<font color="#C4C1CA">Something light-hearted for a change</font>

Does virtual crime need real justice?
Wizards, warriors and witches are nothing new in the online gaming world, but have they been joined by real life criminals stealing virtual goods worth hard cash? South Korea's police are already on the case.
It might seem strange to talk about real crimes being committed in computer games that revolve around slaughter.

But for people who invest hours of every day in the character they control in multi-player games such as EverQuest, Ultima Online, Star Wars: Galaxies and others these virtual crimes are just as painful to deal with as the real world version.

Players in some online games have had their virtual homes invaded by gangs who kick them out of the house and steal all their virtual goods.

Others have been conned out of powerful magic items that, in some cases, took months of work to obtain.


New crimes
The police in South Korea - a country as mad about gaming as the UK is about football - report that of the 40,000 or so cybercrimes reported in the first six months of 2003, more than half (22,000) had something to do with online gaming.

The problems of online crime are made more serious by the growing numbers of people making a living from trading items from the games.

A game account that gives someone control of a powerful character can change hands for thousands of pounds. Even single powerful magic items can command a hefty price.

So given that virtual items, mere bits in a datastream, can be shown to have real world value is it about time that the police started to be called in to investigate some of these crimes?

Dr Roger Leng, a lecturer on criminal law from the University of Warwick, said the law has no problems treating the intangible as valuable.

"It's certainly possible to steal intangible property. It's possible to steal any form of property right which is not represented by tangible objects," he says.

The most common form of intangible property that many of us lose is the credit balance in our bank accounts.

"In law a bank account is a credit balance. It's not a pile of money that can be stolen even though it is not representing anything physical."

Crime and punishment
Jennifer Granick, an expert on technology law from the Center for Internet and Society at the Stanford Law School, says courts had no problem treating intangibles, such as intellectual property, as things that can be stolen.

"I'm not sure that governments would care to prosecute thefts of online goods at this point in time, but I have no doubt that the argument that such items are valuable is strong."

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.

A player keen to advance a character they have invested hours of time to develop may be happy to splash out hundreds of pounds on a particular item, but the man in the street is unlikely to share this view.

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.

Building up a body of evidence to prove a crime had taken place could also be difficult given the ease with which computer data can be manipulated.

Mike Large, a community manager for game services firm Alien Pants, says the fact that these crimes were taking place online could mean a different type of justice is meted out.

"In a virtual world the rules of right and wrong that control our society do not necessarily apply. The thief, if discovered, could find themselves at the hands of a form of vigilante in-game justice."

He warns virtual thieves: "You can't run, you can't hide and they will find you."

<font color="#C4C1CA">Jeez! My advice to the 'victims' that report the 'thefts' to the police is that you really *need* to get a life!
Can you imagine reporting the theft to the police?</font>
<font color="#8080FF">
Victim: "He stole precious jewellry, cash and clothing!"
Police Officer: "Can you describe the perpetrator?"
Victim: "I can do better than that, I have a picture of him"
Police Officer: "Let me see"
Victim: (shows this picture)-
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...-origin203.jpg
Police Officer: "You were obviously injured during the attack...let me fetch the police surgeon..."</font>

My level 88 Dark Elf is for hire, i'll chase em down and slit their throats. And for the right price, i'll even return the jewelry. :D

Johnny [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

Well, I guess to some people who spend lots of time earning points or gear and building up their characters online it must be of value. But I think I'd agree, it's not something I'd call the police over. Well, the online vigilante 'police' maybe! LOL "Hey YOU! You stole my +20 vorpal pen? Well just watch out... the Vigilante patrol is gonna yank your +88 mega Dwarf's legs out from under him and I'm gonna have all my gear AND yours!" SO [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img] ! :D

<font color=orange>Damn! I may have to start playing EQ again! Vigilante Justice... Just think, you can participate and never really hurt anyone! Be a "Long arm of the Law" Type! I can just think of my new Paladin's name! Hang'em High or Judge Dread! :D

[img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img] Sir T, you'd be famous...or infamous at least!

That's not funny. Some people can spend hundreds of hours trying to get an item.

It's not important if the item is "real" or not. If you spend 500 hours trying to get something, you are going to care if you lose it.

Ane even there, 500 hours is not a lot for an item. You need to be high level to get the best items, so first, you must spend months and years leveling your characters and acuiring decent items, then once who have all that, you can start looking for that powerfull item.

And what happen if there is a limited number of items? What if you spent 2 yearstrying to get a virtual house, and once you have the recqired level and item recquired, you find out there are no more houses available. Worse. What if you did manage to get a house, but someone steal it from you?

I've played Asheron's Call for 3 years, for an estimated total of more than 9000 hours, and that's the minimum. This mean if I take all the hours I played Asheron's Call in a years and add them all togheter, I would have played 4 months non-stop. Without sleep, without food, without talking or going out. I did that 3 years. Do you think I would not mind losing my account? I could have spent that time working instead, and at 10$ an hour, I would have made 90 000$

Here's the ebay link to the Asheron's Call section.

This is all par for the course in the online world: go roaming in the 'wilderness' and you're just as likely to get mugged by a group of 'bandits'.

It's part of the game. You could even argue that the bandits are playing a 'team-game' in the best spirit of online adventuring. Wouldn't it be boring if everyone was 'lawful good'?

This is all par for the course in the online world: go roaming in the 'wilderness' and you're just as likely to get mugged by a group of 'bandits'.

It's part of the game. You could even argue that the bandits are playing a 'team-game' in the best spirit of online adventuring. Wouldn't it be boring if everyone was 'lawful good'? </font>[/QUOTE]It's all part of the game when both players are pk and what both playes are doing is legit.

But when one player abuse a bug to have you lose items, or when he use a program that make him invincible, then no, he's not playing witht he real spirit of the game.

Those that like to hurt people rarely follow the rules and don't like fair play.

[ 09-30-2003, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

Can't agree with you more on that point but, in most instances, it's hardly a police matter - although the online gaming company itself might want to bring court action against anyone breaking into accounts or breaking copywrite by re-writing code etc.

In the end though, if people are *that* upset about the 'virtual theft' - one might argue that the thieves may have done them a favour by making the addiction no longer worth pursuing...

Oh come on, shamelessly looting other peoples gear is half the fun :D
...or maybe its just me.