C*n*orshi*

Here's a question I've been meaning to post here since a conversation I had with Dan Hunter at State of Play last year:

Is there any subject matter that can appear in a virtual world which should always be banned by real-world authorities?

There are several caveats that we can make, but I'm only going to supply one for the moment: the virtual world is assumed to have effective methods for keeping out children. Thus, you might want to argue that full-frontal nudity (say) should always be banned, but if you did then you couldn't use "because children might see it" as your reason.

Richard

Comments

[Lee Delarm]

1.

I still don't understand why there isn't more adult themed areas in games (other than Second Life). ALL of the games out there now have disclaimers about how "content may change at any time" and anyone with a lick of sense knows that there are quite a few real people on the other end of their ethernet cord. None of this should be banned in my opinion, the only thing that should be is intolerance of others (opinions, beliefs, etc.).

[Seth Sivak]

2.

Several MMO games made in Europe and other countries besides the US have more "questionable" content. In Neocron there was a red light district inside the main city where you could pay in game money for strip and peep shows. Virtual worlds allow you to do things you would not do in the real world.

However, the arguement that kids don't venture into virtual worlds is breaking up quickly. The recent boom of playtime cards means that players no longer need a credit card. This leaves the door open for the younger audience to try out these virtual worlds.

[Mike Sellers]

3.

I'm not one who believes in government censorship in any but a few cases. But I can think of a few design elements that should in all probability be banned if they come up: those such as slavery, general human degradation (especially if it pejoratively targets one real-world group -- for example, imagine the contents of a white supremicist MMOG), and anything along the lines of violence or sexual aggression directed at children.

These may seem extreme, but I've had a couple of designs where questions of slavery and general human rights of dignity came up. Should a player character ever be able to own another character, whether PC or NPC, as property? Should games which depict (or gloss over) genocide or human degradation be allowed?

MMOs are different from other games in that the players -- even when "player generated content" is minimized -- can take the design to places not otherwise intended and do so in highly visible ways. So if a design allows a PC to own any other object, and an NPC is an object, can the PC own an NPC? If players can generate avatar art and dialog, can they make drug-addicted children avatars, willing to do the most degrading bidding in exchange for feeding their forced addiction?

It's always easy to say that "people won't do that" but thus far, I've not seen any limits to what some few players will do if allowed. At some point, we as designers and operators of MMOGs bear some responsibility for the bounds we put in to the game. Along the same lines, different national and local governments are clearly going to feel empowered to say what is and isn't appropriate, even in a virtual world accessible from their jurisdiction.

[Cyanbane]

4.

The above post by Mike Sellers is perfectly on target with my beliefs. Very well thought out comment.

[Biggles]

5.

I'm not sure I agree with Mike. Would you also ban all films involving slavery, human degredation or genocide? These topics make for interesting stories. It seems strange to pretend that such practices never occured and should not be spoken of ever again. And by thier fictional nature, MMO's seem an excellent arena in which to explore such themes. As Seth pointed out, MMO's allow you to do thing which you would not otherwise do in normal life.

As for the issue of child abuse, a friend's sister apparently wrote a project on the moral implications of computer-generated child pornography. It's not clear-cut.

Also, I think genocide is pretty much a standard feature of most MMO's. eg, "Kill all orcs on sight 'cos orcs are evil". re-spawning aside, how is this different?

[Thabor]

6.

These may seem extreme, but I've had a couple of designs where questions of slavery and general human rights of dignity came up. Should a player character ever be able to own another character, whether PC or NPC, as property?

You mean like robot pets in Star Wars? Or warlocks conjuring and controlling demons in warcraft? Do elemental summons in Everquest count?

It seems to me that accetablity often depends on how things are presented.

Should games which depict (or gloss over) genocide or human degradation be allowed?

So you would advocate banning of "Destroy All Humans", "Lemmings", and "Metriod"?

I don't believe there is any theme that is always inappropriate. There are things people will do things that are offensive without a doubt. It has to be allowed regardless so that when someone comes along with a positive message that is controversial, or tries to teach about a negative issue that they aren't censored as well.

Fortunately we haven't completely opened the door to judging free speech by intent. When that happens censorship can arbitraily enforced.

"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

[Bill O'Neill]

7.

[note: This is a US centric posting - I got tired of appending (at least in the US) ]

What should be banned outright? Well, I guess we can begin with those things that are illegal (most) everywhere; Murder was my first thought but then I realized, what was I thinking - many MMORPGs have nothing but that. After awhile, I thought that child pornography was the one that is illegal everywhere (I hope).

So, that got me thinking..... there are many things that are illegal in RL but that are allowed in fiction. You can write a novel about murder, but you can't legally go kill your neighbor. So, it would seem that in order for something to be ban able in a game, we might use the analogy of what things are illegal to write (draw, photographs) about in a fictional work? Other than the pornography example above, after a few minutes I couldn't think of any.

Adult content: Who is your market? Can you afford to exclude everyone under 18. Can you afford to require credit cards? We thought about having a topless dwarven bar as a joke. We would voluntarily ask for an adult rating just so we didn't have to deal with children. Also, by requiring a credit card (and not allowing "playtime cards"), it will hopefully make players less anonymous and behave a little more civilly (I can dream, can't I?) Anyhow, simply because it's adult content (properly rated) doesn't mean it should be banned - whether it's good game design and a good business idea goes back to who is your target market. How many adults (customers) am I likely to offend with my topless dwarves so that they quit playing my game?

Slavery: I recall a discussion about if a player has two characters and one of them is used as a mule for the other, is the mule a slave? Should that be banned? I don't think so - but then, it's not "slavery" as most people would think of when they think of slavery. Ok, how about a game that has permanent death and allows slavery. It might now occur that the orcs capture a party of humans instead of killing them. The player may decide to abandon the character at that point or to continue to role-play his/her character and attempt to escape. To that extent, I don't think that slavery should be banned. Now what if we simply allow slavery, one player's character owning another? Again, I don't think that should be banned. The slave isn't "forced" to continue playing that character (I assume). As to it being a good game design, that is a different question.

Mike's example of a "white supremicist MMOG" brings up a good point. At what point does free speech get trumped by "Hate speech"? I would guess that an MMOG of that type would fall under the same laws in the US that a web site would. If the game is played in Germany, I suspect that the game itself would be banned if there was a Nazi theme.

Lee said "None of this should be banned in my opinion, the only thing that should be is intolerance of others (opinions, beliefs, etc.)."
Devils advocate: I don't like green martians. I develop a MMOG where you get to kill them - am I being intolerant of them? Yup! I'm sorry, but at least in the US, I don't think that expressing my opinion of my intolerance of another's opinions or beliefs can be banned unless it constitutes "hate speech".

[Biggles]

8.

Devil's second, more topical advocate: should I tollerate the belief that blowing people up is correct way to behave in polite society?

[Chas York]

9.

Mike Sellers' post represents my initial thoughts as well- I'm against any content that promotes human degradation, but it's difficult to say exactly where the cutoff is.

Slavery... yes. But the quest to escape from slavery and the battle against slaveholders could be a very noble endeavour... and even games like "star wars galaxies" has hints of slavery in the supporting fiction... not to mention the vast number of (usually) female twi'lek bios that include it... and where do we place serfdom in high fantasy settings? Indentured servitude?

