As if I really needed any reinforcement for my feelings that MMOs are just about the dumbest thing to happen to video games since the Virtual Boy, along comes some jackass and does the legwork for me. For those of you that don't know what an MMO is, it's a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (for those of you that don't care, come back later when I'm done being a geek...I'm sure I'll be talking about drugs or tits or rock and roll or some such hot shit in no time.) An MMO means that you create a character that inhabits a virtual world populated with other online players from all over the world. These games come in lots of different forms. There's one based on Star Wars, one taking place within The Matrix, one in the Final Fantasy world and dozens of others. As a (primarily offline) console-based gamer, I first became aware of these games when I dated a girl was was addicted to this game called Everquest.
Now apparently this game was so highly addictive and integral to some peoples' lives that they would start to replace their reality with this false fantasy world. You'd hear about people losing their jobs, marriages failing, or becoming addidcted to amphetamines all in the name of being able to play for "just one more quest." I personally never got into this whole thing because I've got a short attention span and can't really get into any game that I can't pause or turn off at any time. I'm even reticent to play shit like Halo online, just in case the phone rang or I wanted to smoke a cigarette or something.
Anyway, like I said, evidence of the hold these games have on certain can be seen in their real world reflections. People will dress up as the characters and spend RIDICULOUS amounts of real world money on eBay for leveled up characters and items and shit. This concept just seems unbelievably fucking dumb to me, but I spend money on some stupid shit too...so who am I to judge? The thing that really gets me is just how serious some people take this. According to my friend Jon, there are entire sweatshops in China and other places where there are just rooms of dudes chained to computers spending all day on these games gathering experience and items to be sold over the internet. Now apparently, over there they do things a little differently when it comes to the concept of "virtual property," something I'm not incredibly clear on in the first place. This sometimes leads people to take the law into their own incredibly inept hands...which is what spawned this rant in the first place. This is an article from the gaming site ign.com that basically sums up just how fucking insane people are over these games:
June 8, 2005 - In an extreme example of gamers taking a hobby (obsession?) too far, Shanghai gamer Qui Chengwei stabbed Zhu Caoyuan in the chest, killing the fellow gamer, according to the BBC News.
Qui had apparently tried to take the virtual property dispute to the police, but China lacks laws covering virtual property like an online sword. Zhu had offered to pay Qui the money he'd earned from the sword, but Qui refused.
Qui Chengwei now faces a suspended death sentence, meaning he could spend his life in jail, but that he may also be released on "good behavior" in 15 years.
Victim Zhu Caoyuan was 26 years old. His parents are currently seeking appeal for an immediate death sentence.
