Man stole $14,000, not getting arrested

[Deathgeese88]

http://kotaku.com/5441296/eve-online-pl ... robin-hood

I just read this and I found it to be very interesting. I know there have been ridiculous case where people tried to get legal action taken for people who duped them out of their gear in Everquest or something, and I fully believe that they shouldn't. But, no matter how you look at it, this guy stole stuff worth over $14,000. I don't know if it's just the scale or my views are changing, but maybe virtual items have more value than people are willing to see. I mean, is an item's value not determined by supply and demand? Does anybody want to buy my alarm clock for more than $1? No. Why? Because no one wants it. Another example would be gold. If gold had no demand, it wouldn't be worth crap. In this same way, doesn't the demand for ingame money warrant a true, monetary value? Stuff only has value if there's demand and there's CLEARLY demand for virtual items. Heck, don't we already pay for virtual items when we buy fancy clothes in ingame stores to make our character look just as badass as we feel?

What do you think? Discuss.

[CMoon]

So does online money somehow convert into real money? (I don't know anything about what's going on here...)

[Lordstar]

I think we should get our shit sorted in the real world before we start trying to police 'virtual items' . Otherwise next thing you know the Gov is going to want to tax us XX% of our virtual money too

[Mortificator]

Legally, it's impossible to steal something that doesn't physically exist. This would be classified as fraud, but good luck getting action taken.

Guy's still a sleazebag, though.

[Deathgeese88]

Oh, I agree. There's an unwritten rule somewhere that says you shouldn't make a law you can't enforce. Honestly, I don't believe it's possible to enforce a rule against this type of behavior. That aside, the EVE Online is designed to allow for this type of behavior. The game has a very amazing economic system and the makers of EVE Online designed their game to allow for this because it creates such a unique experience. From what I understand, that doesn't mean people get shafted constantly in the game. Part of the game is making alliances and stuff. If someone screws you over, hopefully you've got powerful friends. Not only that, but the offender's reputation takes a hit. Though, I'm not sure how much a player's rep plays a part in that game. I imagine it makes quite a difference given the game's design. But, alas, I don't play the game because I know for a fact it would absolutely consume me. The game is ALL about making money. In space. It's my dream game and I know well enough how well I handle games like this. If there are any EVE players here, hopefully they'll speak up and shed some light on this.

[undamned]

Legally, it's impossible to steal something that doesn't physically exist.

You're wrong.
-ud

[EinhanderZwei]

I think we should get our shit sorted in the real world before we start trying to police 'virtual items' . Otherwise next thing you know the Gov is going to want to tax us XX% of our virtual money too

Haha, you made my day. Though I heard that some shit like this is planned to be implemented in my country

[ncp]

I should probably be in jail for PKing those 50,000 people on ultima online back in the day, then.

[lgb]

this thread title is misleading because there's a quarter of the article that you're ignoring and a quarter you're adding

[Deathgeese88]

I know it's a bit misleading. I wrote it that way to make a point and make people think, not explicitly mislead. When you word it that way, it creates a very different perspective that just saying some some guy scammed a bunch of people out of an ingame currency. Ingame currency or not, the fact is he could sell that and be $14k richer. That's $14k that would otherwise be distributed to the original owners of the stuff he sold. I just think the idea that someone can scam people out of virtual stuff worth approximately $14k and not experience legal action is very fascinating. I'm not saying he should experience legal action. I want to make that point clear. I don't play MMOs anymore, but I want my video games to STAY video games.

[Ed Oscuro]

A year or two ago NPR had a segment about this sort of thing; it'd be available as a podcast if anybody wanted to listen.

[Minzoku]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... agic-Sword

[ZacharyB]

The reason solid currency has value is because it is applicable to everyone. Virtual currency won in a game is only applicable to those who play that game.

[Minzoku]

^ HAY YOU

[Elixir]

If I wake up one day and my $200 worth of iDOLM@STER costumes are gone I'm suing Microsoft I swear to god

[Khan]

although its virtual money, i think at the very least the guy deserves a beat down, I really hate people like this thinking they can lie and cheat and steal in the name of what they believe is right robin hood my ass!

[Ed Oscuro]

The reason solid currency has value is because it is applicable to everyone. Virtual currency won in a game is only applicable to those who play that game.

Once I went to the supermarket and they tried to give me change in WoW subtime. BUT I SHOWED THEM

Your point, as worded here, is mistaken because real money is already serving the function of a freely convertible store of value. The question is whether virtual items and the like should be considered "property" in a legal sense, and whether they have value. Just because you can't barter your spare Eight Forces PCBs for fish at the market doesn't mean that it's not legitimate to ask whether an Eight Forces PCB (or other MacGuffin) should be considered property.

So does online money somehow convert into real money? (I don't know anything about what's going on here...)

One word: PayPal.

[neorichieb1971]

The point here is that there is no proof of purchase of said items.

Can you insure your virtual items? Can someone actually testify to the value of said items? Do the creators of said items value the items at said value?

[Ed Oscuro]

The point here is that there is no proof of purchase of said items.

