[MUD-Dev] It's just a game (?) [was: Information sharing]

[Greg Munt]

-----Original Message-----
From: F. Randall Farmer <randy.farmer at pobox.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: 21 May 2001 1:32 AM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] It's just a game (?) [was: Information sharing]

> Greg Munt wrote:

>> I am of the opinion that cancelling your account has a number of
>> parallels to suicide. Those that deny this are "trivializing" the
>> online experience.

> I am of the opinion that making generalizations about any
> equivalence between "canceling an online account" and a real-life
> suicide trivializes real-life suicide. This is especially sensitive
> to people who know people who have committed/attempted suicide.

You are trying to interpret online events in a real-life way. The
suicide comparison is simply a metaphor to convey an idea.

Someone doesn't want to go on with their life. Or doesn't want to deal
with an event that has, will or may happen. So they end their life. In
"virtual" terms, ending your life can be equated with cancelling your
account.

> Sure, there are people who cancel their accounts because they are
> depressed. There are also people whose accounts are canceled because
> they have committed R-L suicide. These are a tiny fraction of the
> players.


I don't believe I was talking about any player being depressed. The
example that I gave was social exclusion, and a player's inability to
deal with it.  This may cause in-game depression, which could very
feasibly cause in-game suicide.

> Without a doubt in my mind, most accounts are cancelled (characters
> reaped/recycled) for reasons completely unrelated to depression or
> any other suicide-like issues, in world or out. If it were any other
> way, I'd leave this industry immediately: Who wants to work on
> something that has people quit only in virtual or real body-bags? 
> Yipe!


This is overexaggeration used in an attempt to win an argument by its
shock value. Where did "real body-bags" have any relevance to this
thread? We are not talking about real-life suicide. We are talking
about a player ending the life of a character.

> Mules are recycled like used toilet paper. They a used and thrown
> away. No attachment. No suicide here. They never developed any
> particular relationship with others.


You are missing the point. The existence of a mule does not constitute
life.  Mules are not life; they "never completed fleshed out" - in
fact, I'd argue that they aren't ever fleshed out at all!

> Many characters are generated as (social, technical, political,
> gender) experiments, like costumes at a masquerade. Intentionally
> created as probes to test a system dimension. Just ask any AC patron
> how many vassals they've had that connected only once or twice. It's
> common. Again, this character never completed fleshing out.


For "never completed fleshing out", read "was never really
born/alive".

> Many cancellations are silent, as if someone just moved away from
> the neighborhood. In fact, there's no way (on many systems) to tell
> the difference between someone who's gone away on summer vacation
> and someone who's logged out forever. Even then, forever isn't
> forever (unless the service goes out of business) Is it suicide if
> you simply don't hear from someone for 2 months?


Account cancellation does not mean not using your account anymore. It
means cancelling your account. You seem to be extrapolating ideas in
my post, applying them to something that they were never intended to
be applied to, and then pulling them down. In other words, you created
a straw man.

> (As pointed out by others) When a new better service comes along,
> characters often move-away from one world to another. Is it suicide
> if you move to a new city? The owner doesn't think that their
> character is dead at all!


This is so beyond the scope of my original post, that I will not
comment.

> A large number of accounts are cancelled in the fall because Johnny
> isn't doing his homework. Sometimes Johnny is an adult and does this
> for himself; sometime it's his parents. Suicide is often accompanied
> by a sense of the loss of control of one's life. This case may well
> be interpreted of Johnny putting his life back under his control,
> not losing it. If it's his parents canceling the account, are they
> committing virtual murder? Grounding <> Murder!


I disagree. A life has been ended. Sounds like murder to me. Instead
of looking at things from the real world, look at them from the game
world - from the world which the character lived in.

> Then there's service cancellation by TOS and/or legal reasons. This
> is probably where the life/death metaphors disturbs me the most. The
> natural extension of this metaphorical space says this kind of
> cancellation is murder, or divine judgment. Again, words with very
> deep meanings and social baggage of their own. Canceling your
> account for harassing the girls or hacking the system is *not* the
> same as me coming into your house an poisoning you or your dog.


Again, you need to look at this from the game-world side, rather than
from the real world. If your account is cancelled by someone other
than the player, how is this different to them being being given
permadeath-poison in-game?

> This metaphor has a weakness at its core: In order for a character
> to be murdered/commit suicide (via account
> cancellation/reaping/etc.), it must first be alive. Characters are
> ideas that are manifested as bits in a set of computers and in the
> imaginations of the people who interact with them. Though they may
> be alive in some people's imaginations, that does not make them
> alive at all. Some may act out a character suicide "performance",
> but that doesn't make it so. Heck, in AC you can clone a exact(1st
> level) copy of the same chacter. What kind of life is that?

It depends on your definition of life. If life requires a physical
container, sure. Can people you've never met commune with the essence
of what is you? Yes. A character is not a collection of bits. If
anything, the bits are the character's body. The "life" is provided by
the player - and can be taken away by the player, too.

> Personally, I have a huge problem attributing even imaginary life to
> my MMORPG characters, they are so alien: They are born adults, they
> appear at random in the world, they run/jump/carry/fight with
> superhuman skill, they type funny, they walk thru other characters,
> they die about 20 times a week, they can't speak/hear/touch/smell
> anything, etc.

Again, you are trying to interpret other-worldly things in terms of
the real world. No wonder you have such a problem...

> Oh yeah: I don't think that "It's just a game."  It is more than a
> game, but it is much less than a life.

That's a rather ill-defined definition. Would you care to elaborate?
Remember that we are talking about in-game life - not real life.

> As you might guess, I'm also not so keen on so-called virtual rape.
> I think it also devalues the very real tragedy of rape. Similar
> arguments to above. Harassment <> Rape.

Evaluate game-world events in the context of the game world - not the
real world. You might then see things differently.

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