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Blaming gaming
SLmag
Member Posts: 5
I'm a journalist writing a story on virtual gaming, with focus on the tendency of parents, corporations etc to blame MMORPGs for deaths, antisocial behavior etc. There are a bunch of laws now attempting to protect gamers, but where should the responsibility lie? There are now people being murdered foir virtual theft and so on. The line between fantasy and reality seems to be blurring a bit, but the blame game feels unfair to me. Anyone care to comment? I'd be grateful. Matthew
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I personally feel that it is the person to blame who takes this type of virtual property too seriously. I've read articles of women that gain 35 lbs and stop taking care of their children because they played about 15 hours a day and became addicted. I've heard of women divorcing their husbands who got addicted to mmo's and stopped taking interest in their wives. Personally if I was an mmo dev, I would make the person accept an agreenment saying that if this game were to effect their everyday life directly or indirectly, it is not the fault of the company. Just my two cents.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
Thanks for the reply. A good idea as far as companys wishing to protect themselves goes. That resembles the approach tobacco companies have to take by printing health warnings on their boxes, which would imply that virtual games should be treated as a health risk. There is no such warning now is there? Just age restrictions I presume...
#1 Up-bringing (They where taught no different or unaware of how their choices can effect them and everyone else.)
#2 Themselves (They counciously make poor choices requardless of the fact that A: People tried helping, B: They know its not ok but do it anyways, hence the Rebel syndrome.)
#3 Are mentally Unfit for Gaming. (Faced with retardation issues, possibly from birth to drug use, time to look at #1 and #2 for reasons.)
No matter what catagory a possible "hazard" has put themselves in, they all fall into one of those, and are possibly linked to another like #1 and #2 can be linked as well as #1 and #3, etc...
Anyways, polititions and nieve parents love to pin them blame on anyone but themselves, god forbid they take responcibility for their actions like the rest of us. They need a scape-goat, its that simple and the gameing (and music) industry is an easy target. Oneday, it will shift focus to something else, perhaps back to Movies or Television again, maybe something new, who knows?!
Its a well known issue this. But its far from the mmorpg's fault. Its the people that fear what they do not understand.
Back "in the day" the radio caused havoc. Remeber when "War of the Worlds" was first presented? People went mad and thought it was real people died in the madness. Radio was the first "new media" to be hit by this "fear".
TV was a tool from the devil. Showing violence and what not.
The movie industry has allways been hit hard. Mothers blaiming movies that it infuenced them to go on a killing spree because there kids had a copy of "Texas Chainsaw masacure" etc.
Atari was also in its hard time with parents reacting to these "sex games" that kids could get on there first TV console. Not to mention violent games "rotting the minds" of there kids. Causing them to kill.
PC's with violent games and porn.
The internett with its scarry chattrooms and availability to violence and porn. Because a kid had a computer and did some mad bombing with intructions on how to build it from the internett, the internett was suddenly a thing to fear.
Now with mmorpgs getting alot of media with kids dieing while playing the games are now a thing of fear.
Its a matter of they just dont understand it so they are fast to point the gun and pull the trigger. Like all other before feared but now accepted into everyday life items.
Its pathetic really and sad. Mmorpg's DO have alot of good in them.
- People with severe sosial problems and stay locked indoors of fear of the outside word now finnaly find a place to escape to and meet people.
- Keeps kids from getting into things like crime etc.
- Learning about other cultures around the world uniting them in a common joy.
I could go on but this post is getting long as it is. lol
Over to the death thing.
They died because they lacked selfcontrol and understanding of what is reality.
A guy takes a gun points it to his head and kills himself. Do you blame the gun company for killing him? Or the person holding the gun and making the desision on his own?
Bolded for emphasis.
I'm a big believer in personal responsibility. If you buy your kid a game, don't research it beforehand, don't sit down and at least watch your kid play it, etc. You have failed in your responsibility as a parent. If you buy yourself an MMO, and you know you don't like to hear people curse and whatnot, then turn off the swear filter (or don't use the swear filter), and get mad when somebody curses...you have only yourself to blame.
Take personal responisibility for your actions. The law can only do so much, the law is not fit to be a parent and it cannot tell you how to make common sense decisions.
As far as murder and theft, this is what the law IS good at. Murder is murder, if you kill somebody because you believe they stole your Vorpal Sword of Leetness + 2, then your act was pre-meditated and you should be tried to the full extent of the law. Again, personal responsibility plays a big part. You have only yourself to blame for going on a kill crazy rampage over an imaginary item. Perhaps you can claim insanity, but even if you were insane you were still personally responsible for your actions.