Still, even when a developer uses the content to create a vile enemy, players may choose to emulate that villain rather than oppose it. The "5th column" in City of Heroes was themed to be the "nazi menace" so common in silver age comics. They seemed an appropriate villain to fight against.... then players made alternate characters that were the "6th column" with similar names, appearances, and ideals. Some of them seemed... a little too enthusiastic... in their roleplay, but others tried to explain that they were acting as a more interactive villain for their friends, and not endorsing any point of view. Is one creating a new villain so others can be more heroic? Is one hiding behind "roleplaying" to articulate white supremacy? How do you draw the line? DO YOU draw a line?

No matter how much I despise the subject matter, I could see a great game story centering around battling atrocities, particularly for mature audiences. I can't casually say that the material is taboo. How it is used, how it is displayed, and how it can be misused are far more defining criteria than actual content definitions.

In that light, taboo topics become rather slim. Even prime time TV has addressed child porn, child drug addiction, slavery, and forced prostitution (Law & Order, for example) tastefully (well, relatively speaking) and dramatically. Couldn't developers of virtual worlds similarly address such topics?

[Dmitri Williams]

10.

What about calls for real-world violent acts? I'd think that any time the magic circle gets punctured that way, the outside world's laws can come in.

Similarly, what about spreading false information with the intent to cause harm, a'la shouting "fire" in a crowded theater?

These aren't game play mechanics, but are game players' behaviors that I'm guessing will sooner or later see the inside of a RL courtroom.

[Cory Ondrejka]

11.

Mike Sellers> But I can think of a few design elements that should in all probability be banned if they come up: those such as slavery

I agree that game developers/operators/publishers should be able to choose to ban these behaviors form particular games, but I completely disagree with Mike's absolute position. For example, a educational role-playing game about slavery could be quite effective in teaching the horrible history of the American South.

Mike Sellers> and anything along the lines of violence or sexual aggression directed at children.

Would you be in favor of banning the book "Sleepers" about sexual abuse in a New York juvenile home?

[Craig]

12.

The core idea of banning specific depictions in any media is based on two reasons:

1) To prevent a specific audience from experiencing it. Ratings, from movies to games and back again, exist solely to let people keep their children from seeing it. Driving and alchohol age limits are to keep children from being able to drive or drink until they are 'mature' enough.

This can be argued back and forth when it comes to on-line games, but when it comes down to it, there is no topic which should be restricted from all audiences. Perhaps you could argue that certain kinds of portrayals should be banned, but that's a different story.

2) The other thing censorship accomplishes is protecting the actors in the media. For example, we can talk about murder, but we can't actually SHOW a real murder, because murder is illegal. So, while the topic isn't banned, it is illegal to break any laws while portraying it.

This obviously doesn't apply to on-line games, since nobody is harmed during an orc's slaughter.

We're left with only one reason to ban any subject:

A certain kind of portrayal should be illegal because it encourages universally illegal deviancy.

Of course, that statement is full of problems, too. But at least it's a place to stand on which actually has some bearing on the media.

[James]

13.

A certain kind of portrayal should be illegal because it encourages universally illegal deviancy.

Yeah, that has bearing on the media - that's the exact same arguement anti-freedom advocates use to try to ban videogames. That's no reason to me.

Art is consumed voluntarily - hell, you have to pay for it too, unlike some traditional art galleries which may be free. I don't see any reason to immutably ban any form of content. The developer has an obligation to inform the customer by delineating potential offensive content through the ESRB rating, but censorship shouldn't ever, ever be considered.

[Jessica Mulligan]

14.

We keep jumping around the real point, although some have come close: Context. EVERYTHING depends on the context.

For example: Is keeping slaves bad? Sure, you bet, most of us would agree to that, I think. But as someone else mentioned, a war against slavers would be a good thing. In that sense, having slavery in MMO, attackable and eradicable, is good thing.

Taking an absolute position without providing context seems rather silly to me, :D.

[Damion Schubert]

15.

The problem is not one about pure content - I believe that game designers should have the freedom to make games about virtually any content they like and let the markets decide. If you want to make a game about slavery, white supremacy, Gorians or whatever, be my guest, but give me enough notice so I can short your publisher's stock before public opinion notices you.

The problem, instead, is what other players bring to the table. If I've chosen to buy a Gorian game, that's one thing. If you've sought out and installed the Hot Coffee mod for GTA, I'm fine with that too. But if I've bought a game about Superheroes and find that other players have unavoidably injected a culture of White Supremacy in the game, you got problems.

The CULTURE of these games is incredibly important, and yet incredibly nuanced and easy to ruin. I personally believe that this fact is one of the things that makes fantasy games so attractive and, say, post-apocalyptic MMOs non-existent (what kind of culture exists in a gritty, post-nuclear world?) Needless to say, while the culture is in the player's hands to shape in some degree, the developers need to keep enough control of it to keep anything from getting out of hand.

[Eric Random]

16.

Fictional topics which express any form of deviant behavior should be allowed given that the audience is clearly informed of, and legally consent to, the content prior to exposure and the fictional topic can be clearly separated from reality.

That being said, the only content that should be banned is content which can instruct, obfuscate, facilitate, or incite actual criminal behavior. As will be evident, the clear separation from reality is most important in the conveyance of deviant behavior.

Further, there is a grey area due to the international capabilities of virtual worlds and the complexities of international, national, and local legal jurisdictions, both criminal and civil. That is, even if operators of a virtual world are considered innocent as a criminal accessory in all legal jurisdictions, civil lawsuit liabilities may still exist. It is, perhaps, this civil liability which will motivate designers and operators of virtual worlds to steer clear of objectionable "grey area".

INSTRUCT
A virtual world should not model actual constructs which can be used to instruct a player in potential criminal behavior. Example 1: a pipe-bomb crafting ability which instructs the player how to build an actual pipe bomb capable of use in the real world. Example 2: a model of a real-world place which allows for virtual crime exercises that can be directly translated to actual crime.

OBFUSCATE
A virtual world should not model actual constructs in a way which can obfuscate potential criminal behavior. For example, a virtual world which models the actual format and use of VISA credit cards and allows a market for stolen credit card numbers. Such a market may be used for actual VISA credit card fraud and complicate law enforcement efforts.

FACILITATE
A virtual world should not provide communication and organizational sanctuary to criminal activity. For example, guilds and chat engines can provide communication and organizational support for actual criminal behavior. A number of popular chat service operators in the United States are regulated and monitored by Federal authorities. Criminal refugees of Federal surveillance may attempt to find sanctuary in virtual worlds and use tools provided by virtual worlds to manage communication in their organization. Specific communication and organizational tools as well as administrative implementations may be considered as facilitators of criminal behavior.

INCITE
Content of virtual worlds should not generate incitement of actual hatred towards actual persons. Incitement is a strong grey area with effects in both criminal and civil jurisdictions internationally. For example, the civil lawsuit against Matthew Hale for inciting violence against minorities in the U.S. (a member of his white supremacist church went on a killing spree against random minorities before committing suicide) in which the plaintiff was awarded $1M USD or Brigitte Bardot convicted by the EU of criminal incitement of racial hatred with her best-selling non-fiction book "A Cry in the Silence" and fined 5,000 Euros. Both cases are clearly not equal, but do have a common denominator. Although neither were legally found expressly requesting violence against minorities, their portrayal of minorities led the legal system to believe that such negative and sweeping portrayals can incite hatred and, thus, violence. These views were expressed, though, concerning real religions, races, and ethnicities.

