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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Posted in: Second Life 3D worlds

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1 Comment

  1. Bart October 24, 2008

    “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.

Karl Kapp
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