Robbery/Abduction in WoW Space
A close friend of mine recently found out that his WoW account had been hacked. Someone gained access to his account, took all his characters' (9 or so of them) items, money, gear (including all the clothes his characters were wearing), etc. and sold them on the auction house or transferred them to his "best" (highest level and favorite) character, his hunter. The hacker then proceeded to pay ($20) to transfer his hunter to another server.
Luckily, my friend's roommate was online during the time this hacker was playing my friend's character and, when my friend's character didn't respond to his texting "whispers," quickly figured out something was up. He called my friend on the phone and my friend immediately contacted Blizzard.
To date, Blizzard has put a hold on the account. They have indicated that they can promise nothing, but will try to recover his characters.
When I asked my friend about this experience he said a few things:
-he was angry the day it happened, but it is only a video game (FYI: this guy was playing on a California server that was one of the first WoW servers; he is the one who introduced me and my husband to the game)
-if Blizzard doesn't resolve it, he will make sure they know he will never play their games again due to their lack of security
-He was upset that the hacker leveled his character
-He was upset that Blizzard didn't make this a priority (aka they didn't handle it in a day or two)
The whole time we talked, he sounded like he was in shock. After chatting more with Juliette, a whole host of questions came to mind:
-If we truly embody characters (as posed by Gee), what does it mean for our mental states when they are robbed/raped?
-What happens to a game and game play when physical life contrainsts/needs/situations (eg. the hacker's need for money, power, etc.) find their way into games? When considering Mia Consalvo's presentation on "cheating in videogames" from the gaming forum, would this be considered "cheating"?
-When considering responses within < a href="http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html">Dibbel's piece on cyberrape, how much agency should a community have to respond to concerns?
-What responses to this situation may offer my friend agency?
-As researchers, can we ethically study our friends?
Any thoughts?
Comments
Power and Recourse in Lives
Wendy, wow. Who would have predicted that we’d be dealing with issues of cyberrape?
Your questions made me think about the power we have in real (first?) life versus the power we (like to think we) have in second life (I’m extending this term to mean virtual realities, generally). First, I thought, “Well we have a lot more control over what happens to us and our possessions in first lives. We (better) know how to protect us and them.” But then I thought, “Do we—really?” I can’t say with any seriousness that I think we can prevent real-life rape or theft any more than we can prevent virtual rape or theft. Scary.
I’m also wondering about the recourse that these victims—and I’m also including you friend, the victim of “identity theft” (is that the right word?)—have against these criminals. The lag between developments in technology and the laws that can govern these technologies opens a space that “allows” for a lot of these indiscretions.
You bring up a lot of good questions
Morgan,
You bring up a lot of good questions. As academics I feel like we are always considering questions of control-usually our control/agency/power in our environments. I think that you are right-although we like to think that we do have control/can prevent things like this from happening, sometimes, to quote the infamous bumper sticker, s*** happens.
And I think that your use of the term "identity theft" is correct-I struggled with defining what happened to my friend. Someone takes control of his identity...I kept coming back to forced something or another, but since there was no sex involved (although there was disrobing for the robbery) I couldn't call it "rape." The one word that I kept coming back to was violation. Even in nothing sexual happened, would he feel violated because his characters were all left with no clothes? And, even if he did feel violated, would he talk about it (as a comm scholar I have this bias toward "talking" about things)? My friend's stocism toward expressing his loss (after the 1 day he allowed himself) makes me concerned about potential long term scars. If we really embody learning from video games, (similar to if someone robbed our homes or took part of our identity) can we become emotionally scarred as well?
;p
Virtual Violations
I wonder what a virtual emotional scarring would look like…any thoughts? Is someone justified to be/feel scarred from a virtual violation like the one your friend experienced? Quite honestly, if a legal judge were presented with this case, I can’t imagine it standing up to cases of rape, violation, or identity theft in real (first) life (except maybe if the victim experienced a loss of financial resources). However, I don’t mean to somehow discount the experiences of these people who experience a mental or emotional loss via a virtual violation.
On the other hand, I find myself also thinking that as we move ourselves further into the virtual realm—embodying virtual identities—whether there such a thing as mental or emotional rape. Another person has “penetrated” our being, though not physical, and we feel violated. To me, these seem like legitimate criteria for discussing what happened.
I think I just contradicted myself, but I’m having trouble making sense out of these things.