Gamer Killed Over Virtual Legend of Mir 3 Sword
by
Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. - 13 Comments, Last updated
09/14/2010
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While it may be that addiction is not a problem for Internet gamers, apparently taking their games too seriously is. Not just a problem - but potentially fatal.
According to the BBC, Chinese online gamers Qiu Chengwei and Zhu Caoyuan were both involved in the online game Legend of Mir 3. Chengwei apparently won a virtual sword (be clear here, folks, this is nothing more than data on the Internet, not a real sword!), and then loaned ‘it’ (presumably the rights to it, or to ‘use’ it) to Caoyuan. Caoyuan then sold ‘it’ to someone for the equivalent of 473 British pounds (approximately $861 USD).
Chengwei was so incensed when he learned that Caoyuan had sold his… again, let’s be clear here … data bits, that Chengwei rushed over to Caoyuan’s home, and stabbed him with “great force”, killing him.
Reported the BBC, “According to the Chinese press, more and more gamers are seeking justice through the courts over stolen weapons and credits accumulated in games.”
A Chinese professor of law indicated that he believed that weapons accumulated through online games should be considered personal property because the gamers “have to spend time and money for them”.
But as a lawyer for an online game company put it “the weapons were in fact just data created by games providers and therefore not the property of gamers”.
Bottom line? It’s always fun until someone gets hurt.
These are just games guys, it’s not real. To even get that worked up over something like this is frightening. To kill someone over it? Incomprehensible.
If you find yourself that involved in an online game, get a life. Don’t take one.
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90% of the worlds money isn’t “real” as this article suggests
Comment by Louis — 9/14/2010 @ 10:16 am
Its sad like really fucking sad that someone would die over a virtual sword. this game sucks too i dont get why anyone would play it the graphics are shit. but back on point to kill someone for databits on a computer is very very very fucked up
Comment by Rappelz player — 6/6/2010 @ 11:08 am
Sad dickhead, I play Legend of mir 2 and 3 and Ive had plenty of things stolen off me, you think im gonna go round there house and chop em up with an axe…? stupied mofo, everytime I see anyone drop a rare item anywhere in the world of mir, I will steal it, and what? what you gonna do about it? its a game people really need to start knowing that. If you wanna go to the “POLICE” about something someones done in virtual life, then your a sad act, quit game n do one n dont come back, you bunch of fools. “IM A THEIF ON LOM 2 AND 3 i go by the name of lvl 42 and Castello lvl 46, I pay good money to play the game and i do what I want, if anyones got a problem you know where to find me ;) thx. inabit
Comment by Bozwell — 5/21/2007 @ 2:44 am
What is the point of playing a game if you don’t care at all what you acheive in it? Obviously killing somebody over a game is very abnormal, any sane person would agree. However getting worked up over a game is quite normal and it will happen to any long term gamer at some time. When one plays a game he accepts what is on the screen as reality, because he is involved in it. Same as good horror films will make you scared, or other genres of films would cause a particular effect on you. The abnormality starts when one’s life becomes not the real world, but the games he plays.
Now legally, anything within the game may belong to the company, however most people think of their characters and items as theirs and they have the right to do so because they have put effort in to them. I also play that game, and I know that items are valued within it. Also it costs over £6.00 per month to play, and thousands are paying for it, even though it’s just “data bits”.
Comment by Alex — 9/27/2005 @ 2:29 pm
OK, jsut so everyone is clear. You know that EULA that you always scroll thru and hit accept for whenever u install a piece of software? Well in an MMO its a little different. IN order to keep ingame currency worth something, game providers STRICTLY PROHIBIT the sale of items by and to game players. How do they do this you ask? They make it BLATANTLY CLEAR in the EULA (the thing that no one, including me, ever reads) that the data, no matter how hard you worked for it, is at the end of the day, still property of the game provider, as well as your character, and your account.
Comment by JLobes — 8/8/2005 @ 7:52 pm
I play legend of mir online, and i must stress to people, this is only a chinese thing to do. Nobody who plays the european servers do anything like this. Chinese people take gaming more seriously than life in some cases, its a family activity to play MMORPGs such as Legend of Mir. So it means more to them than the average person
Comment by Nathan — 8/7/2005 @ 5:50 am
Every piece of software, all electronic documents, companies’ databases… they’re all simply “data bits”. For that matter, most monitary transactions today are just the tranfer of “data bits”. While I don’t believe $861 is worth killing or dying over, for you to state that it’s frightening that someone would even get “worked up” over “data bits” is nothing but naive. I don’t play any online games, but I am a programmer; and the comment made by the lawyer for an online game company, which you quoted, is in a grey area. Next, Microsoft will be saying the past 10 years of my career were for naught, because I used VisualBasic, so it is MS (not me) that owns everything I’ve created and worked for.
Comment by Thad — 7/14/2005 @ 10:35 am
If these “Data Bits” are not worth money, then why is everyone up in arms about Software Piracy. Is software not just Data Bits on a CD or any other medium…. Data Bits that someone spent time and money to develop or aquire?
Comment by Bob — 6/21/2005 @ 3:53 am
What were the stats on the sword?
Comment by Skinner — 6/13/2005 @ 8:25 am
I collect baseball cards. While I would not pay this much for one, I have a piece of cardboard valued at $150. If I loaned it to someone and they sold it I would be incensed. Not enought to kill of course. In this case I was robbed. I see no difference. I have a piece of cardboard with no intrinsic value, but value just the same. Our money has almost no intrinsic value anymore. I do agree that the killing was quite extreme. I would have tried legal recourse, but am not sure how that would work.
Comment by Ken — 6/13/2005 @ 6:36 am
I’m with Aunty; get a freakin’ life!
Comment by C.S. Pennington — 6/11/2005 @ 7:41 am
Real life consequences for virtual stupidity.
So how does religious fanaticism (virtual world) relate?
Seems to me that this type of thing has been around since humans could lift a club and get incensed because they thought you were worshipping the wrong rock.
Don’t see much difference between killing someone because they stole your virtual sword and because they beleive god’s chariot is dual axle instead of single axle.
Comment by martinelli — 6/11/2005 @ 6:11 am
Perhaps the games are not real, but apparently the money is. While Zhu Caoyuan should not have gotten the death penalty for his larceny, the facts are (1) that whatever it was he sold was real enough to command real money, and (2) it wasn’t his to sell. Data bits or not, the value of anything is whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Logic dictates that the reverse must also be true: if someone is willing to spend hard cash for something, it must have value. I have zero interest in online gaming; but a lot of people apparently do, and allowing people to cheat in this real-world way with complete impunity will spoil it for everyone.
Comment by Ted — 6/11/2005 @ 2:35 am