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Gamer Slain Over Virtual Property Dispute
cibe writes "A Shanghai online game player has stabbed to death a competitor who sold his cyber-sword. Qiu Chengwei, 41, stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan repeatedly in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold his "dragon sabre", used in the popular online game Legend of Mir 3, the newspaper said a Shanghai court was told yesterday. Qiu and a friend jointly won their weapon last February, and lent it to Zhu who then sold it for 7,200 yuan ($A1,129)." Update: 03/30 21:15 GMT by Z : More commentary available on Game Girl Advance.
I bet he didn't use his dragon sabre to do the stabbing.
Did he read the EULA before selling it? That's violation of the digital property act of Blizzard of whatevr.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
he's going to spend some time in jail getting 'stabbed' by the 'bum pirates'. Lesson of the day: It's just a fucking game, get over it.
sup
The body was easy to find, as the title 'Zhu Caoyuan's Corpse' mysteriously floated over the dumpster he had been dumped in.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I have to wonder if this would have happened if the victim lost the sword, rather than selling it for over $1000. It's one thing to borrow something and then break or loose it. It's another to borrow it and then sell it for a personal profit.
Just fyi 7200 Yuan = $869.76 USD
Winner of The Second Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.
here is a link to a story with no registration http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/200503 30/od_uk_nm/oukoe_life_china_sabre
Before we all claim he's nuts..
If one were to attain a physical object of some want but no need, like a TV, it becomes a reward. You do some amount of work, you get the money, you buy it for yourself.
Some people equate this in vidoe games. Hell, I'm guilty when some consequence outside of my control gets in my way. This could be in my model making, video game playing or athletic life. Yes, I do have one. Unfortunately, this guy took a route that didn't involve a legal system.
It happens in US life as well. Try something that's not illegal like hitting on a guy's wife. See how fast someone goes above the law and knocks you out. It's not a perfect example, as divorce could be a route. But people will readily go around the law.
Lesson to be learned? Careful who you annoy. They may break the law. They may not. But they may get back at you.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I think this is a good case that highlights online gaming addiction and how it needs to be classified as a disease. "Detox" clinics, etc. should be set-up in order to prevent this type of behavior. It should be treated similarly to alcoholism.
When people start getting that upset at things that happen in a fantasy world, then professional counseling should not be far behind.
They also have an article about this over at Yahoo. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=58 3&e=5&u=/nm/20050330/od_nm/life_china_sabre_dc
The article states that the police refused to do anything for the theft victim because the item wasn't real. Why don't we consider these things real? You can be assured that of a hacker deletes/steals files from a corporation or government entity the police would consider this a real crime. Where do you draw the line?
"Qiu Chengwei, 41..."
Stop. There's the problem right there.
If I'm ever this worked up about a video game at 41, then please just put me into an institution somewhere.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Oh no, I hear Hillary Clinton now, it's not just the youth anymore, its the 45 year old men living in their parent's basement.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
So, if convicted can he transfer his real world experience points to any online games? Does he get a +5 hit bonus when he uses a virtual knife from now on?
I'm sure someone's been killed over some magic mushrooms before. It's not online, but it's video game related...
I bet he plays Dungeons and Dragons.
In the future, all spacecraft will be made of cheese.
Might want to check that game title again, boy-o.
Of course, it's not necessarily nuts to murder somebody over money. It's just wrong. However, I think that it's fair to say his actions aren't going to get his 7,200 yuan back. Furthermore, since he's not likely to be playing online games where he's headed, you can't argue he's setting up his friend as an example for his other friends who might be thinking of cheating him. Finally, it's very likely he will be the one serving as an example to others, under the tender ministrations of the PRC justice system.
So, I think it's fair to say this guy is nuts, provided that "so incredibly stupid it defies belief" qualifies as "nuts".
Think about this next time you decide to retaliate against that car that cut you off.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Lots of stabbing over virtual problems nowadays. If video games really did induce violence, why, you could tell what type of gamer the criminal was based on his method of attack:
;)
Pistol shot, shotgun blast - fpser
knife attack- *RPGer
+1 knife attack- NWNer, or other D&D v3er
sword slash- rich RPGer
hit&runner- racer
drive-by shooting - GTAer
Just watch the news tonight and see all the havok games have done
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
A case where a video game actually had something to do with a murder...
- AMW
the suspect was caught while searching for an altar to sacrifice the body at....
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
You need a contract. If you're loaning something worth more than $20 to someone you wouldn't trust with your life, write it down. IANAL, but as I understand it, if the court can interpret the meaning of your contract, it's valid. So: I, XXX, loan YYY to ZZZ on DATE. ZZZ agrees to return it, undamaged, on OTHER DATE. If YYY is damaged, ZZZ agrees to purchase a new one, keep the loaned YYY, and give me the new YYY. Signed: XXX, ZZZ, DATE What's happened is not theft, but breach of contract. Without a contract, the authorities can do nothing.
