Virtual Holy Deadlock?

[dragon wench]

I'm hard pressed to say whether I find this sad or humorous...


Woman arrested for killing virtual reality husband - CNN.com

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.

The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.

Players in "Maple Story" raise and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.

The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.

The woman was arrested Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.

The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.

In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world. In August, a woman was charged in Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through "Second Life," another virtual interactive world.

In Tokyo, police arrested a 16-year-old boy on charges of swindling virtual currency worth $360,000 in an interactive role playing game by manipulating another player's portfolio using a stolen ID and password.
Virtual games are popular in Japan, and "Second Life" has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.

[Xandax]

I am speechless :speech:

[DesR85]

Saw this article from another site. Very stupid with a capital 'S'.

[Claudius]

I think her character in 'maple story' should go to jail. Not her.

[dragon wench]

I think her character in 'maple story' should go to jail. Not her.

Except it wasn't her maple story avatar that hacked into her "ex-husband's computer"

[Moonbiter]

We're getting crazier by the minute. Slooooowly we're orbiting towards Barry Geary, and the first bonafide roleplaying suicide, now long forgotten, back in 1981. Poor ole' Barry couldn't handle his beloved character getting knocked off in AD&D, so he literally fell on his sword, at 15 years of age. That was pen & paper, and led to one hell of a modern witch-hunt. Almost 30 years later games developers still have to say "Daemon" or "Daimon" instead of the correct "Demon," because of a confused kid who rolled the wrong D20. Funny enough, I can't find any reference to Barry's story and the subsequent madness on the internet.

One of the things I do on daily basis, is to teach people the virtue of web 2.0. The fact that within two years, your Facebook and MySpace and whatever willl be included in you working day and your CRM, no matter if your want it or not, will be a required thing. I also teach people about stuff like "second life" which incidentally has a deal with Blizzard (wow) on how to develop virtual working environments. You wake up in Iceland, have a cuppa, and you-and your avatar, goes to work in Singapore. "You" walk past the coffee machine, and have a typical morning conversation with a dunce in the next cubicle, but you're all in the same global office.

I'm not saying that you're gonna be married in this new world, or that you're gonna be mad enough to approach a lady, but this Japanese woman (and they have mobile phones that we get six onths later) got lost in her personal dream, and since that is what's coming, should she be charged for murder?

[superbob263]

What is the world coming to.......Chocolate through TV I hope:laugh:

[C Elegans]

I'm not surprised at all. Seeing how internet and the possibility of acting out a virtual life, a virtual persona, a virtual social network etc has increased and become more and more advanced over the years, I think this type of event just reflects what is going on.

The Web 2.0 provides people with endless opportunities to throw away their lives and engage in an internet life that gives the same emotional gratification as real life, but for a much cheaper cost. There is no hard work involved, no risks, no struggle. You can gain social status, liking, respect, gratification for the aspects of yourself that you choose yourself. Regardless of how dysfunctional and mad you are, it's easy to get in touch with people who can give you what you want. It doesn't matter if you're ugly, social phobic, clueless and lack all experience - you can play casanova and get a lot of sexual and emotional gratification in virtual worlds by having virtual relationships and virtual sex. It will not feel as good as in real life, but if you get 25% of the gratification for only 1% of the risk and labour involved, it's a good deal anyway for many people.

Regardless if you are a weapon fetischist who dream of getting revenge at the society that punishes you, a pedophil looking for contact with 7-year old boys or photos of molested infants or a harmless but odd obsessed collector of train time tables - you will find others who share your ideas, who like you and who provide you with what you want. One of the first social aspects of the internet was the mailinglist usergroups for sexual paraphilias and activities related to social taboos and illegal activites.

But there are backsides. The easy reward you can get on the social internet do not differ much from the easy reward you can get from computer games and other media consumption. Emotional gratification and rewards can be lost, also in a virtual world. Depending on how much you have invested, you will perhaps react stronger that you thought and stronger than other people can understand.

