
Two things:
1) When the dog breeder stops going away for weekends, and starts dressing their dog and talking to it like a human being, they get plenty of ridicule. Same with sports fans that get so obsessed they riot, or that sail boat owner that won't even talk to their wife and kids and is about to lose his job (but hangs on to it JUST barely...so he can buy parts for the boat). No one's going to ridicule you for playing an online game occassionally. But when you start to shun friends and family and get obsessed you can rightly expect to be called a twit.
2) There is some feeling that because there is no tangible physical real-world gain, it's all just a waste of time. This is largely a point of view issue. Some see more abstract things as worthwhile. Others don't. But most people would agree that if you've got a great "online" life and a terrible real life, it's time to stop the escapism for long enough to give your real life a go.
Is the "value" of an online item more absurd... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, the bottom kinda dropped out of the sports card business, so maybe that's not a good example. :)
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe that parent posters point was that the poor bastard that got murdered didn't get murdered for a virtual sword that's worth nothing; he got murdered for a virtual sword that's worth $3000, with emotional attachments likely upping the value for the other party.
In other words, whether the sword was made of 1's and 0's or solid gold is completely irrelevant. It was valuable to the people in question. It is no more or less insane to kill over a virtual object than a real one. Not that that's going to matter to the politicians and busybodies who will no doubt be using this incident to try to prove that games are the root of all evil in the world...
Anyway, quite a few people, americans or otherwise, have been murdered over whatever pocket change they happen to be carrying - which, I assume, usually amounts to a lot less than $3000.
Stealing... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you say, "but the Bonebiter doesn't even exist," I'll say it exists in exactly the same way that the songs and software I download off Bittorrent exist. And yet stealing them is a crime. The only difference is that when I steal a song, nobody else is deprived of the song. When that guy stole John's Bonebiter, he was left unarmed and forced to go find a replacement. That theft actually hurts more, not less.
"Stealing" digital music is illegal because you break the copyright-law, which is quite different from stealing a physical object in the real world. I would therefore say that this comparison is pretty bad.
But concerning theft of virtual objects in a virtual world, it would be perfectly OK if it was punishable in the virtual world. If not, why would it even be possible to steal objects in the virtual world? Or to kill someone? In a similar sense, if you think that someone did you injustice in a computer-game, wasn't it actually because he played by the rules of the game, and you do not think that those rules are fair. Then perhaps you should find another game.
To sum it up: Killing a virtual character in a game to get revenge is nothing new, but trying to revenge injustice in a game by acting in the real world makes no sense to me.
Drugs/crack/weed are not cool (Score:3, Insightful)
Weed rots your brain, especially on those who are using it alot, yes. The absolute worst cases you see on the street is in fact due to HEAVY use of harshis, not the harder stuff. But it also has diverse effects on people, not everyone reacts to it the same.
Do you smoke crack?
I tried harshis a handful of times, but on me it had worse and worse effect. Sometimes I got vibration in my chest from it that really scared me since it felt like it was the heart. Now I know better what it is, and it - along with nervous heart - is gone since I started doing yoga and breathing exercises. I was poisoning my body, now it is cleaning.
Tell Your friend to SEEK THERAPY. She should have ceased contact with this 'friend' of hers. It had nothing to do with 'dope'; he is a sexual predator! If he was also 6. It's not because of the dope. He was also molested. But the fact that she thinks it was dope, makes me believe it was an older sexual predator.
This you can state without having talked to the girl or anything.. Way to go making generalizations. She knows the guy, he was also young. You may be right he was also molested, but isn't that beyond the point? He did this one time in a trance from drugs.
Read a book. Your conclusions are based on dilusions and rationalizations of a 6 year old; not reality.
I prefer to deal with reality, not books and generalizations. I also don't claim to own the truth, I just share my experience. My experience was that her pain in the time from she was 6 years old was REAL, and she said this would not have happened if he hadn't taken that smoke. He wasn't himself.
Maybe she should have figured out how to deal with this at 6 years old without tornmenting herself, but things turned up this way no matter how much you try to excuse drugs.
Drugs, accept alcohol, do not make people do things they weren't already going to do. It makes them have more fun doing it.
Taken from somebody promoting drugs.. Do we really need advertisement for it?
People take drugs because they need a excuse for doing fun things in their lives. The drugs lowers the artificial high bars we have in our so-called "modern society" to let go, relax and just do what we feel like, not what others expect us to do. We live our entire lives on the expectations of others, even sometimes when we do the opposite! But when we drink, we have an excuse to drop all that. The sad thing is that is another social acceptable thing to do, so we're not really free even we do this!
There's no need to drink yourself up to talking with that girl. When you do, you're not really doing it anyways, the booze is doing it for you, you're not quite yourself. In fact people become quite stupid in the effect of booze.
Why use drugs to artificially lower personal inhibitions, when you can do the same in a drug-free state and really meet yourself and reality? You then also have more control, thought-processes intact and don't risk dropping those inhibitions that SHOULD NOT be dropped.
You can have as much fun as you like. Just do it, but you also have to go beyond your own fears, and be able to take ridicule and fear from others.
PS: NO ONE WANTS TO JOIN YOUR CULT.
That's okay, I don't want to join your cult either
What I'm arguing is that you can have a drug-free living with a much better and long-lasting high from doing yoga, meditation and service to the world. It is totally natural, have been practiced in the East for thousands of years and this is what everybody is seeking in drugs and other escapes from reality.
PPS: Maybe you should get some therapy too.
Way to go Mr. ad hominem attack.
What can I say after this?