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Played: Age of Conan, DDO, Saga of Ryzom, SWG, DaOC, MxO, EQ2, and so on...
Wish List: Jumpgate Evolution, Star Wars: TOR, Star Trek
I gotta agree with you there. It's not the MMORPGs fault. Some people just gets triggered by it. What about sports? Which crowd is more violent, the sportfans or the gamers? Yeah, that is a retorical question.
Parents, schools, authorities and officials all need a scapegoat for their own faults. Parents not raising their kids probably or having big issues themselves(drugs alcohol), schools for not paying enough attentition, often you can tell whose trouble maker, you just have to take the signs seriously.
Often, when psychiatrists have lectures about school-shootouts, they blame the games. I recall watching a documentary where a psychiatrist blamed games for one, his proof was among others, that the boy made 5 headshots of out 8 killed. Later, it was discovered that they boy mostly played Mortal Kombat and other fightning games, and actually disliked shooters. I've heard similar episodes of other psychiatrists.
Also, they think they figure us out, saying we take pleasure in killing a virtual person.. NAAAAAAAAH WRONG! The pleasure we take is in being faster and better than the other human we just defeated by moving our crosshair at the human players characters and clicking the mouse button. Everytime they spew the bullshit out, I can't but help yelling that I disagree! I'm a gamer ffs, I would now!
Blame gaming? Let me just check................... there's 123.008 players playing CS 1.6 now. Do we have 123.008 potential murders? Nah. We don't.
I suggest we blame psychology, it's bad for the people studying it.
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Tricky issues. I suppose Ill toss in my 2 cents about the blame for deaths in regards to mmorpgs.
First, death as a result from mmorpgs is incredibly rare. There are 2-3 infamous stories about players dying from mmorpgs that most of us know. Infamous because of their rarity. This isn't happening left and right across society but rather very rare incidents. The ones that pop into mind is the player who killed another player in Asia because of an ingame sword and the Everquest player who collapsed in his chair(not to mention the Lineage clans who beat each other in a cybercafe).
Are these ridiculous reasons to kill someone? Absolutely. But no moreso than any other reason someone typically has for killing another person. For love, for jealousy, for cash, for advancement, etc. There never is a legitimate reason. Also, I believe there are currently 100,000,000 people playing mmorpgs in 2005. Naturally some of them are going to die and statistically speaking its almost impossible for a handful of them not to be related in some how to mmorpgs. Whether its from anger, jealousy, or their own poor health that the mmorpg was the final straw.
If the government, parents and the like are beginning to worry about the antisocial effects that a mmorpg has than they need to regain their perspective on their priorities. I won't argue that sitting in front of anything for several hours is good for the individual. However, when a person is sitting in front of a mmorpg they are actively aware of whats going on and constantly thinking as is required in playing modern games. Furthermore mmorpgs are the most social of mediums as people are interacting with dozens if not hundreds of people online. This is in stark contrast to a much more prevalent antisocial tool known as the television. A television reaches an infinetly larger audience where the viewer is not forced to actively think or interact at any level, but rather, just view the message that is being sent ot them. This instrument has been in society for 50+ years yet there is no call for its removal when its probably far more destructive. Why? Money. Simply put. Corporations and government make a killing on the revenue that television brings them. If people were genuinely serious about stopping antisocial behavior than this would be the way to do it.
Not to mention the internet in general. The addiction doesn't always lie in the game so much as it does in the interaction. For many, its just like a big chatroom. Where they can talk to people from all across the world in the comfort of their own home.
Lastly, its my personal opinion that its the choice of the individual what to do. Whether its smoking, drinking, television, video games or mmorpgs, gambling, etc. There are no overtly violent messages being sent out in mmorpgs. No more so than any television, movie or video game. And Im pretty sure the deaths resulting from them based off the fact that close to 100mil play them is extroadinarly rare.
I suppose without writing a novel, those are the views I have.
I don't believe it is healthy either mentally or physically to play mmorpgs for extended periods of time for a large percentage of your day/week/year.
Not being rascist or anything but most of the stories of someone killing another over a virtual item or dying from playing too much are usually from China which is obsessed with video games. It is a lot more in your face there then it is in US or EU. A new law is supposed to come into force about a 3-hour time limit. It is up to each individual to have an element of self-control, myself I couldn't spend 15 hours each day in a virtual day, the real world is far more important.