In short, the only time censorship should be applied is when such content to be censored can be directly attributed to criminal activity. For example, in the United States, we, currently, do not have a law prohibiting the burning of the national flag. Such a law, if passed, would be unconstitutional, and thus, requires a constitutional amendment to be enacted. Some cases involving the burning of the flag have been ignored, and others have been prosecuted due to criminal activity directly attributed to the act. For example, in Cleveland, OH a protester for a Maoist organization burned the flag in front of an angry crowd and was convicted of inciting a riot. In court, it was determined, beyond reasonable doubt, that such an action would result in a riot, which it did, albeit short. Others have been convicted of minor arson charges on public property. In each case, though, it was not the burning of the flag that was illegal, but the manner and context in which it was done.

Just some thoughts on the matter...

[Mike Sellers]

17.

To be clear about what I was saying above, I was specifically answering the question

Is there any subject matter that can appear in a virtual world which should always be banned by real-world authorities? (Emphasis added)

I was not talking about books, movies, museum presentations, or even single-player games, each of which have different bounds and a different essential nature from a MMOG or virtual world. IMO, there are difficult topics, such as those discussed above, that can often be approached well in these other media. If this area is going to be discussed, let's avoid the use of strawmen arguments.

In a VW, I believe the situation is different from any other medium. As the example of the "6th Column" above noted, the interaction between players and between players and a dynamic world means that players participating in slavery, fascism, prostitution, degradation, genocide, etc., is a far different experience from watching or reading about it. It's different even from being in a movie about those things, acting them out. Actions in a MMOG edge up on psychosocial realities like those exposed by the famous Stanford prison experiment. Being a pimp of drug-addled child slaves in a MMOG isn't the same as being one in the physical world, but neither does it have the same psychological distance that it does from a book or movie presentation.

That's not to say that a game couldn't present, say, a series of quest to eradicate drug runners or slavers -- it's not the topic that is the problem, but the act of setting up the game to celebrate the action. And various governments may have something to say about whether they are willing to allow such things.

On that note, in response to Craig's post above, he says that the first reason ratings exist is "To prevent a specific audience from experiencing it." While true, that's incomplete. There are some matters that are banned in various governments so that they are made unavailable to anyone in their jurisdiction. Typically this is because the community (locale to nation) has decided that such content has no redeeming value. Others may of course disagree, but that's the nature of governance and community. In the US there's little outside of extreme sexual or aggressive content that is labeled as 'obscene' and is thus banned; in other countries there are varying rules.

This isn't going to change. I'm not too surprised to see in several of the posts above a libertarian thread of "nothing should be banned," or "let the market decide" but that's not tenable -- and saying so is no assault on free speech. The US, at least, has been able to maintain its citizens' rights to speech and expression without allowing for any and all content in the media.

But my overall point in posting here was that MMOGs are different from any other sort of media. Watching a movie about misogynist racist pimps is entirely different from actively taking on that role in a MMOG. Even if taking on such a role in a virtual world doesn't lead to someone taking it on in the physical world, governments are likely to be interested in the availability of such social contexts and constructs. As soon as governments realize this, I suspect we may see different laws than we have today (but yes, that's rampant speculation on my part).

[dmyers]

18.

Is there any subject matter that can appear in a virtual world which should always be banned by real-world authorities?

**
"Should" questions are bothersome. And "subject matter" may or may not include behavior.

However, if the question becomes "...which CAN always be banned..." Then: yes.

Or, if the question becomes "...which WILL always be banned..." Then: yes again.

This latter would be the same category of subject matter that is currently banned: subject matter that in one way or another puts the virtual world system/code/rules at risk. Treason. Exploits, hacks, phreaks. Subject matter that crashes things.

And you didn't ask the likelihood of banning things successfully, so I won't go there.

[Richard Bartle]

19.

dmyers>"Should" questions are bothersome

Yes, that's why I asked it.

Several people have thus far argued that a virtual world that featured slavery should be banned, yet I know of a fairly harmless such world (Roma Victor) where characters actually start off as slaves. Should that world be banned? Why?

Eric Random> A virtual world should not model actual constructs which can be used to instruct a player in potential criminal behavior.

Why? I'd have a hard time learning to shoot a gun where I live in the UK, but I could go to the US and train until I was an expert. Why couldn't I go to a virtual world to train instead?

Richard

[Carl Potts]

20.

As Jessica says 'Context is everything'

I personally have played in games where 'Drow' (Dark) Elven guilds have used other players as slaves - is this a bad thing? It certainly increased immersion within that particular virtual world (UO) - also there was quite a few players willing to indulge in that particular pastime ...

With role playing - what does it take for an 'evil' alighned guild / roleplaying group to pass beyond a 'boo-hiss' level of evil? Using RL moral standpoints to emphasise 'Evil' roleplaying certainly adds to the flavour - but I personally think there are boundaries which should not be crossed. Where MMOGs utilise 'evil' as part of the worlds structure / lore - is there boundaries game designers should not cross in order to give the game more immersion?

Quests where the 'evil' character has to sacrafice other players - (probably without their knowledge) - I'd have to suggest this would be a 'bad' thing - but others would probably suggest otherwise. The true horror of something like a Dark Elven city (or perhaps say Melibone) is something I think would be a dangerous thing to code.

Carl

[galiel]

21.

To adopt an old saw, while I would defend to the death your right to create a virtual world which glorified Nazism and denied the Holocaust, I would do my damnest to convince you not to make that world, and would lobby my damnest for people to boycott it if you did--and continue to work to create socially constructive worlds what were more compelling, better made and which embodied more humane values.

I would *not* want the government to ban your game, however--not because, as the son of a Holocaust survivor, I wouldn't find such a game reprehensible, but because banning topics is a very blunt instrument, and any law designed to ban such a game would probably end up banning games designed to teach what we generally consider to be positive ethical lessons, which happen to be staged during the Holocaust.

It's like the clumsy filters that seek to "protect" young people from pornography, only to bar websites about "breast" cancer--or (ironically, given who is behind many of these filter products) religious-conservative sites railing *against* pornography. broad bans on content simply don't work. More free speech has historically proven to be, imperfectly yet on balance, better than less free speech, even when the speech is reprehensible.

The real problem is the confusion between license and choice. Just because we *can* do something (and I fall firmly on the side of allowing the maximum freedom to do so), doesn't mean we *should* do it.

It is fascinating to me how much more interest a discussion about banning "bad" content draws vs. a discussion about what content it is *desirable* for us to develop in the first place.

I think the far more interesting--and non-theoretical and immediate--question is: given the admitedly uniquely-seductive emotional power of the virtual environments we create (as witnessed by a calm willingness of developers to even contemplate supporting government *banning* certain content!), how can we use that power for good rather than evil, consciously rather than obliviously?

Incidentally, this whole conversation seriously undermines the dismissive "it's only a game" argument against the social impact of virtual experiences.

[magicback]

22.

"Is there any subject matter that can appear in a virtual world which should always be banned by real-world authorities?"

Richard,

At lot of the conversation has focused on the opposite direction and about the problems of absolutes, context and the question of "should".

I'll put forward my arguements for one: mass distruction.

We may be able to create and allow in the virtual world (and in other mediums) death, taxes, and mass distruction, but these three should always be banned. It's just wrong!

