Death and Dying in a Virtual World
Here is an intriguing story about killing another person’s avatar…and going to jail for it. The story Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby tells of a 43 year old Japanese women who hacked into a computer system and killed her virtual husband.
The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game “Maple Story” to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy….The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world… if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.
*Thanks to Fernando over at Cultura Inglesa for the original post on that.
I wonder if virtual CSI solved the crime.
Also, this posting gets a little deeper into death in virtual worlds, called Death in Virtual Worlds: Play, Magic, Grief and the Search for Meaning
The line between the virtual and real is blurring more every day.
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“The line between the virtual and real is blurring more every day.”
Luckily there has not been any instances of this in the United States, but in Korea several years a go a kid got murdered in the real world based on his actions in an MMO.
In China a couple years back, a married couple neglected a newborn for 12 hours while playing World of Warcraft at a LAN cafe next to their home. That turned out horribly as well.
The line will continue to blur, but whether that’s a good thing or not, it’s too early to tell.