Why not? That's just a backend issue. Sure, it can be broken or "hacked" (i.e. the usual non-technical social engineering tricks to make people give you their stuff), but that's a price to be paid for the convenience of digital things, and a risk anybody who wants to get into "digital commerce" needs to anticipate. (As an aside, it's not perhaps directly relevant but [url=http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18979]I came across this today, which covers some of this same ground, paying attention to Nalates' posts. Yes, I like to check in with Myst Online now and then to see what is going on with it, if anything.) Ironically, anything which can exist and have an appreciable value outside a game world (i.e. a digital book, or image) is something that will be likely to be "stolen" with wide-ranging implications (i.e. the author of said work won't be able to continue making their works), but random bling or loot from a game doesn't have any value outside of a game. I don't think proof of purchase is the problem there.

Can you insure your virtual items?

I'm sure Lloyd's will be interested to know. Let's not be silly and go the extra step to claim that scenarios for fraud that we can cook up undermine the whole idea of having virtual items. Rather I think something more basic than that undermines it: Remember that the whole point of digital anything in the first place (before gameplay) is that it's easy to "back up" items while a digital "landscape" can be as volatile as needed, so insurance is paradoxically less important but also riskier. Bioware or whoever can give you a virtual shiny much easier than they could send a real damascus blade to your home, but the real thing has some permanence. Thus insurance is one area in which virtual items indeed differ much from the "real thing," and I agree that changes the economics significantly (enough to make it all not worthwhile, IMO).

And yes, I back up virtual items...it's called a hard drive. (Obviously, that's different than the kinds of items in the topic at hand.)

Can someone actually testify to the value of said items?

How many sticks of butter is a rusted-out Geo Storm coupe worth? Straightforward market economics theory probably works even better in virtual realms because loss of life and limb there isn't permanent, so one can take a more straightforwardly lassiez faire view of things than would be comfortable with tangible items. The caveats here (that I can see) are that real world considerations can intrude on the digital (see topic title again) and (once again) the virtual world is often unstable and doesn't have many legal protections.

Do the creators of said items value the items at said value?

I'm not sure if you referred to this "said value" before, your sentence looks like it's eating its own tail. I think I take your meaning though. Take the virtual "consensus" on price (beads = 10 golds each) and weigh that against how much people value their real-time effort and labor to duplicate something virtual (if it takes an hour to beat five beads out of mutant pigs, at minimum wage how much money would you need to pay to get 100 golds?).

It might sound like I'm a booster of the whole virtual commerce thing. I'm not, really, because of the fact that there currently aren't many real protections or safeguards, and any that exist certainly aren't internationally codified and recognized - they change not only from company to company, but even from system to system. However, I'm not worried about it right now because smart businesspeople are aware of the risks and plan accordingly. Anybody who spends real money on virtual baubles is just doing it because they want to, or otherwise they are taking a huge risk.

I see it as if you could take all the points I've scored from shooting games and say that is suddenly a repository of value, somehow - like every ship you blast turns into fairy dust and that spending a lot of time grinding enemies into fairy dust makes you a big shot. OK, but I would have had just as much fun if I hadn't been collecting fairy dust (obviously the criticism here is that if it's declared "fun" because it makes money, it's putting the cart before the horse). The part that's arbitrary and broken in the whole system is not the market that revolves around it, but the type of behavior that's rewarded with a foothold in the market (be it items awarded, fairy dust for buying new Nabbos, whatever).

At least Second Life (dare I invoke its name) allows people to get their rewards for actual creative work, instead of doing some random "gameplay" thing (which may or may not actually make for good gameplay).

[Ex-Cyber]

The point here is that there is no proof of purchase of said items.

Can you insure your virtual items? Can someone actually testify to the value of said items? Do the creators of said items value the items at said value?

Can you document that you own your toothbrush? Can you insure your toothbrush? Can someone actually testify to the value of your toothbrush? Does the manufacturer of your toothbrush value your toothbrush at said value?

...

Is your toothbrush your property?

[neorichieb1971]

The claimant specified that something that only exists in a virtual world is worth $14000. If I said my toothbrush was worth $14000 I would have a hard time proving it because you can buy one in the shops for $1.99. It has a price on it and the manufacturer can suggest an MSRP. In a court of law I would be rewarded $1.99 surely?

I don't actually know about this case because I did not read the facts inside and out, but I assume proof of ownership by going into a deal with a buyer. Surely, wether or not something is valued by law is irrelevant. What is relevant is that a verbal/written/documented agreement went pear shaped. And in any agreement if the goods are not returned the defendant must pay for them. If there is no law abiding documentation to prove such a transaction existed, or the guy literally found a method to stealth his way to the goods then there is no such way to prove anything either way.

American law is somewhat open to dispute anyway, sometimes I think you guys make it up as you go along. It is however a rather interesting case. But to me, I would let the jury decide on if the transaction/goods were taken or sold due to unfair practices.

[Exarion]

The game in question does have a way to convert real money into game currency, but not the reverse. It does have a definite value, but i'm unsure as to whether or not it can be considered theft.

[neorichieb1971]

I assume $14000 worth of virtual goods would take a lot of man hours to achieve. If that is the case, the game could be a weird and wonderful career. In such a case, it could be argued that he "earns" the value of the goods by providing a service.