VFX is more influential than you think.
The 'assets' of one player could mean nothing to others as they are by nature just data created by game providers," a lawyer for a Shanghai-based Internet game company was quoted as saying.
So is money, which for the most part is just data in computer systems.
The selling of virtual objects is a good reason that all MMO* should have some mechanism, in game, for the unwilling transfer of equipment and unwilling permanent destruction of equipment.
Take MUME as an example, in it you can be pickpocketed, have your corpse looted, fall into a death trap where there is no reasonable way to recover any of your equipment, just plain break things from over use, hide things pretty much anywhere that persist... as long as no one else looks for them, give equipment to powerfull NPCs.
In an environment like that, things can have great value, but with no guarentee that you will have something tomorrow, would you ever buy anything with out of game money? Would you ever expect to see something ou had loaned to someone ever again?
Realities just a bunch of bits.
Give me a break. Just because there was a gaming related item as the catalyst doesn't mean that we now need to setup special clinics to help these "poor souls who cannot distinguish fantasy from reality". The guy obviously needs counseling alright....but for his lack of self-control and anger management issues, not for his so-called "gaming addiction". Or are you of the belief that people aren't responsible for their own actions and that there must be a reason (read: scapegoat) for those actions other than the simple fact that the person made the wrong decision?
It's highly annoying when people give hair-trigger responses to certain keywords in an article. "It said he was a 'gamer', so he obviously must've been an addict and that's the root cause of the confrontation". What a load of crap.
Here are some links for the weapon... I believe
/
http://www.rpgplanet.com/mir/uber/uber7.asp/
http://www.geocities.com/ultimatemir/weapons.html
Never played Mir before but 30-40+ Million of any game currency is a lot of farming, or botting.
That fat wad of cash might be percieved as significantly more valuable when it's broken out into how much time it represents to the offended person. Sure people are killed over a pair of $100 sneakers, and less, but a lot more people are killed over the equivalent of a year's pay.
Would I ever play a game like that?
What were the stats on the sword? :*
I keep reading this 'capitalism' thing inspiring people to fight or hurt others. We should really ban it before it influences our children!
-----------
Sarcasm is a way of life
Well I guess this makes it official! If people are willing to kill over the assets of or money obtained from video games, I guess that makes them as mainstream as sports, movies, or anything else people may have a murderous passion for! I wonder how long it will be before Gov Rod B. in Illinois or Senator Clinton picks up on this story? Actually, the worst case for them would be if China decides to unleash a new crack down on cybercafes and video games. I'd love to see the politicians start to squirm at being on the same side of an issue as the oft criticized government of China!
As for the men involved in the case, I would guess that they had had issues before this latest problem. Yeah, the money is the issue here and trust, but they were probably already on the edge.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
The value of anything is dependant upon the time bound up in it.
He had a lot of time invested in that thing, virtual or not. That time was destroyed, and for the profit of someone who betrayed his trust. That person died as a result. This is common among the most clever and violent species 2 billion years of trail and error has managed to produce. People who enrich themselves through ass-hattery met violent ends at a greatly increased rate. Sure, it's wrong, but after you're dead you're pretty much 110% SOL.
That should be: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/200503 30/od_uk_nm/oukoe_no_life_china_sabre...
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
...and people who are totally innocent of any kind of theft (virtual or otherwise) are killed over *much* less money, every day. For example (quick google...), $15.
Yes, it's stupid to kill someone over a virtual sword... just like it's stupid to kill someone over practically anything. But it's *very* easy to understand why the guy might have been furious enough to do something stupid. He was stabbing someone who intentionally ripped him off, and made a lot of money out of it. It's pretty easy to understand why he was mad -- it's not a real sword, but that sure is real money, real entertainment value, and probably a huge time investment getting the sword in the first place that were lost in an instant.
Virtual worlds are not my cup of tea... but I can imagine the feeling of not having any backups of my hobby programming work for 3 months, foolishly lending my computer to a friend for a day... and finding that he'd sold it. I'm not saying I'd start stabbing... but it wouldn't be the computer value I'd care about. Are you going to tell me all that work is only "virtual" property, and I shouldn't worry about it?
Never heard of Legend of Mir 1 and 2...let alone 3. I thought everyone over there played Lineage. In fact, I thought it was a requirement for citizenship in Korea that you had to play it so they can keep the claim "most played MMORPG".
Huh, guess things are different in China.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Sentimental value can push the price of something waaaay up. When you have something of value at one moment and then in the next it's all gone, you have this empty feeling inside. That feeling is enough to push someone over the edge apparently.
You have been warned.
Here's the crux of the problem.
In-game items ARE sold for tangible value (money). This flat-out proves that tangible value is associated with ephemeral goods.