"Killing" your virtual husband is in principle no different from hacking somebody's Diablo or WoW account and "kill" of their character. It's a way of taking revenge, and revenge is a very common human reaction to perceived wrong-doings of others that has elicited painful feelings. For a lot of people, internet communities, virtual worlds, forums, games etc are not only playing - it's part of their life and person just like any aspect of real life. It shouldn't be difficult to understand. Here at Gamebanshee, we've had people getting breakdowns because other people didn't like their opinions, we've had arguments so heated so people resorted to severe personal attacks and we've had people and small cotteries constructing conspiracy theories about other people and groups. We have even had people taking actual revenge actions because they perceived themselves as unfairly treated. If you think of all of this, at a computer game internet forum, you should understand that getting angry at an avatar and killing that avatar, is not a huge step away. Not at all.

The World Wide Web 2.0 has a serious disadvantage: it feels very real but it is not. Instead, it's the most advanced and potentially most disruptive media humanity has ever seen for escaping the only life you have and getting lost in superficial emotional entertainment instead.

[dragon wench]

Here at Gamebanshee, we've had people getting breakdowns because other people didn't like their opinions, we've had arguments so heated so people resorted to severe personal attacks and we've had people and small cotteries constructing conspiracy theories about other people and groups. We have even had people taking actual revenge actions because they perceived themselves as unfairly treated. If you think of all of this, at a computer game internet forum, you should understand that getting angry at an avatar and killing that avatar, is not a huge step away. Not at all.

Good point..
I think the entire thing is also exacerbated by the relative anonymity of the internet, as we've discussed before in SYM. Certainly, one can probably assume that the 'couple' in question probably knew some personal details about one another, but even so, people seem to act out on the internet in ways they likely wouldn't in real life. My impression sometimes, and this is sheer pop speculation on my part, is that such individuals often feel powerless in their three dimensional lives, and the internet allows them to behave with a greater degree of fearlessness than would normally be possible for them.
Just my uninformed two cents anyway

[C Elegans]

Good point..
I think the entire thing is also exacerbated by the relative anonymity of the internet, as we've discussed before in SYM. Certainly, one can probably assume that the 'couple' in question probably knew some personal details about one another, but even so, people seem to act out on the internet in ways they likely wouldn't in real life. My impression sometimes, and this is sheer pop speculation on my part, is that such individuals often feel powerless in their three dimensional lives, and the internet allows them to behave with a greater degree of fearlessness than would normally be possible for them.
Just my uninformed two cents anyway

Some 7-8 year ago, I was very positive about internet communities and internet communication in general. I thought that the relative anonymity and the possibility to choose yourself what aspects and how much of yourself you wanted to give out, would make it easier for people with social problems to start interacting with other people. I viewed the lower risk of social punishment as something good, and I imagined that internet contacts could works as a gradual exposure and a learning experience for people who where lonely, socially isolated, social phobic and/or socially incompetent. However, over the years, research reports started to appear showing that people got increasingly lonely, socially isolated and depressed with increased internet use. Recently, a study of internet dating and "virtual" relationships such as the one the Japanese couple above had, showed that there was a correlation between these behaviours and depression. That is not to say the depression is caused by seeking of having internet relationships, but the interesting thing was that this study was not a point measurement but followed people over time, thus showing that the depression started or became more severe with increasing internet relationships. So the conclusion we can draw is that romantic/sexual internet relationships do not have the same protective effect on depression as real life relationships are known to have. And it might even be that they have a negative effect. Besides, there is a serious addiction problem, as serious as for any sustance of abuse.

At this stage however, it's difficult to speculate in the exact mechanisms for these effects. Research is slow, it takes years to collect data and analyse them properly. We will know later. But my speculation is that it is the relationship between easy-to-get superficial reward mechanisms versus lack of deeper, lasting rewards that make people learn and develop. Easy reward has a tendency to make people stuck in sterotype behaviour patters. I don't think the anonymity per se is especially important other than for strongly impopular and/or illegal activitites, it just amplifies the problems that are already there, both increased and decreased sensitivity.

Now I have to run.

[Moonbiter]

I'm actually writing a rather long-ish article about this subject at the moment, which is probably gonna take a lot of flak from the pro Second Life/web 2.0 brigade. I'm not condemning it completely, but I'm asking a few questions about the all-out endorsement of something that we know absolutely nothing about. Any relevant research or info on the subject would be more than welcome.