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Virtual worlds suffer the same fate as the real one. |
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Virtual extortion, forgery, murder, robbery are all rampant in online games. So what's next ?
| Reading the news over my morning coffee I see this headline "Hackers target Xbox Live players". Xbox Live is of course a Microsoft gaming venture, allowing owners of the game console to compete against other players from around the world. Apparently some dubious coder has written a program to flood a remote players network, effectively disconnecting them and preventing them from playing. The program has apparently found an audience in players who prefer to cheat in order to win instead of accepting the fact that another player is simply better at the game. | For $20, they can have their opponent blocked from playing. A virtual assassin, and apparently a busy one This is really nothing new in the online gaming arena, but it's apparently taken Microsoft by surprise. Apparently there were unaware of the determination and the widespread corruption that takes place in the digital realm.
For years non Microsoft games such as World of Warcraft, Legions II, Silk Roads to name a few have suffered from virtual crime waves. Programs written to duplicate valuable in game items, by pass in game physics or to completely automate playing the game, allowing a character to collect money and valuables 24 hours a day. Add to that, high level characters can be sold for hundreds of dollars, the incentive to turn to a virtual life of crime is certainly there. |
| There are new industries popping up to take advantage of impatient and immoral game players. Buying in game currency, getting your character power leveled, while you go watch cartoons, and now virtual assassinations.
I have to wonder, why would someone even bother playing a game if they intend to cheat? What possible satisfaction could be derived from an ill gotten win. Of course those same questions apply to the real world as well, with one major difference. None of us asked to be born, while in order to enter these virtual worlds, you do exactly that. Virtual extortion, forgery, murder, robbery are all rampant crimes in these games.
So what's next ? How else can they make these virtual worlds so much like our own ? I'm pretty sure I won't like the answer. | |