I doubt any court would take someone seriously for suing a gaming company for being responsible for making anyone a killer.
This debate about violence in media is pretty old, are you sure you are a journalist LOL?
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
Would you prefer kids to have their faces glued to the TV 5 hours a day, completely motionless and brainwashed by the liberal media?
Or would you prefer them to be a little more active in front of the monitor? Learning how to type extremely fast without any formal training. Learning how to operate computers without any formal training. Sometimes communicating with other people socially out of character about such things as history, current events, sports, and fiction without it being forced down their throats by teachers completely devoid of inspiration. Trying to learn English and sentence structure better so they dont seem like fools in front of their online bretheren. Crunching numbers sometimes to the point of using advanced 2nd year algebra (borderline intro-calculus) in order to tweak out their characters.
So many mixed messages these days.
-Go to the library, get off the internet.
-Get out more often, stop burning so much gas its bad for the environment.
-Stop hanging around with drug addicts, stop chatting with completely sober people online.
What the hell do you want from the little dudes. Cut em some slack. Geeeez.
Ok...I agree with one part of this statement and disagree with it as well. I myself started playing Everquest in 2001 and ended up playing untill 2004. Yes, I did learn to type extremely fast without any training or class but have you not noticed how many little gamers out there have horrible grammar and can't even form sentences? So what if they can type fast; they completely butcher in the english language! All I am saying is that they must combine good grammer along with their speedy typing skills to actually gain anything from it.
I know that was sort of irrelivent and not the main point you were saying but I just had to debate it.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
lol iv beat up a guy irl coz he hacked me for money on runescape
Ah, now this is a very interesting topic. I've place two links to articles that may help us think this through below my response.
The responsibility lies with each gamer and his/her family. I can make a hammer and use it to build a house or use it to butcher my enemy with. The choice is up to each individual. The blame game as mentioned previously has always been around since the 1929-1930 Great Depression in the United States when ppl started blaming others for harmful things done towards them and shoving off personal responsibility. As long as we live in a society that embraces a "It's always your fault" mentality, we will have such issues come up all the more.
I do know that certain individuals have a tendenacy to take gaming literal and thus are so inclined to respond to everything ingame as if it were real in their personal life. I think the laws are trying to protect the majority of the gaming population from the actions of the minority.
I believe that parents are the sole guardian of what their kids play and for how long. If parents keep letting the televisions and computers be their kids' babysitter and only conduit for social conversation, interaction, and stimuli, then they are going to repeat the errors of the past. History is doomed to repeat itself. Parents should be active in their kids lives and not take a passive role even in their gaming. We are well beyond the ESRB Game ratings issue now, it's time for parents to step up to the plate.
Game Studies: http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/kolo/
Game Addiction: http://multimedia.design.curtin.edu/cache/g/0002/
Eve-Online, EQ2, DnL, SWG (Dead), Guild Wars, Anarchy Online, EQ, DAoC, Planet Side, WoW, LOTR, Tabula Rasa.
We live in a society where violence is everywhere - in movies, on tv shows, in the news, in advertising, in "music" and in video games too. In the context of this incessant bombardment of young minds with violent imagery, it's hypocritical to isolate gaming as the sole source of all society's ills. So where does the blame lie? With all of us, I suppose. From parents to presidents, I think we've all absconded in our duty of care to each other to varying degrees by permitting the degeneration of our culture through an "anything goes" ethos where profit is paramount and greed is good.
On the other hand, violence is an integral part of human nature - its not as if its a strange and unique phenomenon of recent times. I often read of Muslim leaders who claim that the problems of western societies are all a direct result of our "godlessness" and liberal values - but one does not have to look far to see the bloody results of those who take the word of their holy scriptures too literally. It's ironic though, how differently authorities deal with the different perceived "sources" of violent behaviour. When the recent murder of a schoolboy was linked to the videogame "Manhunt", the tabloid papers were full of calls to ban violent games. But the London tube bombings were not followed by calls to ban Islam. On the contrary, efforts were made to highlight how atypical these Muslim fanatics were.
To my knowledge, there has only been one single case of murder over virtual theft, yet you use the phrase "there are now people being murdered". I would suggest that you should be more careful with your article to avoid such exaggerations and false generalisations. For the vast majority of players, the line between fantasy and reality is quite distinct. If you search the archive of your local court, I'm fairly certain that you'll discover countless cases of homicide as revenge to a theft. The only difference that the property was virtual is only coincidental.
