Last fall, a group of World of Warcraft players in China committed mass suicide. They wanted to draw attention to the latest restriction on their liberty: The same government agency that censors newspapers and bans books had just mandated a system of disincentives to limit the number of hours per day they spent playing online games. Hardcore Warcrafters decided they would rather pull the plug than, er, pull the plug.
But Fox News and CNN weren't on hand to cover the protest because it took place in the game. The players' digital representations martyred themselves; their fleshy masters kept breathing. These were virtual suicides in response to a crackdown in a virtual universe.
Still, virtual isn't the same as unreal. If the Chinese government can monitor World of Warcraft players, then Azeroth (where the game takes place) is in some sense a little bit totalitarian, too. And it wasn't the first time Beijing intervened in a massively multiplayer game: A few years earlier, a Chinese court ordered a game company to restore virtual biochemical weapons someone had pilfered from a player.
Other governments are taking an interest in MMORPGs as well. Players in South Korea have been prosecuted for stealing virtual property. More than half of the 40,000 computer crimes investigated by South Korea's National Police Agency in 2003 involved online games.
American gamers aren't likely to face dictatorial decrees to limit their play time, but within the next few years the courts will begin to examine how laws relating to taxes, copyright, and speech will apply in virtual worlds. In the near future, the IRS could require game developers to keep records of all the transactions that take place in virtual economies and tax players on their gains before any game currency is converted into dollars. "It's utterly implausible that it won't happen," says Dan Hunter, who has coauthored law review articles like "The Laws of the Virtual Worlds." A trickier issue is whether an avatar can be defamed: Will we see potion merchants suing for in-game slander, much like eBay sellers have litigated over negative feedback?
In the United States, virtual worlds could eventually have the same legal status as another lucrative recreation industry: pro sports. The NHL isn't exempt from federal legislation like labor, antitrust, and drug laws. But inside the "magic circle," on the field of play, sports leagues are given great latitude to make judgments, even though jobs, endorsement contracts, and the value of team franchises hang in the balance.
For example, the government lets referees police behavior in a hockey rink that would normally be the purview of local prosecutors. (Try high-sticking your mail carrier to experience the difference.) But the government still reserves the right to get involved. It should be the same in games. If your thief character picks the pocket of a nearby avatar, the local district attorney won't prosecute. But if you hack into the player's account to loot his virtual goods, you end up in the slammer.
But don't surrender your in-game civil rights without protest. In January, in the aftermath of the public outcry (and virtual die-ins), the Chinese government announced that adults could play MMORPGs for as long as they like. If the IRS doesn't let US players off so easy, will they respond with a virtual Boston Tea Party?
Chris Suellentrop (chris.suellentrop@gmail.com) wrote about Star Trek fan films in issue 13.12.
credit:Feric Animation Design Studio
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