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1 Daniel Kline ENG 101 Professor Bolton 13 March 2014 The Judge, The Jury, and The Virtual Thief In an interesting article - "Should Gamers Be Prosecuted for Virtual Stealing?" - author Alex Weiss calls out the judicial system on the trial of a teenaged "criminal" who was being prosecuted for stealing within a video game. What seems to be a straight-forward legal blunder becomes a rather heated debate as to if they had made the right call in arresting the child. More importantly, it begs the question: do in-game actions accurately reflect the players' actual ethical beliefs? Weiss is correct in stating that physical prosecution for virtual theft in the realm of video games is wrong because each game reacts differently to such behaviors, and even though a person may be a "pirate" in a game, does not necessarily make them criminals in the real world. Weiss makes a great opening statement regarding the trial: As a reformed online-gaming thief, this ruling makes no sense to me. It places too much value on the time people spend playing video games. Video games are not work or investments for which people should be compensated; they are escapism (727). They say that time is money, but that may not always be the case. Productivity is what makes time valuable, so compensation for piracy of an object that does not even exist would place the value on the time spent to gain a merely hypothetical item. If this can be seen as just, where would it end? It is a well known fact that there are people out there who live large portions of

Kline !2 their lives within MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games like EVE, World of Warcraft, and Runescape. This extreme separation of life and recreation should not suck any real world elements into it, especially the judicial system, because they fail to set a limit of time spent in games and choose to sever themselves from the real world. If such a crossover were made legal, then people would eventually develop reasons to sue their neighbors for watching television or some other nonexistent crime. All in all, those who choose to spend their time unproductively should not to expect to be compensated for what they lost during the process. While some see turning to the law for in-game crimes as right, they fail to realize that video games have their own system of punishments, so physical prosecution would not be necessary. Weiss observes how games like World of Warcraft strictly punish their players for scams, theft, and vulgar language. He says, "Violators can be banned, and victims' lost goods are refunded." Weiss then goes on to point out how EVE actually encourages behavior of piracy to give its players a sense of virtual freedom (729). There are many games with many different styles and rules of engagement, so a universal punishment for these "crimes" would be unfit and unfair. In essence, video game creators build games from the ground up, laying out rules and laws and creating abilities; the chances are that if you are even able steal within the game without the use of hacking, is likely to be okay. Additionally, physical prosecution may be providing justice for the theft committed yet providing injustice on a law abiding citizen. Video games make it too easy to steal, so what happens when a non-criminal seizes the opportunity simply because its not necessarily illegal? There is a sense of curiosity and fantasy that is overlooked when someone accuses an in-game pirate. Depending on the game, there is typically a direction of character types laid out on the

Kline !3 table: pirates, philanthropists, vigilantes, capitalists, and even barbarians. In these be-who-youwant-to-be worlds, it is virtually impossible to determine the real life characteristics of the player based on the character they create, so we now revisit the question: do in-game actions accurately reflect the players' actual ethical beliefs? Many players enter these virtual worlds as an escape from a bad day or as an outlet for creativity, so within these new worlds, people tend to be who they are not. I know this because I can honestly say that I have dabbled in a virtual world as a thief and murderer. A video game I have recently played- called Rust- is based in a postapocalyptic world where each player fends for themselves against the terrain and other players. In this game, every player murders, steals, and lies as a method of survival, and observing the behavior of the players, it would seem that you are playing video games with dangerous criminals, but what about myself? I have never stolen before, and doing such a thing has never even crossed my mind, yet thats how I play in Rust. Taking a step back with that knowledge, I needed to realize that I was not the only person filling the shoes of a character who is my polar opposite. The fact is that people who believe that every video game thief is a malicious criminal in real life blatantly overlooks those who only steal out of in-game spontaneity. The only point Weiss fails to mention is that even though piracy within the game may be harmless, its effects on society may be greater than originally thought. Theft is everywhere, so in-game theft comes to no surprise as it can be observed as lightening the way today's culture looks at general piracy. Some gamers take advantage of low security virtual realms to "practice" piracy and build harmful habits to fulfill in-game needs. Weiss gives an example of this funfilled piracy:

Kline !4 in 2010 Pirates destroyed a ship that another player had filled with six years worth of in-game subscription renewals. At the time, the six years worth of play was valued at more than $1,000 in real money through EVEs rather complicated financial system (728-729). Though physical punishment is out of the question for this virtual crime committed in spacecapitalist hell, there must be consideration toward what is happening (727). This concept is synonymous to desensitizing with violence. Though desensitization is not exactly illegal, it only leads in one direction: down. As this culture is being heavily influenced by acts of piracy in everyday video games, one can only notice what that means for the future of this world. There's a fine line between judicial law and video game law, so the punishments thereof should remain separated; it is a what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas approach to law and order within the virtual realm. Even though some games allow piracy, one should think twice about committing the act for the sake of our future. Could these arguments just be hasty generalizations of a truly harmless phenomena or be truth about what is hiding deep down inside of the hearts of our youth? Think about it.

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Kline !5 Works Cited Weiss, Alex. Should Gamers Be Prosecuted for Virtual Stealing? The Norton Field Guide To Writing. 3rd ed. Richard Bullock, Maureen Daly Goggin, and Francine Weinberg. New York: Norton, 2013. 727-729. Print.

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Horry-Georgetown Technical College

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The Judge, The Jury, and The Virtual Thief

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Daniel Kline English 101, Section 3 Professor Bolton 18 March 2014

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