Raking Muck In The Sims Online

Dr. Spork writes "According to a Salon article [ad click-thru required], after launching a newspaper website chronicling tawdry dealings in the Sims Online city of Alphaville, Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at the University Of Michigan, had his Sims Online account terminated by EA/Maxis, the company behind the service. 'Censorship', charges Ludlow, who has exposed dealings such as underage cyber-prostitution and extortion of simoleans (the Sims currency, exchangable on eBay for real-life money)."

Comments

Under-age Cyberprostitution

[FFFish]

Oh my god! Think of the cyberchildren!

Re:Under-age Cyberprostitution

[Zork the Almighty]

+1, beverage on keyboard

Re:Under-age Cyberprostitution

[bigbigbison]

Isn't thinking of children what gets people who get caught with underaged prostitutes in trouble in the first place?

summary

[XO]

It's EA's world, EA can do with it as it pleases. Even if that displeases it's customers.

Of course, if it's customers were displeased enough, they would go elsewhere for their online crack addiction. Right?

Basically, it's just stating that this guy's not pleased (which he has every right to be) that the company used their right to censor the world that is hosted on their servers (which they have every right to be).

Nothing special here, move along.

Re:summary

[BrookHarty]

Actually, EA cant do anything they want with its world. This is the point Urizenus made, he reported a crime and EA had to by law contact the authorities. EA doesn't want this to become practice, so they canceled the reporters account. They also hunted down accounts related to the on line newspaper, and closed them.

In the real world, this would be an anti-slapp law against EA. I see no reason why a VR World wouldn't have the same legal status. If someone tells you that they raped a 10 yo girl, and EA refused to report the person to authorities, EA is covering up a crime.

Just because its on line, doesn't mean you can get away with a crime.

Controverse

[tibike77]

As the author says in the article, on one hand there's the player and the whole virtual community's interests (have fun mainly, but sometimes actually make real money for themselves), and on the other had the interest of the game company (make a lot of money for themselves).

As EA's TSO is not a succesfull money-maker (quite the opposite actually), do you wonder that such things happend?

The issue here is wether or not somebody can SUCCESFULLY SUE the company in real-life for in-game things (remember the kid suing the company for the "dissapearance of biological weapons"? or the companies suing "sweatshop" owners in UO?)

Cyber-prostitution!

[Pilferer]

...dealings such as underage cyber-prostitution...

What exactly is cyber-prostitution?

Hmmm, I might check this game out... *cough*

everquest

[()vnorby()]

(the Sims currency, exchangable on eBay for real-life money).

Sounds like its market is beginning to be like everquest's. Random fact(or not so random...from and old cnet article):

"And if the "EverQuest" universe of Norrath were a country, its per-capita gross national product would be $2,266--comparable to the 77th richest country on Earth and ranking it between Russia and Bulgaria. Platinum pieces, the in-game currency known as pp, end up with an exchange rate of about a penny per pp, making "EverQuest" currency more valuable than the Japanese yen and the Spanish peseta. "

i wonder how long it will take for The Sims' currency to be as valuable as Japan's, if it isn't already.

this is interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this fascinating (as many people do including Ludlow himself I'm sure).

There's a virtual society, which has many of the same dynamics as a real society, and functions like a real society as a result .. yet the *whole thing* is controlled by a company in our "real" society.

It *is* censorship (but not illegal censorship, just like censorship in Communist China isn't illegal, because you "agree" to the "terms" by living there). But there's nothing anyone can do about it. You can't even revolt because the whole world is controlled by the company. They'll just shut your character off.

To me, I see a company running their world like a totalitarian regime. They suppress criticism and free speech. They "shut down" characters with no remorse, even though these characters mean a lot to someone. They point to the rules (which *they* crafted) and say, sorry, that's the rules, we can enforce them as selectively as we like. And yet people *voluntarily* enter this world. What does that say about us?