Ok, "IT's just wrong!" is not an eloquent reason and taxes is debateable, but from my perspective I want to fully ban mass distruction, genocide and even murder.

It's easy to reset the virtual world or replace avatars, objects, etc. But in the RL, the cost is very high. In the virtual Earth, The Temple of Jerusalem could be rebuilt in 3 days, but in the real Earth, it's still kinda hard to do and will cost a bundle.

Frank

[Michael Chui]

23.

Is there any subject matter that can appear in a virtual world which should always be banned by real-world authorities?

None. Absolutely none.

First, you have to consider the immense scope of possibility virtual worlds have. I don't mean MMORPGs, because Richard did not say "MMORPG". He said "virtual world". The fact that it's not a game makes all the difference.

Consider a virtual world built to train CIA agents. A virtual world meant to be a training ground for a legitmate government's military. (Which exists, I'm led to believe.) Perhaps a virtual world meant to accurately portray life in the American South before the civil war. Or a virtual world where the economy is driven by the cruel murder of thousands of apparently unthinking drones hellbent on your destruction... but only when you're in their artifically and meaninglessly defined territory, and theoretically balanced by insane levels of costs of living and scandalous marketting of rare by fiat wares defined by nebulous entities known only in a vague sense as absolute tyrannical dictators of a space that may yet expand again by the end of the year, with new spells, abilities, races, lands to explore, do I have to go on?

We can create and allow anything. We SHOULD be able to create and allow anything. Governments SHOULD be able to define laws that ban certain subject matter within a specific context. For instance. If they have a law against viewing adult material before the age of 18, then virtual worlds under the jurisdiction of said governments (the how and which of these are up for debate, naturally) SHOULD be banned from permitting those under the age of 18 to view adult material. Why? Consistency of application of the law. That's all.

So nothing should be banned arbitrarily. I would apply that to everything and anything across the board. I think most people agree with me. But if the law applies in one case, then, unless there is a reasonable justification otherwise, it should apply in all other cases. Individuals under the age of 21 are typically banned from purchasing alcohol. Virtual worlds should not permit its purchase by underage participants. Reasonable justification would be that the spirit of the law is to prevent user intoxication. Imbibing virtual beer will do nothing to the participant's mental state. Therefore virtual worlds may take exception to this law and permit those underage to purchase alcohol.

This is basically a rehash of Eric Random's opinion from a bottom-up point of view. Anything criminal should be banned. Anything that's not should not.

[ren reynolds]

24.

As many above has suggested, I don’t think that there is single answer to the question as I think that the censorship of materials by state authorities depends on a number of contextual factors, I've not given this extensive thought as yet, so for the moment:

For example, I think that the majority of people who are against the legalisation of classes of drugs currently illegal, would think that it was OK for medial professionals to use these substances as part of treatment regimes, just so long as the process was properly scrutinised i.e. if we remove the case of the Dr who thinks that giving people with head ache acid is a good idea.

In this context i.e. virtual worlds that are used to promote some kind of curative or preventative outcome in a generally accepted from of treatment, then no, any content what so ever I believe would be accepted to most with an understanding of the context.

The difficult case is a virtual world that is not used for what we might call a clinical use. Things here get more tricky because of the moral status of artefacts in our culture.

To un-pack this a little, and lets get straight to probably the test case for much of western culture right now: the sexually violent abuse of children. The inclusion of such themes in cultural artefacts seems to be acceptable just in case the consumption of that artefact is seen as edifying. I have not used the word art thus far as I believe that one of the factors used to distinguish a non-art artefact from one that is art, is that its consumption can be edifying. Hence, films, novels, visual arts etc can deal with these subjects, even sometimes in a graphic manor as long as they have qualities that are perceived to be edifying.

Thus, if a virtual world also had these qualities it could also include such themes. Thus the question becomes whether a virtual world could be considered thus.

Here I am assuming that the virtual world is something that one interacts with i.e. it is not something that is simply viewed by the participants (as then it becomes a different category of artefact).

Given this one might need to branch the argument into ludic and non-ludic worlds. What I mean by this is that there may be a class of virtual worlds that we interact with but do not play with (actually I feel a post coming on here as to whether this is a valid class, so I think I’ll have to assume it for the moment), and I don’t simply mean that the virtual world is not one based on levelling etc, but that one does not have any kind of kind of playful stance towards whatsoever.

In this case, I feel that the question would collapse down to a moral question of ethics of interaction vs those of ‘passive’ consumption – which you can cash out any which way you want.

The other case, is currently the more general one, that is the virtual world to which we stand in some kind of ludic relation. So, we have a virtual worlds, that include some kind of sexualised violence towards children which is not for a medical purpose, that is interactive and towards which participants have some kind of ludic attitude. Can such a thing be edifying and would this morally justify it.

In short (given a positive out come to the ethical cashing out noted above – which stands as a moral baseline for this bit for the argument (actually I think it’s implicit in the edifying test from a kinda virtue stand point but it seems expanding at this point)) I think it is possible for such a thing to exist but not now.

That is, virtual worlds like any artefact are seen in the context contemporaneous culture. So, just as right now we happen to think of ancient Greek texts and all he gore that they have as worth, there seems nothing to suppose that at some time, some culture might feel the same about virtual worlds.

(Oh, I have not touched on slavery and rape in virtual worlds as I’ve dealt with these issues elsewhere – at least in a consensual bdsm setting that is.)

But right now, there are a few cases of content, in and only in the context that I defined above, that would not be acceptable, and the authorites would have a case for censoring it. Though from a pure ethical point of view i think one woudl have to be much more case specific before making and deeper moral judgments - though i need to ponder this last bit a little more, so take this post as provisional only.

[Dr. Cat]

25.

If you establish a "spectrum of realism", with books and movies towards one end, and "doing the things in real life" at the other end... I agree that playing out a behavior in a MOG or MMOG is a couple steps "more real" and "more involving" than books, tv, and movies. Firstly because you're an active participant rather than a passive one. (This is true of single player games also). Secondly, because the other people you're interacting with when you (or they) commit various forms of anti-social behavior are real human beings, not just actors or AI characters in a single player game. So your words and actions can and will have some form of actual effect on them.

That said, however, I think it's important to remember that MOGs are still much closer in a lot of important ways to the book & movie end of the spectrum than they are to the "real life acts of murder, drug dealing, slavery, etc." end. When it comes to physical consequences of murder, drug abuse, prostitution, etc. real life has the near monopoly there, both books and online games have little other than possibly elevating your pulse rate if things get exciting. Games also have the important distinction that the victims generally are participating in the experience of their own free will, and are totally free to stop participating any time they don't like the way things are going, and do something else instead. An option that is often unavailable to actual slaves and murder victims.

