[MUD-Dev] Korea and online world responsibility

[Koster]

From: apollyon
> From: "Sean Kelly" <sean at ffwd.cx>

>> So it appears the fear is spreading.  But is this any different
>> from the attribution of games like DOOM to events like the
>> Columbine shootings? Are the producers of potentially addictive
>> products responsible for aiding in the control of that addiction?
>> And could all these problems just be solved by better parenting?
 
> From what I understand, the connection is a little less tenuous
> than the connection to the Columbine shootings.  When Character A
> kills Character B, prompting Player B to stand up from his chair
> in a Korean internet cafe, walk across the room pulling out a
> knife, and stab Player A, it's much easier for the media to lay
> blame clearly upon the game itself, whether or not that blame
> truly belongs.

I have heard from two different sources now that the real reason
that the Korean government is cracking down isn't so much the 700
incidents of game-related violence that have allegedly been
documented, as it is the apparently equally numerous cases of young
women selling real-world sexual favors in exchange for in-game
items.

To be frank, it somewhat depresses me that given the supposedly
egalitarian environment that virtual spaces can provide, that the
mechanics that we provide serve to reinforce some of the crudest
expressions of humanity.  Design a feudal world, get oppressive
behavior? Design a caste-based world, get prostitution. Not
surprising, I guess. But to me it does hearken back to the fact that
*players do what we reward them to do.* To abdicate responsibility
for that seems foolish--no, actually, it seems amoral.

-Raph

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