However, if a digital item is bound to a MMORPG player upon acquisition or use, they would not be able to lend/loan/sell it. I see this mechanic in World of Warcraft, and now I completely agree with its value as an item-value moderation technique.
Because of this mechanism, the item has a specific use (within the game) and extends the player's abilities insofar as that player continues to make use of it. After a while, it becomes useless (as the player grows out of its usefulness) and is either disassembled for a small monetary profit, or outright destroyed. This re-maps the penultimate use and value of the item in terms of time, rather than its perceived monetary value.
Maybe this mechanic could have saved a life in this case. One will never know.
Doesn't "Mir" mean peace?
I think therefore I am. Therefore, I think, I am.
Perhaps not. That's why achiever-oriented catass MMORPGs exist, to cater to your sort of player.
No judgement there, except to say, just because it isn't for you doesn't mean it isn't fun for others.
There currently is not solid legal ground here to be certain but clearly there should be and that is the larger issue. After all, technically all legal currency in the United States belongs to the Federal Government but they do not own the value the currency represents. The items and gold/plat/whatever in these games are currency of a sort, they represent real labor and even have exchanged rates to other currencies like US dollars that could be tracked set by a mostly free market.
People just look at this backwards. Everyone wants to think in terms of property, but anything virtual is not property. It must be looked at as currency, since that is what we call a virtual representation of real property/value.
They may not be listed on the international exchange, but clearly virtual items/gold are a form of currency and clearly the property is not the currency itself (which is simply data owned by the game company like a 100 dollar bill is less than a pennies worth of paper and ink owned by the federal government) but rather the value represented by it (the 100 dollars of goods and services that half cent of paper represents).
I will admit that lacking an authority who tracks the market and sets a reference exchange rate/value for these currencies it could be difficult to establish how great a value to place on them, but in this case it should be easy. The exchange value was 7200 Yuan.
This should not be handled as theft, it should be handled in the same manner as me loaning you $5000 US dollars and you attempting to pay me back in EUROs (at some arbitrary exchange rate) and me not finding that currency to be suitable or recognizing it to be of equal value.
This is different than if I were to loan you a TV and you sold it and then tried to give me the money. Trading property for a currency is not the same as exchanging currencies. Either could be a beneficial exchange, but currency does not in itself have any value; a TV does have a value (although we could certainly debate how great that value is).
Many MMOs are slowly addressing the issue of selling in-game items for real money. There are companies that have set up shop in countries with poor economies and hire people to play MMOs all day in order to "farm" items and sell them through online retailers (E-Bay, IGN, etc.). In addition, individual players engage in these practices as well.
There are some who argue that these practices completely defile the "in-game economy" and attempt to apply real-world economic concepts in order to prove their point. People have made strong arguments, pro and con, regarding selling in-game items. Honestly, I think that issue is neither here nor there concerning this particular event; however, I felt I needed to mention the issue in order to preface my points.
If this event proves anything, it is that these in-game items have worth and are valuable to people. So, like any personal property, I think that people should be able to sell them to other people and make some money, as long as it is allowed "in the rules". Square / Enix (Final Fantasy XI) and Blizzard (World of Warcraft) have taken a staunch (*snicker*) posture on this behavior, banning many players from their games; however, they have EXPLICITLY told players (through announcements and EULAs) that such behavior will get them banned.
The bottom line: This is not about videogames and violence. This about theft of personal property.
I'm sure people will laugh and say: "What a fucking loser, he killed somebody over a videogame. It's JUST a videogame". The fact is, people kill for material posessions all the time (money, cars, drugs, and sneakers).
I don't think this instance is any different; however, I'm sure this will turn into a whole: "Videogames are teaching people that killing other people is a trivial thing, vidoegames are a moral vacuum, blah blah blah".
Respect It.
Was this 'dragon sword' the best sword in the game? If it was well, then ya, its ok to kill the guy. Im mean, after it, it WAS the best sword ever. Thats huge when your trying to pick up chicks.
What is happening to people? Is the radiation from their PCs frying their brains? First off, some complete loser with far more money than brains willingly pays a cool grand for....an IMAGINARY sword--some bits in some corporation's server representing some wigit in a VIDEO GAME.
To make matters worse, some complete idiot gets so upset about being wronged he KILLS over it. I don't care if it's about the money, or "honour" or whatever, or whether the property in question was imaginary or real--if you seriously get that upset and irrational over such things you need your head examined.
I think the killer, the victim and the chump who bought the virtual property in question were all out of their minds--and I'd say about the only think remotely positive that came out of this tragedy is that there is one less delusional freak on the streets and maybe others that have slipped into this addiction will look at themselves and realise it is a game...for fun...and that there is a life out there beyond the computer screen.