I can only direct you to an article about being a fool I once read and now Google'd up for
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
there is nothing special in this behavior ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Time that you spent for other people is often regarded with money, normally we call this our work.
Time you don't get money for ist your leisure time, you can freely decide what to do with it.
Many people spend some of their leisure time to play games, may it virtually or may it boardgames.
Most games do cost money, be it the money for the box with the boardgame in it, or the CD-ROM for a computer game. For many boardgames there exist extensions, that can be bought to increase the fun while playing the game. Virtual gold or a virtual sword in an online-game is such an extension.
People like spending money for such "worthless" things, it makes them happy. There is nothing bad about spending money to increase the fun you have in your leisure time even if it is a virual sword, you are spending your money for.
Re:There was a time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
Prohibitive? In Europe, folks pay $5-6/gallon (Adjusted from Euros/litres) which is far more prohibitive than $2.50-3/gallon. In the US, we are used to a subsidised (Our energy bills pander to the petroleum industry) fuel delivery system. Well, the fantasy is coming to an end, oil man President or not.
I'm totally for renting videos. I pay Blockbuster $25/mo. and get probably 20 or so rentals out. I don't even rip/burn the discs. I just watch one every other evening or so.
Well, not totally. I'm still going to see a few movies in theater. Tops on this list is Serenity.
Re:Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again, even if I'm totally wrong, where in the heck do you think the government gets the money for subsidies? That's right - from the taxes the citizens pay. My taxes haven't gone down recently, but the price of gas sure has gone up (mostly due to lack of refinement capacity in this great price-fixing-industry-supporting nation of ours).
Not to mention that lots of Europe is a bike ride / public transportation ride from work, that many parts of Europe have sane health care systems from a price point of view, and that there's enough other differences that directly comparing Europe's and USA's fuel costs alone is effectively pointless...
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:1, Insightful)
What's so unreal about it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers are real, as are the people using them. I don't know why they should be considered less 'real' than any other human activity.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, of course it isn't okay. What we're saying is, is that it is conceptually understandable.
If you say "some guy killed another guy for stealing his imaginary sword", the immediate response is "wtf?"
If you say "some guy killed another guy for stealing 3 grand from him", the response is more, "oh. one more murderer in this wonderful world of ours."
You don't condone it, but you can sort of see why he might want to do it.
Say that to my brother... (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree that overworking is bad too, but exactly the point, most people DONT work out at all, don't jog, swim, etc. Then they eat fast food like it was handed to them by whatever god they worship as their only salvation.
Then, a year and 30 lbs later, they wonder "what happened?"
I know, I did that. I'm 10 lbs down this year alone and 20 to go. (I started at just around 215/220 last year when I left IT.)
Aiming for 160 lbs as a settling weight (for my 5'9" height) should be okay. The problem is that I was in good shape, and then I went into IT, worked my ass off, ate tons of junk food due to "no time" (I was lazy and stopped cooking my own meals at night, and you'd be amazed how quickly mc'donalds and burger king add up).
Then I quit IT and got into a different line of work (involves some labor, some driving and less stress, and somewhat more time off). Now I find the time to do everything, from gaming to dating and all that (okay very little dating, but I do get lucky occasionally).
The point is, staying fit isn't "a talent" or "genetics".
If one listens to those lazy bitches quoting "I'm genetically predisposed to...[name your malaise]" then, I'm prone to being fat, as is my brother, but with a healthy diet, and a bit of work, anyone can be in good shape. (And that helps one consume far less coffee trying to stay awake.) I'm not advertising any products, or taking any. And I do eat meat
As a side note: I can focus extremely well and suffer very little trouble in public speaking, despite having been "diagnosed" with ADHD and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and social anxiety. Oh, and I don't take any drugs for it. But I do take responsability for my actions... which leads into:
I think the main issue we should discuss is that people are inherently lazy, ignorant (and often stupid) cowards in our country and wanting someone else to do everything for them. I was using myself as an example because I'm that "radical" libertarian type who thinks that if you are too lazy to do it yourself, you should probably go plug into some machine to breathe and eat for you and die of heart failure and stop leeching off the rest of us when you go on life support. I don't say "lets kill them" I simply say "lets give them what they want, put them on a farm where they'll never see the sun again except in VR, and let them get as fat as they want, until the veins in their brain burst and they die, of their own doing."
Re:There was a time... (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been fat, so I can say all this with a greater measure of certainty than skinny geeks who have never been there.
Wait until you have man boobs (and I mean when your A cup girlfriend or female friends look at you and say "holy shit, yours are bigger than mine"), and look in the mirror, and look at pictures from high school, and if you don't worry, then reap what you sow
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
A Pac-Man Story (Score:2, Insightful)
I was floored. Pac-Man? But they explained that they would compete with each other, taking turns and getting higher and higher scores until they realized it was daybreak.
So, spending hours and hours playing a game to the detriment of your real world responsibilities is not something that can be attributed to MMORPGs.
Re:Mmm.... not so sure.... (Score:3, Insightful)
During highschool and my first couple years of college, I played quite a few videogames, read books almost constantly, and went to movies frequently. But, for the past couple of years, I've replaced most of that with a girlfriend. We simply spent lots of time together, doing more "real" things, walking, talking, playing, - generally just being together.
During that time, my video game playing/book reading/movie watching was reduced by something like 3/4ths. But, now that we're seperated by an 18hour drive or $300 flight, I've noticed that I'm again reading lots of books, watching a couple movies a week, and, most disturbingly, playing WoW
I've found that the less enjoyable my reality is, the more I need to escape from it.
Re:Or... (Score:1, Insightful)
*sigh*