But what would be the "democratic" version of this society? A virtual society where the power is spread out over the players instead of being concentrated in a company that controls it? What would happen in such a society?

I guess the internet itself is something like that.. and we see what that's like: porn, hackers, and spam, occasionally interrupted by genius.

Anyway I'm just rambling here but it is very interesting, and I wonder if the dynamics will follow the dynamics other ("real") societies have experiences (rebellion, overthrow, etc).

Re:this is interesting

[orkysoft]

Yeah, you've got a good point there. EA seems to basically run this online world as a totalitarian regime, and dissenters basically are put to "death". The resemblance with a real authoritarian regime is uncanny.

I think that people voluntarily enter the game-world, because they don't realize that it's not a free game-world at all.

Your comparison with the internet itself as a free world is pretty interesting too. It does indeed have a lot of negative things, like you mentioned, but I do think that the positive things outweigh it. You wouldn't get nearly as many positive things (original ideas, creativity) in a totalitarian internet or game-world.

Re:this is interesting

[kerasineAddict]

It is a free game world. EA isn't a government, they don't govern the world in the sense that our government does. They're God to the Sims. Only EA can make a SimLife, EA can kill whoever it wants, and EA can break all the rules if they wanted to. Physics is theirs to control. What you can and can't do are written down on a sacred TOS.

The real problem here is that SimDeath is the only way to control the world. Say you put a sim in jail. Would you pay money per month to be a prisioner in your spare time? Why, when you could just create another account and kill off your old sim.

Maybe monetary punishment would be good. Fine people simoleans. It seems to me that most people are out to try to make money in the game (via whatever means), so EA could implement laws. The only problem here is that it seems that they don't care about minor infractions, such as prostitution or domestic violence, because of the game world that ensures everything is consentual. The only problems that seem to arise is when you have out of game cracking/bug exploiting, etc...

I guess the best way to solve problems like this is the way that it's been done so many times in the past (ie real rpgs) - heated debates and bitter feelings.
What do YOU do when you have problems in an RPG?

Meh.

[oGMo]

It would be cooler if this sort of thing was handled in-game. Sim cops, fbi, etc. Outside of exploiting bugs, DoS attacks, and similar cheating that happens from the outside, resorting to this sort of thing to solve in-game problems just shows a lack of development and forethought on the part of the designers.

Re:Meh.

[SuperMo0]

Or SIM JAIL! You sit around for a year being able to do NOTHING with your account, but you STILL PAY THE MONTHLY FEES! XD

Great!

[EvilSporkMan]

Probably the exchange of cybersex for cybermoney...

(Damn these buzzwords!!!)

Underage matters?

[OrcishSpacesuit]

A quote from the skotos.net forums; I cannot guarantee the veracity of this, as no one's quoted any actual laws there (and I've not bothered to look), but the statement is supported on the forum:

...it is a CRIME to simulate sexual contact with someone you believe to be under the age of 18.

Not a ha, ha, I just downloaded the latest Eminem single crime. A mandatory minimum prison sentence/you will be registered as a sex offender crime.
...
On top of that, if [the company] or any employee thereof has any reason to believe that a minor was involved in simulated sexual behaviour and they failed to act immediatly, (this might include reporting the incident to the authorities if one of the persons involved is over 18) then they would be guilty of a CRIME as well and could very well end up getting sued and all sorts of other unpleasentness.

Perhaps the people looking for whether a crime was committed in the Sims game are looking in the wrong place (prostitution), and missing the issue of minors. If the quoted text above is indeed accurate.

Rule #1

[Crash Culligan]

However lame you may think Peter Ludlow is for his pastime, EA has done something much lamer:

Rule #1: Don't Shoot the Messenger. No matter how distasteful the message may be, you can not and should not blame a person just because he delivers it.

Now it looks like EA is trying to sweep whatever nastiness he was reporting about under the rug ...and you'll have to wonder what else they're hiding.

Maybe they should rename it "The Slums"?