Presenting an individual with ideas, images, situations and/or concepts that they're not emotionally prepared to deal with and process in a safe, healthy way may be harmful to them in some cases, don't get me wrong. But of all the ways society has to deal with problems, making something forbidden by law is about the strongest short of starting a war. Suggesting something is so bad that it should ALWAYS be forbidden by our government by force of law rather than "sometimes" or "most times" is harsher still. I think few things qualify for that strongest standard. Even the real life killing of another living, breathing human being doesn't qualify by that standard, according to our current law. A person is legally allowed to kill another person in self defense, if they are an executioner hired by the government to carry out the death penalty, if they're a soldier in time of war, in some cases if it was a totally unintended accident, or if they're a police officer in a situation where their policies indicate that deadly force against a criminal is called for. Many would argue that abortion qualifies also. If "killing a person in real life" fails to fit Richard's criteria of something that "should always be banned by real-world authorities", it's hard to imagine anything in a make-believe setting could be bad enough to fit that test. I think it might be more meaningful to consider the other ways society deals with harmful behavior - voluntary avoidance, encouraging others to avoid something, condemning or shunning those who engage, ratings systems, laws that forbid it under some circumstances but NOT under others, etc. etc. etc.

I would note that under current law, it would generally NOT be the situations that involve make-believe or role-playing that would be illegal in an online world, but those that are totally about real world actions and behavior, and are just using the online game to communicate about those. For instance, I'm sure the Secret Service is interested in investigating and acting upon plausible sounding plots to kill the President of the USA whether they're spoken out loud in person, over a voice chat, or typed into a text chat or online game. Likewise, photos of children being abused to make child pornography are illegal whether they're physical photos or digital ones that could be uploaded and transferred or put into an online gaming environment. Personally, I think it's generally worse to use the chat feature in an online game to plan even the tiniest of crimes, like stealing someone's CD player, than it is to act out having a swordfight and killing someone's character dead forever. (In those rare online games that even have "permadeath".)

I do find it a bit surprising that slavery is brought up as perhaps one of the more worrisome issues, at the same time that murder, even mass-murder is routinely considered by both gamers and the game development community to be "just a standard game mechanic for achieving progress and success". Whether it's automatons being killed or other actual players. Personally, while I wouldn't want to be enslaved OR killed in real life, if I had the choice of the two I'd pick enslavement without a moment's hesitation!

But I do think it's ok to act out killings in cyberspace, and I don't think it's a new fantasy. I'm sure that not only knights and samurai daydreamed about defeating and killing their opponents in the old days, but probably even some peasants would fantasize about being a knight and doing the same, even if they knew it could never actually happen. We have more sophisticated ways of pretending now, and someone else can act out the role of your "victim" - or try to go for the role of your killer instead, if they outplay you. Does this produce lasting psychological harm on the part of those who are killed? I don't think so, usually they dust themselves off and try again. Is the role of the "killer" something that makes you think about or interact with that person too much like a real killer, doing you psychological harm? I think in 99.99% of cases, the answer is no, people will taunt and otherwise act the way they might if they beat you at Basketball, or a game of Pong. In a tiny minority of headline-grabbing cases, people go way too far with fantasy and commit heinous crimes. I think the problem in those cases may lie largely in them being disfunctional people, and what ends up being the "trigger" for how they snap in the end is more of a red herring.

As for slavery, I know that people get together and act out that sort of thing in real life too. Though many people dissapprove of what consenting adults do in private, I generally don't as long as neither of them is harmed by it - and if people can safely act out such things in person, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to consensually act them out in an online game. Even in a game where slavery can be imposed on your character involuntarily through game mechanics, the act of playing the game is voluntary and you can always stop if you're not enjoying it. I just don't see it as an issue.

If, hypothetically, some hate group with a track record of stirring up acts of violence in the real world were to put together an online environment, or start a guild or group in an existing game, where it appeared they were having some success at motivating people to commit real violence through their words and actions in the game, I know I would have a problem with that. But I don't think I would necessarily want to look at any of their methods of gaming or speaking and say "those game mechanics or chat-system features they used should be illegal". I'd rather see their specific actions dealt with and punished as appropriate, rather than come up with a blanket law that also ends up banning the harmless behavior of others.

-- Dr. Cat

[Michael Chui]

26.

Does this produce lasting psychological harm on the part of those who are killed? or on the part of those who do the killing?

I don't think you can make the sweeping generalization that it doesn't. In fact, I think it largely depends on the level of immersion, and how the virtual world is designed. If it's at the level of, say, The Matrix, then heck yeah it's going to have a psychological effect. Because you ARE your character. Insofar as your mind is concerned, there is no barrier between who you are and who you are IN THE WORLD. Theoretically, it's even going to have a physical effect. But that's theory.

[Matt Mihaly]

27.

Richard Bartle wrote:

Is there any subject matter that can appear in a virtual world which should always be banned by real-world authorities?

I'm not going to answer this for myself as there are too many legal systems in the world to address, and I don't believe in a one-size-fits-all legal system. So instead, I'll answer it on an ethical level, in which case the answer to me is no, there is no content, no matter how depraved some people may view it as being, that should categorically be banned.

I, for instance, am interested on a personal level more in virtual worlds as worlds than virtual worlds as games. Explicitly and categorically banning aspects of physical life from virtual worlds means the virtual world as world is diminished. It not feels "less real" in the way that a network crime drama feels "less real" to me than an HBO crime drama because the language in the network crime drama seems so fake and bubblegum.

I was just running down some of the things that some people would no doubt view as horrible if done in the physical world that at least one of the Iron Realms worlds does:
- Murder (the basis of the design for most of the big graphical MUDs from UO to World of Warcraft).
- Genocide. See above.
- Slavery.
- Rape.
- Explicit hardcore drug use, complete with addiction possibilities.
- Explicit prostitution.
- Torture.
- Environmental destruction on a mass scale.
- The worship of (in the eyes of physical world religions) false idols.
- Explicitly fascist political structures (run by players).
- Code-enforced sexism (organizations women can't join and organizations men can't join).
- Racism galore, encouraged by code and by the world histories.
- Gambling (players can even become bookies).
- Regular stealing of cultural artifacts.
- Grave desecration.
- Lots of sex (We have a range of sexual emotes from chaste kissing right up to the orgasm emote).

I'm sure there are others I'm missing. I just feel like all those types of things make the world a more 'real' feeling place, though I realize the commercial trend is to not worry about MMOs as worlds, but as games.

--matt

[Wondersaurus]

28.

As far as I can tell, the only content that can and should be universally censored is criminal incitement on the part of the developers.

I mean, it's just irresponsible to offer a +20 sword of head explosions to whoever kills the President of the United States.

[Mike Sellers]

29.

This has been a very interesting discussion. I started off my initial post above by saying that I don't support government censorship in any but a few cases, and I stand by that. But I've also come to recognize by reading here that some of my views are shaped by what I find reprehensible, which is not the same as what should be governmentally banned.

That said, I continue to think that, as was said above, we may be confuseing freedom and license. We may be free to explore repugnant aspects of human psychology and sociology in MMOGs, but should we? Even if governments don't enact bans, that doesn't mean we should explore every dark corner of the human soul. Of course, what individual designers decide to explore will be up to them -- which is as it should be.

To come back to Richard's question a second time, I'm not sure what should be explicitly banned, nor if we can approach any sort of answer in a forum like this. What's banned in one locale or another will almost certainly be decided by people not considering this in the same ways we do.

Personally, I continue to think that gameplay with real-world correspondences (including but not limited to incitement), such as VWs that present one race or another in defamatory fashion might be bannable -- and almost certainly would be (as would those extolling Nazism, for example) in various parts of the world. Again, think of who the victims would be, and how they'd be portrayed, in a white supremicist world, as just one example.

I'm curious about the slavery issue and the traction it's had here. I brought this up initially because it came up explicitly in a design I worked on several years ago: PCs could own objects, and both NPCs and PCs were objects. Did this mean that a PC could literally own another PC? We opted against this as a special case, not surprisingly.

