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Castronova's Notes on Hacker Court
scubacuda writes "Cal State Fullerton's Edward Castronova (who recently wrote an excellent analysis of gender inequality between male and female Everquest avatars) has just updated his notes on 'Hacker Court', a mock trial held at Vegas' Black Hat Conference on whether virtual items destroyed during the hack of an online video game constituted real loss. 'No verdict was reached, but the jury and audience agreed that the damages were real,' says Castronova."
A mock jury decided a mock decision.
How about we mock the geeks that are still crying over this?
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
I'm not an Everquest player, so I may be talking out my rear here, but the logic seems fairly simple.
Somebody with bad intentions hacks into the server and destroys your virtual items. Later, the hack is revealed. The sysadmin either goes to the backup or resets a few counters. Virtual items are returned to you. Problem is solved.
The only tangible loss I can see is the Sysadmin's time and effort.
So Im looking at a couple of thousand life sentences for playing Counterstrike?
In the objective sense, everything happens as-it-is. If something disappears or gets created, it's just an event happening in a world, in this instance the artificial cyberworld of Everquest. In fact, if Verant wishes to, they can easily implement a system of degrading items or having NPC thieves pickpocket you. It's their game, their chose. They even claim no warranty for preserving anything you "gain" in the game in their license you agree to every login. They also have a history of banning people who auction out virtual stuff. It's not real. You pay for the experience of these events, wether you judge them good or bad, not any objects in their world.
It's your choice to play the game, and also how you're gonna handle a setback. Obviously, you have a goal of earning as much level, eq, money, power, respect, whatever, as you can. This goal is also subjective, and varies a from player to player. I won't go into details here about that, that could last for days..
One lesson, as in real life, is that things come and go. There's no real value to material stuff, because in the end THEY WILL ALL GO, including our own body. When you realize this, you can see everything as events with hidden lessons in them and let go of it. This doesn't mean you should never complain to get your character fixed or do anything dogmatic. Nobody can tell you what you MUST do, and rob you of your choice!
It means that in the end, you know you're perfectly safe because you're going to lose Everything anyways.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I admit that I play some online games that I end up having to pay for. I play PSO with a few friends and my brother from time to time. I played AC2 for awhile, I am playing in the FFXI beta right now.
But I could never see the justification in buying items with real money. I mean its a freakin game, as soon as it becomes so important to me that I'll spend $100 for an imaginary sword I hope that somebody is kind enough to snuff me out. The "items" one finds in a game are, at most, numbers. I can no more own a magic broad sword +2 vs Nose goblins as i can own the number 7.
People cheating/hacking can disrupt my enjoyment of a game, but its a game. Im not going to press charges against them, im not going to go over to their house and tell their mom. If the host of said game can't keep the miscreants under control than I will quit and find some better use for my money, simple as that.
People are just way too attached to their own self worth. It wouldn't be hard to throw in some arguments about artifical spirituality and psuedo-relegious behaviors associated with online gaming but I am out of scotch
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
unanimously
by an undoubtely [poorly] HUNG jury.
Don't you buy Virtual money everytime you use a bank? Wouldn't you be a little pissed if someone deleted your bank account and said it wasn't real anyways? Obviously this is different, but only because it's not worth as much as 'real money'
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
You and some colleagues are working on a document. The largest part of this document is stored on your company's file server. Someone with malicious intent cracks the server and the last weeks work (assuming regular backups here!) is lost.
I think we all agree that this is a real loss. The loss can be quantified in the $time spent by you and your colleages x $wage working on the document plus any loss intrinsic to the data. If the data is stolen rarther than destroyed then damages associated with rival company having internal data etc need factoring in.
But at the end of the day, you do whatever you can (restore from backup, restart work from what you have, possibly seek redress for stolen data, secure systems better in future).
So if the analogy is valid (you and friends have spent hours working on a game), you accept a loss, do whatever you can and then get on with it.
A second way to look at the legal situation here is to use an anthropological viewpoint. What are the native laws in the society (in this case the online one), it may be quite acceptable to steal (thief as an occupation comes to mind, danm those succubi).
It is nearly always wrong to attempt to apply 'our' laws to another society - look historically at all the attempts to enforce new laws and ways of life on indigenous populations.
I guess in summary, look at online RPGs as their own little microcosmic world and accept their minimal effect on our real world.
You have to look at the buyers of EQ accounts to get the reasons behind the price differences.
A buyer of a high level EQ account is most likely to be a person that wants a position of power and respect in the game. They want the to be the 'best'. Or near the top anyway.
So much so, that they are willing to pay hundreds of real US dollars for it. This type of player is most likely a male player in real life. Power and sense of being respected (looked up to) is more important to male online gamers. A high percentage of male players (over 80%) play male avatars online. So there is going to be a higher demand for high level male avatars for EQ.
In general, women play EQ for more of a sense of community and social interaction. These goals do not require a female player to purchase a high level EQ account. Also, there are only about 15-20% real life female players in EQ. So even if they were looking to buy an account there would be far fewer female buyers compared to male.
Another interesting demographic is that only 1-2% of female EQ players play as males.
Good source of info on this subject can be found here: http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/
Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.