He's a total nerd with no social life AND he's a murderer! I'm sure the ladies are all over him.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Sword: id=1007, name="Sword of Asskicking", Dmg=100,000, img="1007.gif"
Essentially what you own is a primary key relationship:
table: equipment
id: 1000029292 item_id: 1007 player_id: 202032
This is what you own, big whoop, nothing. You get a number. Your time was for nothing, nobody promised you anything, in fact you're paying someone to play the game.
What is the law going to uphold? The game company owns the item, because 100s of other people have it too. It simply a reference in the database saying that it's in your inventory. That's it. Nothing more. No property. No intellectual property. No copywritable property. Just some numbers.
The value was 7200 Yuan.
Maybe to the person who bought it, but I don't consider it worth anything.
For it to be a viable currency, the medium has to be generally accepted as having value. It's generally accepted as having value to those playing the game, outside of that context, it's worth nothing.
If someone comes into my store offering plat from a game, I'll tell them where to stick it.
Snowball Fight Sparks Drive-by Shooting
Video Game May Be Used In Snowball Rage Defense
This proves that hamburgers and Snowballs are just as dangerous as videogames.
Ebay:
Buy the famous "Dragon Sabre"! The sword so powerful people have actually killed in RL over it! Starting bid $1500.
chown -R us
If someone stole my money and the police told me to get lost, I would probably grab a shotgun and start looking for the bastard that stole my "virtual property".
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
... that turned nasty.
I think (especially since the perp was 41 years old) that this was merely a dispute between two MMO farmers over money.
Hey... probably business partners, running a small computer shop/farm... possibly they ran two separate farms. Found the item while in a party/grouped. Agreed to split the proceeds when the sword was sold.
And one of them doublecrossed the other...
Same story played out in dozens of drug deals every day all over the world.
Serious money is serious money. And I've seen people killed for less...
If you'll get your head out of the ass, and pull yourself out of the self-righteous "bah, those delusional nerds" rhetoric, picture the fight as being over those $1000. While the sword may have been virtual, the money was very very real.
Not everyone is a rich western consultant, you know. For some people even in western countries, $1000 is more than they earn in a month. But here we're talking _China. $1000 is a bloody huge fortune.
To put things in a more western perspective: imagine that someone sold something of yours on eBay for, oh, say, $100,000. Would _you_ just shrug it off as "oh well, who cares? It might rightfully be mine, but I'll let him keep the $100,000"? It may have been something virtual, it may have been something you couldn't care less about, but we're still talking a _lot_ of real money. Think hard.
Now maybe _you_ wouldn't kill someone even for that money. But wouldn't you at least get the thought "WTH? It was my item to start with, so the money should be rightfully mine!"
And I'm sure you can see how from there it can degenerate in a fight.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
...all these people are wacked out.
It's the 21st century and it isn't Chairman Mao's China anymore--$1000 might be a fortune to most Chinese but there plenty in China for which $1000 is achievable. The fact that someone would pay that much to buy an imaginary sword he can use to saly virtual beings in a video game makes him either a filthy righ celebrity with more money than he knows what to do with, or someone with a serious video game addiction.
In any case, if someone sold something I lent to them for a large sum of money I think it would be taken to the courts. If someone paid a year's salary for the use of some game account of mine I might seek to have them committed, but that's beside the point, and really so is the money involved. The fact that several people became involved in a dispute involving that much money, conflict and violence over something with no real-world value at all in a GAME is quite disturbing.
So if this sword that was sold is not real property, what makes it not be property? Software has been acknowledged to be real property, and it can often exist with no more physical attributes than this sword. In both cases, the person who had the item to begin with got it through some sort of effort, so why aren't such virtual items acceptable as real property?
If someon's willing to pay real money for something else, that in itself should be a signal that maybe people should start taking this seriously.
No offense, but I think that's a pretty bad idea. I'm not entirely sure it would change anything (hell, the threat of jail time certainly hasn't done anything to curb drug usage in the US), and it would be a major inconvenience to everyone involved.
Sorry, but if you're going to do something that dramatic, you'd better have some hard evidence to back it up.
if a bowl of noodles costs about 6 renminbi, then mr. stabby was screwed out of 1200 bowls of noodles.
You completely missed my point altogether. It isn't the fact that the property is virtual that boggles my mind...I happen to disagree with the Chinese court ruling that implies there are no rights to virtual property. Generally, the vast majority of cash value to my name exists as a number in a bank's mainframe, and all the software on our machines es essentially virtual property.
It boggles my mind because of the nature of this virtual property--it is a prop in a game for cryin' out loud! The real-world analogue to this situation would be somebody paying $1000 for a litle plastic sword or a card with a picture on it or something...and somebody actually killing over the scam. Courts recognising virtual property is one thing--it's entirely another thing when people kill over games or bog down the court system suing over the theft of a virtual toy sword or the abduction of the beloved virtual pet of someone's virtual family on The Sims.