So while this is drifting a bit from the initial question, I'm curious about answers given by Matt and Dr. Cat, among others, who claim to have slavery in their games. In these games, is this slavery only consensual ("yes I'll be your slave") or can one PC buy and sell another, controlling that other PC's life and actions no matter what the slave-PC or its player may wish?

Richard referenced a game in which you start of as a slave (to an NPC), and of course forms of consensual slavery are fairly common in various VWs, especially those catering to cybersex. But I see these as essentially different from a depiction of actual slavery, where a PC has no rights or ability for self-determiniation and cannot easily escape this fate. (Setting aside for the moment that such a design is probably about as much fun as those that put a character in jail for a pre-determined amount of logged-in time -- that's a quick way to drive players away.)

Forced PC-slavery is bad enough, IMO. But combine it with, say, depicting all such slaves as being of one particular color or racial group and I think you have a much more difficult situation on your hands. Depict them all as, say, ignorant shuffling servile idiots (or worse, throw in a few racial stereotypes from the twentieth century), and you may well find government agents taking a renewed interest in what you're selling.

[Matt Mihaly]

30.

In response to what Mike wrote:

I think it's weird to even worry about slavery when genocide and mass murder are at the core of most of these games.

You asked:

So while this is drifting a bit from the initial question, I'm curious about answers given by Matt and Dr. Cat, among others, who claim to have slavery in their games. In these games, is this slavery only consensual ("yes I'll be your slave") or can one PC buy and sell another, controlling that other PC's life and actions no matter what the slave-PC or its player may wish?

Our slaves are as such:
1. PCs don't become slaves involuntarily because it's a commercial game. Heck, it's a game period. If there is a fun part to truly involuntarily slavery (vs. voluntary sexual stuff for instance), it's not the guy being the slave that's having the fun generally.

2. NPCs can have NPC slaves.

3. PCs can have NPC slaves, but they can only buy them, not sell them (because they cost real money and generally things you buy from us for real money cannot be transferred to other charactres). Once they own a slave, its theirs forever and it will do anything the code lets it do and you order it to do.

I'd have no problem with a game that allowed slave-owning in the plantation American sense either. Imagine a Civil War MMO, for instance. It'd be pretty silly not to have nearly exclusively black slaves.

--matt

[Michael Chui]

31.

Having NPC (loosely defined as any conceivably sentient mobile) slavery seems to be highly common in DikuMUDs I've played. They're basically something that can take damage and deals damage with you when you type KILL. It's okay that the PC has absolute authority over what their slave can do. Just a data field, right?

But several of us are clearly aware that MMORPG economies are almost exclusively driven by murder. Since everyone seems to be avoiding the topic, let me say that again: most MMORPGs have murder-driven economies.

Consider: Most PCs in any MUD or MMORPG are serial killers. They enter areas with the explicit intent of killing as many NPCs as possible, or some variant thereof. Worse, these NPCs are farmed. They're placed, by the developers, in holding pens which they rarely, if ever, leave.

This is like,
"Hey, you feel like doing some hunting?"
"Sure!"
"I hear the prison down the street gives nice experience."
"Alright! I wanted to test out this new automatic machine gun I've got!"
"Hehe. All I want to do is get some loot."

And to echo Matt, racism is RAMPANT in almost all fantasy lore. Every race is thoroughly stereotyped, and there are a large number of "non-humans", even though you can typically breed with them anyways.

[Richard Bartle]

32.

Michael Chui>most MMORPGs have murder-driven economies.

Would it be fair to say that anything in a virtual world can be acceptable, so long as people maintain the conceit of the magic circle? Rape, slavery, racism, sexism, cults, whatever. When it spills out into the real world, however, then it becomes debatable as to whether or not its acceptable. Example: raping a character in a virtual world specificially set up so that characters can be raped, and with fair warning that this can happen, would be within the magic circle and therefore allowed; if it came completely out of the blue in an out of context fashion, that could have a real-world effect on a person that they didn't sign up for, and therefore it might be something that "should" be banned?

Of course, the problem with this is that real-world governments decide for themselves whether a virtual effect on a real person is "acceptable" or not. They may even decide that the mere existence of a virtual effect is enough to hurt people who know of its existence but don't even play in the virtual world. For example, I'd expect a lot of people to feel hurt by the creation of a virtual world set in an alternative universe where the Nazis didn't gas 6 million Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals - even if all the players knew it was fiction.

Taking this point of view, the question becomes "is there any subject matter that should always be banned, because it always has undesirable real-world effects?". Or should governments allow everything and merely ban it when those effects are translated into action?

Richard

[Eric Random]

33.

Random> A virtual world should not model actual constructs which can be used to instruct a player in potential criminal behavior.

Bartle>Why? I'd have a hard time learning to shoot a gun where I live in the UK, but I could go to the US and train until I was an expert. Why couldn't I go to a virtual world to train instead?

The statement is not in reference to firearms, but I would argue that any gunplay in games, not considering use of specific input and output devices, is clearly different than shooting a gun in real life, and thus a clear division between game and reality. In the U.K., one can walk down to the pub or arcade and find a plethora of shooting games with input devices shaped as guns. Further, shooting a firearm at human effigies in the United States is not illegal. Learning to shoot a gun is not illegal in the United States and shooting a gun in a virtual world has yet to be successfully challenged in court, but it has been challenged, albeit in civil suits. For example, the civil suit against a number of persons and companies (including the makers of Doom) for allegedly "training" Michael Carneal to shoot and kill 3 students during a prayer meeting at a Paducah, KY high school in 1997. Now, personally, I believe this lawsuit is frivolous, but this is the tip of the iceberg.

What I am referring to specifically, though, is when virtual worlds provide specific information on constructing items like remote detonators, detailed explosives assembly, or the manufacture of sarin gas. In the United States, the operator may be subject to arrest on Title 18, United States Code, Section 842(p) or providing particular context, Section 2339A. Section 842(p) involves the "Distribution of Information Relating to Explosives, Destructive Devices, and Weapons of Mass Destruction" and 2339A involves "Providing material support to terrorists". There have already been arrests and convictions on these sections; the most notable (or media present) was the case involving Sherman Austin, an 18-year-old web server admin, arrested in 2003, and sentenced to 1 year in prison.

As I stated in my previous opening sentence, I see no issues in using constructs like remote detonators, explosives assembly, or sarin gas in a virtual world, just as long as there is a clear separation between the real constructs and the game. That is, the game should not divulge accurate actual assembly instructions of the actual items or, perhaps further, accurately simulate their effects in a way which can be transferable to actual knowledge.

Further, as specific to the subject of instruction, is providing a training environment particular to criminal activity in the real world; for example, a highly accurate representation of the London subway system and stations for use in a terrorist simulation game. Other games have done this using real places but intentionally do not accurately model the environment, but moreso model the theme and general character of the site, for example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC modelled in Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear. Although the two have many similarities, the two are distinctly different, and this creates the boundary between reality and game. Another game that received much controversy, albeit unwarranted, was UpLink, a game in which the player is an International hacker. After the realization that the hacking gameplay was clearly unrealistic, the controversy died away.