A helpful site on the sociological or legal aspects of virtual worlds is http://terranova.blogs.com/, by the way. You may find it useful in your research for your story.
Currently playing:
* City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant.
* City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
Violence is not an originality of the 20th century, nor are our times any more violent than the past. It is a phenomenon with strong cultural and anthropological roots and neither the movies, the news or video gaming is responsible for it.
Currently playing:
* City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant.
* City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
To really understand why certain people get involved with MMO's to the point of ruining their lives, you really have to look at both the game design and the person and also know what causes an "addiction". Not everyone will become addicted to an MMO so badly that they will lose loved ones, or become obese. However, people that have highly addictive personalities stand a very great chance of this.
There are things that trigger addiction. Mainly, reward and satisfaction from the reward. This is the primary element to any addiction wethers its drugs, sex or gaming. Also, the time it takes to recieve the next reward, if balanced with the type of reward, is a way to keep someone constantly driving for this next goal. A good MMO developer undserstands this, and you will see a lot of these mechanics in MMO's. What seperates MMO's rewarding to a single players rewarding is the fact that you can "show off" these achievements to other people.
Of course once a person recieves a certain "reward", recieving this again doesnt mean as much as it did before if its the same thing. Also, the amount of time it takes to meet the next reward if not lengthened will not offer the same satisfaction as being rewarded substantially longer than the last time. Lab rats have shown that they will become more quickly addicted to cocaine if they are given increasingly larger amounts over increasingly longer time spans than giving smaller amounts across shorter time spans. The longer the duration of their withdrawal, the more obsessive they become in achieving their next "fix"
so by increasing the time it takes for the next reward as well as increasing the size/amount/quality or what have you of the reward causes this extra effort of reaching the next "level". The next reward takes a bit longer..but is much more rewarding then the last one..
so, you'll have certain games that trigger this behavior better than others.. and guess what? we as gamers dive into these things head first! a typical MMO gamer has those highly addictive traits, wether or not you know this.. its just some people have them worse than others (if theyre very insecure)
anyway, take it as you will..
just food for thought
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
Wow. You guys have been so helpful. I'm really grateful - the insight has been revealing. It occurs to me that the consensus here is that it's about responsibility. I buy that.
Not just in games but all things people seem to be taking less and less responsiblity for themselves. Most if it traces back to the 60s 'if it feels good do it' attitude. Maybe not a terrible approach to life in moderation but it's led to the 'cult of the self' we have now. Most parents now pass on this same ant-social attitude to their kids. Media in all forms merely reflects this and takes it to extremes to make it more entertaining.
Personally I think game ratings, like movie ratings, are, while a good idea and well intentioned, not going to have a huge impact as most parents don't monitor or don't care about them. I know I saw some R rated movies as a kid at friends houses when beta machines first came out while their parents were around and could have prevented it. What got an R rating then would be PG-13 now but I'm sure today's kids have even more access than we did due to the internet, many kids now have their own TV/VCR/DVD in their rooms, but mostlydue to single parent families and more 2 parent families where both work, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming societies ills on the breakdown of the family unit. Rather the collapse family unit is yet another symptom of that overall self-centeredness that now pervades so much of Western Society.
There was a time when parents, regardless of what they did outside the home, were expected to instill in their kids the need to do the right thing regardless of personal cost and an understanding that the greater good of the whole is paramount. If someone didn't learn those things from their parents it didn't matter they were still expected to have learned and adopted those principles from society at large. The ONLY exception from ABSOLUTE personal responsiblity in ALL things was insanity and the notion of temporary insanity was un-heard of (personally I don't buy the theory now either).
Can we ever get back to a point where people are more concerned about hounour than pride? I don't know but I fear not. I don't see how you convince a selfish person to teach their children to be selfless. Or that they would know how. Or that it would be effective once the child was old enough to understand the hypocrisy of it. Should society try to fill the gap? Maybe, but how? The old method of a state religion would never fly now. I first read Lord of the Flies in grade 8 but it was my teacher's optional selection, it wasn't part of the official curriculum utnil grade 12, and then only for the 'advanced' stream not 'general' or 'basic' so most never read it.
Personal responsiblity and sacrifice for the greater good are too improtant not to learn at as young an age as possible. On the other hand their can be a lot of nuance to the latter concept in particular that may be lost on a more naive student, or abused by a government wanting people to follow blindly. Anyone seen a movie called The Wave (which incidentally is based on a true story). College is obviously too late and most people don't go to post-secondary education but how young a student be and understand Jean Jaques Rousseau? "Every right implies a duty, not every duty implies a right." How far have we strayed from that ideal? Was it really only 50 years ago that Kenedy paraphrased it in his famous speech and resonated across the Western world but would now likely be laughed and sneered at?