[Ed Oscuro]

The claimant specified that something that only exists in a virtual world is worth $14000. If I said my toothbrush was worth $14000 I would have a hard time proving it because you can buy one in the shops for $1.99. It has a price on it and the manufacturer can suggest an MSRP. In a court of law I would be rewarded $1.99 surely?

We're not talking about a toothbrush here, and generally nobody is going to court for matters less than $1000. This is well above that threshhold.

Can you document that you own your toothbrush? Can you insure your toothbrush? Can someone actually testify to the value of your toothbrush? Does the manufacturer of your toothbrush value your toothbrush at said value?

...

Is your toothbrush your property?

:applause:

Even if you did get richie talking about the wrong thing (or maybe because of that, lulz)

[TrevHead (TVR)]

im a eve player (not subbed atm but will be returning soon) and the thing is that isk (ingame money) scams and spying on rival corps (guilds) is welcomed by most of the gamers and its developers since it enriches the gameplay, something which i hope alot of you guys will understand since you like shmups, if not ill explain the culture of the game

You see eve online is a scifi mmo quite unlike anyother because of how unforgiving it is (plays like a cross between elite and freelancer with every1 on 1 server). for example if you lose a spaceship thats it its lost for good (some spaceships can be worth thousands of pounds in real money) only its wreak remains with some undestroyed items which the victor will pick up, that mechanic plus the fact that most of the gaming world has no penaltys on gamers attacking other gamers even if they dont want to fight leads to gamers who make their living as pirates. Its ingame ecomony is just as harsh (building, trading etc) where if you get scammed its your fault for letting it happen, And tbh it was reading about scams like that in PC gamer magazine that made me want to play the game even though ingame im a good guy. Also youll find real life stock market traders like eve and many other adults populate the game not so much children since the game has a very high learning curve/ cliff

Infact everything about eve is very dog eat dog where the gamers make their own rules and the devs will only step in if some1 is racisist, a gold seller or trys to steal players accounts. I find the pvp combat to be enjoyable due to the risk of losing my gear that ive spent time earning the isk to buy or build it, it really can get the adrenaline pumping when you know your balls are on the line. Unfortuatly eve isnt twitch based so alot of you arcade lovers wouldnt be able to get into it.

also its worth to consider once real world polices get involved with virtual money then the greedy polititions will start taxing us on it, and i for one dont want tobe having to include eve isk in my tax return forms

edit: the main reason why isk is worth real money is because ppl in the game buy game time cards which is sellable for isk so if you were a rich bugger u could buy yourself the biggest and best ships in the game ( and he would prolly lose it very quickly in pvp to pirates and be made fun of by the eve community) Also theres stuff like gold sellers and character sellers that makes a mmo currency have real value. although these arnt that prevelant in eve more wow and such like.

[Elixir]

Short version: Eve Online has poor administration and everyone's encouraged to run riot everywhere.

[Ex-Cyber]

also its worth to consider once real world polices get involved with virtual money then the greedy polititions will start taxing us on it, and i for one dont want tobe having to include eve isk in my tax return forms

Setting up transactions in scrip (private currency) instead of legal tender is an old trick for avoiding taxes. Most tax authorities probably wised up to it years ago. I'd be surprised if the income tax law/code (in most industrialized countries, at least) didn't already consider "virtual" currency and "real" currency equivalent as long as there's some credible way to determine an exchange rate. I don't know where to find a concrete reference for something like this, though.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Short version: Eve Online has poor administration and everyone's encouraged to run riot everywhere.

hehe u could be right but it does make the game more fun

also its worth to consider once real world polices get involved with virtual money then the greedy polititions will start taxing us on it, and i for one dont want tobe having to include eve isk in my tax return forms

Setting up transactions in scrip (private currency) instead of legal tender is an old trick for avoiding taxes. Most tax authorities probably wised up to it years ago. I'd be surprised if the income tax law/code (in most industrialized countries, at least) didn't already consider "virtual" currency and "real" currency equivalent as long as there's some credible way to determine an exchange rate. I don't know where to find a concrete reference for something like this, though.

it is worth noting that most gamers are only putting money into mmos and not bothering to convert their virtual money into hard cash, if everyone was exchanging money eatherway then i could see the taxman knocking. Oh that reminds me there is a mmo which ive heard has a legal system of exchanging cash between real and virtual, Entropia i believe its called

[Ed Oscuro]

It could also be the case that Eve Online is being brutally honest with its players that they should not expect their virtual shit to hold value. Common sense sometimes bears a high price.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

It could also be the case that Eve Online is being brutally honest with its players that they should not expect their virtual shit to hold value. Common sense sometimes bears a high price.

TBH if the devs CCP started acting like every other mmo in the way the wrap their gamers up in cotton wool, you would find Eve totally changed with many ppl unsubscribing. ATM having such a hard nosed game also keeps the WOW (world of warcraft) kiddies away aswell which is how most Eve gamers like it since eves gamers are all adults with many hardworking professionals playing aswell. Infact if anyone comes crying on the eve forums ppl just tell them to go back to playing WOW