In Rainbow Six, Full Spectrum Warrior, and other team-based tactical games, the closest realization of actual training can be identified as tactical training. Such “training” can also be had in other forums such as laser tag, paintball, and animal hunting, which are all legal activities. Much of this tactical training, though, is based on the players’ efforts of self-discovery, and not on divulging actual tactics of a national military or police force. Such game engines can be used for real tactical training under professional supervision that underlies the potential capabilities for virtual worlds and the need to consider these possibilities and their effects during design and development.

There is much “grey area” in the term “separation”, but, as I opened in my first post, I ultimately support any and all topics used in virtual worlds, as long as there is a clear separation between the virtual world and reality. Such “grey area” will become more formulated, perhaps, between the careful consideration of designer-developers and the “reasonable doubt” of criminal and civil juries.

[Matt Mihaly]

34.

Eric Random wrote:

as long as there is a clear separation between the virtual world and reality.

I would argue that there is no such thing. We are incapable of experiencing anything that isn't real, by my definition of real. MUDs are real. No, you're not actually slaughtering a dragon in them, but you are really moving pieces of data around in a database and you are really forming mental images (like when you watch a movie or read a book) based on the data sent to you by the game. You are having a real experience, it's just not the literal experience the game is trying to immerse you in.

--matt

[Eric Random]

35.

Eric>as long as there is a clear separation between the virtual world and reality
Matt>I would argue that there is no such thing.
Matt>You are having a real experience, it's just not the literal experience the game is trying to immerse you in.

There's no question experiencing a virtual world is real, or that the experience is created by real resources. I'm not arguing that. The whole of my post attempted to illustrate that one sentence on separation, but I understand your point to be that - instead of using the term "real experience", perhaps a better term is "literal experience." I tend to use the terms "actual" and "real" synonymously, but "literal" may be better in expressing the difference.

That is, I understand your point to be that the phrase, "killing in the virtual world is separate from the literal act of killing" should replace the phrase "killing in the virtual world is separate from killing in reality," as that is what I was asserting when I expressed the separation between virtual worlds and reality.

Thusly, when you argue that there is no separation between reality and a virtual world, I understand that you are not arguing that killing in the virtual world is the same as killing in reality, or, in your terminology, that you are not arguing that killing in the virtual world is not separate from the literal act of killing.

[Matt Mihaly]

36.

Incidentally, as long as this game isn't being illegally hassled by the US government for racy content, I don't think MMOs have anything to worry about:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=60093

Synopsis: FPS focused on ethnic cleansing of blacks, Latinos, and Jews. Final boss is a rocket-launcher equipped Ariel Sharon.

Best line from the review:
"The book's fans include, or rather included, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh."

--matt

[Peter S. Jenkins]

37.

Matt>Incidentally, as long as this game isn't being illegally hassled by the US government for racy content, I don't think MMOs have anything to worry about:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=60093

Thanks for the link Matt. Actually, mainstream MMO's do have something to worry about, i.e. if cesspools of hatred like this remain closed worlds not open to alternate points of view, then eventually they may overthrow the established order (like Hitler did) and take away the freedom of speech rights and other constitutional rights of mainstream game owners along with everyone else. The way that we can ensure that these cesspools are cleaned up is to expose them to sunlight, i.e. allow player freedom of expression, so that you or I could go into one of them and express our own views about how wrong it is to hate. Otherwise, it is just an echo chamber where the echo gets stronger and stronger, unless there is a dissenting voice. Cass Sunstein is guest-blogging for Larry Lessig this week and has a good summary of the echo chamber effect.

[Richard Bartle]

38.

Yesterday, we had the first case where a foreign national was found guilty in a UK court of committing a crime in a foreign country.

If nothing in virtual worlds were banned, that might be an argument in favour of their being sovereign states. Even if they were, however, this wouldn't stop people from being arrested for crimes committed in them.

Richard

[Matt Mihaly]

39.

Peter S. Jenkins wrote:

Thanks for the link Matt. Actually, mainstream MMO's do have something to worry about, i.e. if cesspools of hatred like this remain closed worlds not open to alternate points of view, then eventually they may overthrow the established order (like Hitler did) and take away the freedom of speech rights and other constitutional rights of mainstream game owners along with everyone else. The way that we can ensure that these cesspools are cleaned up is to expose them to sunlight, i.e. allow player freedom of expression, so that you or I could go into one of them and express our own views about how wrong it is to hate. Otherwise, it is just an echo chamber where the echo gets stronger and stronger, unless there is a dissenting voice. Cass Sunstein is guest-blogging for Larry Lessig this week and has a good summary of the echo chamber effect.

Honestly, I don't see the sort of game I linked to as any more fundamentally offensive than World of Warcraft. To ME, it's certainly more offensive, but to others, the worshipping of "false idols" in most fantasy games might be up there in terms of seriousness.

I also would definitely not support any sort of "enforced freedom of speech" in games. Our games, for instance, actively ban the promotion of any real-life religion within them, because those religions are heretical within the context of the game, given that they deny the primacy of our in-game Gods.

--matt

[Andrew Crystall]

40.

Eve Online has slavery. Not of characters, but there are "slave" items in the game. Indeed, two of the major empires in the game are odds because one is based from slave-holding, and the other opposes it (and in large part, the slaves in the first culture are of the race of the second).

I'd argue that gratuituousness (sp) has to be a factor. The Amarr-Minmatar in Eve is a great source of RP for both the devs and players, there being player "loyalists" for both sides who fight daily and who are often involved in official events.

Could slavery in another MMO be wrong? Possibly. But I think it fits into Eve Online just fine.

[Eric Random]

41.

Matt>Incidentally, as long as this game isn't being illegally hassled by the US government for racy content, I don't think MMOs have anything to worry about.

On the side, that game "Ethnic Cleansing" has been around since, at least, Jan. 2002, I believe, and is one of the many white supremacist knock-off games on the Internet. The World Church of the Creator distributes a lot of them, including a few racist and neo-nazi versions of Doom.

Legal worries, though, need not stem from criminal codes in the United States. Lawsuits can be applied through civil codes and international sales can generate legal issues in other jurisdictions. World Church of the Creator has had many, many civil legal problems stemming from their freedom of "speech". Once a game is made though, much like a celebrity sex tape, there is no stopping its distribution.

I think, though, the main determinants of civil actions concern actual crimes perpetrated in a way that a jury believes, beyond reasonable doubt, played a role in the crime. Further, targets of civil action tend to be successful (ie. have large verifiable assets) with well-defined corporate structures. Something that the National Alliance and Resistance Records (publisher of the game) do not have.

For example, Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games, the developer of GTA3:Vice City, were sued by a Haitian civil rights organization for the term "Kill the Haitians" associated with a quest in the game. Take-Two agreed to remove the statement from the game in future copies. The lawsuit is still ongoing from Dec 2003. It was moved from Florida state court to Federal court, and now back to state court, as the civil rights group is suing for $15,000 in damages. The suit also names Sony, Microsoft, Target, Wal-mart, and Best Buy.

This case is interesting for a few reasons. One, Take-Two Interactive actually acted upon the suit, by changing the game (e.g. removing the offending statement); Two, the retailers received a lot of heat in Florida over this game, which has a large Haitian population; Three, it was all over one little statement, which wasn't essential to the game, and could have been easily avoided.

Games like "Ethnic Cleansing" are not sold in Best Buy, Target, or Wal-mart. It's an underground game that is most likely purchased rarely and pirated profusely (perhaps as intended). Nobody seems to be going after them, it seems, because they are simply not worth the cost of legal pads.