As usual, variables are taken and correlations are made. What does it mean ? Something? Nothing? Money says something.
It's heart-warming to find out that the statistics hold true for many samplings, but what about the small percentage of individuals that it failed for? Will there be any future ramifications because of this?
Psychology and psychiatry never seek to answer the latter question, because it slowly drifts into mathematics and logical reasoning; the bane of any art.
Are Video Games detrimental? Is television detrimental? What causes violent behavior? They don't know. They pick something which "makes sense" and use a statistical formula to prove it. What is often overlooked is the number of assumptions made with each roll of the statistical die: Assuming distributions can be more deadly than parachuting with a large umbrella and doesn't tell you anything logically.
Do you want to blame Video Games for anti-social behavior? Define then what anti-social is and why it's so bad. Define bad. Make sure both are consistent.
As soon as logic hits the fan, things get too complicated. Why not use a REAL scientific approach like physics? Well.. they are. Properties of the brain allow it to be measured physically and so there is some hope. What about drugs? Parents feed their children lobotomizing pills without realizing that a children's brain is actually growing with each passing day. I find that more offensive than a 5 yr old watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Ok, I'll get to the point: My only grudge is with the weak line of pathetic reasoning called psychology/psychiatry/sociology that does such a poor job of handling such a complex organ.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
My two cents- Im a self employed mother of four. Children are 16,13,6 and 5 yrs old. I maintain a business, and play mmo's with my kids. I maintain my business without any difficulty though I play mmo's 20+ hrs a week. My oldest two are homeschooled and still maintain a B average, plus maintain a healthy real life social life. We play mmo's together as a family and seperately.
How you prepare your children for mmo play is key. Are there bad people in mmo's? Yes, but there are bad people in real life. Do you teach your children about bad people in real life? Of course! You cant just hand your children a game and not involve yourselves in monitoring their gameplay any more than you would hand them a loaded gun and walk out of the room.
Playing mmo's as a family can be a very rewarding family adventure. I'd go as far as to say its our "quality family time" Just as much as when we sit down and play a board game together. Or when we go bowling together.
Meeting people in mmo's is just as risky as meeting someone in real. Sure you can see what someone looks like in real easier than you can in a game, but there are just as many risks of not knowing what a persons true personality is when you meet them in real as there are in a game. You can have a 40 yr old pedifile playing an mmo saying they are a 16 yr old teen...but equally can have the same 40 yr old guy meet your child in a mall and befriend them, and gain their trust. You have to teach your children about awareness in every aspect of life, not just in reality, but virtual gameplay as well if not moreso.
About the deaths/fights etc caused/connected to mmo's, just like in real life there are people that cant get a license to buy a gun, drive a car,etc. There are people that are pedifiles, murdurers, rapists,mentally challenged, etc in real, and they exist in games too. Some people just are not meant to play mmo's any more than they are able to handle real life. This day and age the internet is so interwoven into our society. Its not about blaming mmo companies for opening a door for people who cant deal between games/reality, its about opening our eyes to understanding that these people are intertwined with games/reality as much as the next person.
Violence is everywhere, tv,movies,etc parents are the key in how a child is educated about it, and what they are allowed to view, play. Blame mmo's for their kids bad actions? Hmm...blame a parent for buying a game for a child without monitoring their gameplay in a highly adult virtual world.
Opening our eyes and mouths to educate kids about what is out there in the virtual world is as important as educating them about what is out there when they walk out your front door.
I am a middle age man who has had many successes in life. I often say I work hard so I can sit on my butt and do nothing. Society makes us believe that we must always be accomplishing something or doing what our peers are doing. If you like Football, shopping, hunting, fishing then you are considered normal in a given conversation. These hobbies can take mucho dollars and time. I pay for a game and the 20.00 monthly fee and if I try to bring that up in a conversation within any peer group then everyone thinks that's odd. I play about 5-10 hours a week. 10 hours is usually when I have a free Saturday.
But for the socially problems, I want to point this out. I started gaming about 18 years ago. I was single and had recently quit partying (drinking, clubbing etc). Nothing wrong with that but when you quit that behavior you have a big hole in your day. I'm not an artsy person so I don't want to paint or make sculptures to fill up the gaps. MMOs are a great outlet for fun. My wife and I go out to eat blow 30.00 and we're hungry in 4 hours plus the fact that going out to eat to have fun is not that enjoyable in a big city where everyone is rush rush.
