Does anyone really die online?
There's a story that's been floating all over the web this past weekend about the Japanese woman who killed her online husband over the online MMORPG MapleStory.
It was unfortunate that nearly every major gaming news site published this story in exactly the same way, laying out the details in the exact same fashion. Shame on you guys, for not digging deeper into the story and instead regurgitating the article like every other site has done. I don't see anyone digging deeper into this story about the ridiculous nature of the "murder" itself, nor the issue of the punishment being considered for the woman for "killing" her online husband's character either.
As a mapler myself, I found this story utterly absurd. You can't kill anyone in a fictional online game! Why do people keep writing this up as murder?? No one really died! And not only that, the only way to really kill someone is by stripping them of their items, which isn't even murder, it's theft. Either that, or she flat out deleted his character from the game.
The only detail that even hints at that was the small note about the woman hacking her husband's account. First of all, its incredibly difficult to hack a person's account. What probably really happened was that she shared account details with her husband, a common occurance with most couples married in the game. It's only a simple matter of logging in, deleting the account, and voila, instant online "murder".
As for the $5000 fine and 5 year jail term, that's just ridiculous. The lady in question hasn't been formally charged, but for that kind of punishment to be even considered should be beyond consideration. Where is the common sense?
It was unfortunate that nearly every major gaming news site published this story in exactly the same way, laying out the details in the exact same fashion. Shame on you guys, for not digging deeper into the story and instead regurgitating the article like every other site has done. I don't see anyone digging deeper into this story about the ridiculous nature of the "murder" itself, nor the issue of the punishment being considered for the woman for "killing" her online husband's character either.
As a mapler myself, I found this story utterly absurd. You can't kill anyone in a fictional online game! Why do people keep writing this up as murder?? No one really died! And not only that, the only way to really kill someone is by stripping them of their items, which isn't even murder, it's theft. Either that, or she flat out deleted his character from the game.
The only detail that even hints at that was the small note about the woman hacking her husband's account. First of all, its incredibly difficult to hack a person's account. What probably really happened was that she shared account details with her husband, a common occurance with most couples married in the game. It's only a simple matter of logging in, deleting the account, and voila, instant online "murder".
As for the $5000 fine and 5 year jail term, that's just ridiculous. The lady in question hasn't been formally charged, but for that kind of punishment to be even considered should be beyond consideration. Where is the common sense?
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It is some serious vandalism. I'll tell you this:
When I went on vacation the year Animal Crossing came out, I packed up and brought my Gamecube and game with me. In the hotel, I left the system, controller, and game out but locked the memory card in the safe. I read a story about this kid getting grounded indefinitely because his brother booted up his Animal Crossing town, chopped down every tree and sold all of the fruit (basically ruining his town.) The kid beat the crap out of his brother and his parents punished him.
I admit this, as much time and effort as I have put in my town, I would be in jail if someone had done that to me. I think a fine and the threat of jail time is more than appropriate for the malicious destruction of someone's personal propery. (Plus, the jail time would protect them from the injured party.)
Sure, you can't kill a person from a video game, but you can destroy alot of that person's effort. I feel that people should have more (or even some) respect for someone else's property.
Remember folks, if you visit Mohnton, you are my guest and you should behave as such.