That's not to say one should design a game based on the outcome of frivolous lawsuits, but there should be some consideration of legal liabilities. For example, civil suits of virtual violence causing literal violence have failed over and over again, based on the simple premise that the virtual act is clearly separated from the literal act, as the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case last year that it was "simply too far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom." My point is understanding just how far that leap really is.

[Matt Mihaly]

42.

Thanks for the info, Eric. I didn't realize Ethnic Cleansing had been out so long. I'm not exactly battering down their servers to download it and try it out. Actually, I'd like to play it just to marvel at the outrageousness of it all, but I don't pirate and I'm certainly not giving them money to fuel their agenda.

Games like "Ethnic Cleansing" are not sold in Best Buy, Target, or Wal-mart. It's an underground game that is most likely purchased rarely and pirated profusely (perhaps as intended). Nobody seems to be going after them, it seems, because they are simply not worth the cost of legal pads.

That's a fair point. On the one hand they don't have the resources to really defend themselves and on the other hand, they aren't worth a lawyer's time, given how mercenary the American legal culture is.

I realize that it's expensive for a company to be sued regardless of how frivolous the lawsuit, but I'd be pretty surprised if the schmucks suing Rockstar win. I'm guessing (purely speculation obviously) that Rockstar made the change as a PR move rather than in reaction to judging the suit a legitimate legal threat.

--matt

[Eric Random]

43.

Matt>I'm guessing (purely speculation obviously) that Rockstar made the change as a PR move rather than in reaction to judging the suit a legitimate legal threat.

Same here. Purely speculation, of course, but I would imagine the lines of protesters outside of Wal-mart may have had something to do with it. What Wal-mart wants, Wal-mart gets.

[Prokofy Neva]

44.

Meh, prostitution, genocide, kiddie porn, anti-gay signs, anti-capitalist signs, racism -- hey, we got all that and nobody censors in SL. Kill furries, put their heads on a spikey fence post -- hey, that's done all the time. Hey, in SL, I can get anti-gay signs on my lawn, I can have some W-Hat asshat knock me over with a replica of the World Trade Center, I can see swastikas and racism galore and murdered prostitutes and live prostitutes of every persuasion, including avatars rp little kids, I can see dungeons, dragons, and every combination therein. I can also have my RL divulged and be slandered falsely with the wrong RL info -- and no other resident is likely to get more than an informal wrist slap, maybe a 7-day ban tops, but rarely.

I'll tell you what really gets censored:

o explicit and insightful and wideranging criticism of the game company
o explicit and insightful and wideranging criticism of inworld companies and third-party sites.

Take it from one who knows!

Now THERE's your area for censorship, gentlemen! Hey, do you want an elitist Snowcrash universe or *don't* you??? ALWAYS censor those who question how games purvey the elitist power-mongering, violent, enslaving culture that they do. NEVER censor the violence and enslavement itself, however. That would be...censorship! And I'm definitely not for that.

[Matt Mihaly]

45.

*backs away slowly*

--matt

[Dr. Cat]

46.

In answer to Mike's question - all slavery in our game is consensual, because everything in our game is consensual. We also don't have any PvP mechanisms where someone can impose a wound or a death upon you against your will by hacking at you with a sword. (I was going to put "don't even have", but caught myself - somehow murdering you seems to be as extreme or more so than slavery. Though perhaps not in worlds where the consequences of being "killed" are so much less than in real life!)

I do question whether slavery could be so harmful in games where it was imposed by rules systems and was non-voluntary. Players might take on the slave role to "see what it's like", or to try for the tiny chance of playing well enough to win their freedom (if the game allows for that), or for other reasons. But if the gameplay of being a slave is too tedious, annoying, or lacking in entertainment value, they'll just stop playing that game at all. People playing the game as masters wouldn't really be able to interact with their slaves in a fashion where they can treat them as badly as they wish and still have the slave serving them, as a consequence. Make the game too unpleasant for your dozen slaves, and you might find yourself with no slaves whatsoever the next day.

I suppose there's a lot more potential to make someone feel like "having slaves was cool, this would be good in real life too" if you give them a legion of NPC slaves that act in a semi-convincing manner. But that's something you could do in a single player game as well, and then you're back to the same argument about whether single player violence, drug use, sexuality, etc. tend to encourage worse behavior or worse development of values and you can add slavery and bigotry to that list. Which is not quite the same question as whether simulating those and other behaviors with other real people has a positive or negative impact.

I would argue that play-acting behaviors with real people is our way of "learning to interact socially with fellow humans" just as much cat play is about learning to hunt. And that having other people play the roles in the game rather than computer controlled wish-fulfillment-drones guarantees that the playing won't just consist mostly of the desired reactions from the other game-entities. Having other people in the game guarantees that the potential reactions to some of the things you could do will be highly negative and unpleasant. Motivating us to learn how to behave in ways that get better reactions.

Note that single player games can go either way on this issue. Ultima IV had a variety of game mechanics to reward good behavior, and to make anti-social behavior work against you in the long run. Grand Theft Auto, on the other hand, allows you to succeed at most things and have fun doing them, and only gives very minimal, short-term penalties for failing at anything.

I do think multiplayer games can reinforce positive behavior and discourage negative behavior much more effectively than games like Ultima 4 because human beings are a lot richer and deeper to interact with than NPCs. And I think it'd be hard to make them as devoid of consequences to your actions as Grand Theft Auto unless you minimize interaction between players. I do think "artificial scarcity" can provoke some pretty harsh behavior though - just like it can in real life (see the japanese movie The Ballad of Narayama for a good reflection on this). The scarcity of the most sought-after resources in games like Lineage has even led to real life killing. Perhaps we should be more worried about allowing ultra-scarcity in games than we should be about allowing slavery? Mankind's urges for competition, greed and jealousy are still not things that we can be counted upon to control adequately in ourselves.

As for censorship of criticism of the game or the game company - I make a deliberate effort not to remove such posts from our forums, even to the point of stretching our other rules (no ad hominem attacks, etc.) a little to leave such posts intact. Not only because I feel free debate of such issues is better for a healthy society & points out game design flaws worth rectifying in future updates... But because even the hint or appearance of such censorship tends to make people assume they're living in a game run by an Orwellian overseer. Which is the last thing I want people to think!

-- Dr. Cat

[Matt Mihaly]

47.

I know this is an old subject, but I was browsing small text virtual worlds tonight and found this description of a very small virtual world (5-10 players online simultaneously, max) whose focus is, well, read it:

"SPQR is a free, online, text-based game with a unique BSDM theme. It is for adults only, but players seeking only a hastened sexual encounter within SPQR have missed its purpose, for SPQR is a roleplaying game about the slavery lifestyle. Slavery is its theme, but personal slavery is optional."

Still no mandatory player slavery, but the whole game revolves around "the slavery lifestyle," which I took to mean pure BDSM-style slavery. However, its web page (http://spqr.game-host.org/) states that:

"SPQR is not a sexmud, it is about slavery. Sex is a natural part, but it is the exploration of personal slavery that takes the primary focus. Role-play is a cornerstone to this. It is strongly recommended that you as a player do not forget to play a complete person, do not focus on sex only."

God, I love the pure weirdness and niche-ness that text MUDs can unleash.

--matt