Even Russia gets real life PKing
The Moscow Times reports that a Virtual Conflict Ends in Real Death, as a leading Lineage II player allegedly stomps another to death. Ironically, the person who died was trying to break up the fight, which started because the two player clans were rivals or something.
This isn’t the first time this has happened, of course, though it’s the first time I’ve seen it reported in Russia. There have been Korean and Chinese cases previously. I guess it’s spreading.
It’s going to be interesting over the next few years to watch good and bad press about virtual worlds try to outrace each other in different territories.
For the amount of time these games have been out there, and for how financially integrated and advanced they have become in countries that also have high rates of game-linked addiction, having one or two of these events a year is VERY telling. We’re a long way from a clear and present danger.
Tragic though they are, their sheer rarity belies the fundamental link to factors that have nothing to do with the game worlds themselves. This doesn’t prevent the games from becoming scapegoats of course, but if at least the U.S. legislator learned anything in 2006, it was not try to govern too much by emotion when the facts are not supportive.
Darfur. Lineage II. Darfur. Lineage II. Hrm…
Darfur. Lineage II. Darfur. Lineage II. Hrm…
You know. It’s really, really sad that I thought about a response for a little bit, and eventually came up with:
“Not here.”
Maybe I should just stop watching this stuff altogether, since I don’t expect to try for the game industry again for years. (And to forestall the obvious response: I definitely don’t want it very much.)
There have alos been offline PK’s in Los Angeles, at least a year or two ago — among Korean immigrants at the time.