In a society that's increasingly heading for the computer age, I have led many of my sons and nephews down the path of gaming. Their computer skills are awesome and I'm sure they will fit "Well" in business due to the experience. To me there is going to be an entire generation of workers who log in to do all of their work. If you don't have a head for the process you will not be able to keep up very well.
later,
About the deaths/fights etc caused/connected to mmo's, just like in real life there are people that cant get a license to buy a gun, drive a car,etc. There are people that are pedifiles, murdurers, rapists,mentally challenged, etc in real, and they exist in games too. Some people just are not meant to play mmo's any more than they are able to handle real life. This day and age the internet is so interwoven into our society. Its not about blaming mmo companies for opening a door for people who cant deal between games/reality, its about opening our eyes to understanding that these people are intertwined with games/reality as much as the next person.
Well said. The fact that the games are so real means it becomes rather similar to real life. As you say, it provides insight into how people take real world reactions and apply them in the virtual world. It does seem strange to freak out about the fact that some people do stupid things while most don't. It's about what one chooses to focus on.
Does anybody know a friend or acquaintance who has changed dramatically (for better or worse) since getting into games? If so, in what ways?
Sure, I think we can blame many of these things on virtual gaming, or mmo's but I think once we do that, we have to aleviate all personal responsibility and start going after everything and everyone that may wish to do us harm, start the lawmaking now because it could take a while.
First, lets go after our corporations and employers for making workaholics out of so many fathers and mothers, let's start taking them to court for everyone of their employees that suffers a heart attack due to the high stress environments. Let's not forget that working for these people often leads to other addictions such as drinking and drug use, could it be that working is the oldest gateway drug ? What the hell, let's blame them for it anyways.
We could say the same for eductional institutions, we could start going after bars, pubs and clubs for providing many of the same escapes, or how about books, let's start going after publishers because they have been providing escapes from reality for how long now ? Or better yet, how much harm has the internet done since it's popular conception, how many people have toiled away endless browsing web pages, just like this one, posting on forums, reading articles, messing with their own profiles, creating a myspace. I mean that's just as much an escape from real life isn't it ?
What I think it boils down to is that we can either start accept ourselves as responsible for our own actions OR we start accepting the fact that we are completely incapable of making such decisions and let our law makers do it for us. Personaly, I don't want that to happen, I'm a student, have 2 part time jobs, have a boyfriend, making many new friends in a city I've only lived in for 2 years and I love mmo's, I would call myself an avid gamer.
Will there be questions like this as gaming grows in popularity, of course but what we have to remember is that gaming is no different a pass time then those that already exist and those story's that do make the press about someone going over the edge are NOT the norm. But of course, those are the good storys right ? Thats what sells.
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We all know how addictive MMORPGs can be. Just like any other addiction like smoking, drugs, caffeine, etc. This in turn gives us great passion for the game and MMOG industry. So people end up doing crazy and/or unlawful things because what happens in-game is REAL to them. Your dealing with real people and there are real consequences. Where does the responsibility lie? It's EVERYONE's responsibility. Both the industry and the consumer. I'm a parent, it's my responsibility to make sure my child understands that many things in games should'nt be done in the real world. It's his responsibility to adhere to that. It's also the responsibilty of the gaming industry to give options within games to filter mature content. It's also the MMOG company's responsibility to assist distressed players. It's the responsibility of the player not to do unlawful things in the real world.
The line between fantasy and real world is not blurred IMO. For instance, stealing something in-game is an in-game offense and the outcome is determined by the MMOG company's code of conduct and GMs. You take it out of game, you abide by real world laws. But you should not be able to take someone to court over a stolen sword in-game. It's the MMOG companies responsibility to track what happened and the players responsibility not to lend someone his sword.
Real world social misbehavour from gaming can happen. For someone to point fingers at everyone but themselves or something they love and protect (in this case, gaming) is a shame. Again, it's everyone's responsibility and we all do our part.
EQ1 - Shaman & Cleric 1999-2003
Others Played: AC1, AC2, AO, EQ2, EVE(Beta Tester), SWG(pre-NGE/CU), Guildwars, TSO, MxO(Beta Tester), Lineage 1, Lineage 2, WOW, COV/COH, DDO, Vanguard(Beta Tester), DAOC, Tabula Rasa