Man Arrested in RL for Stealing in an MMORPG

[Jabe Adaks]

This is great...

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 9&from=rss

Jabe

[Keer]

Damn if the law isn't the biggest growth industry in history.

[Krusshyk]

Now, before I read it...lemme take a guess as to where this is going down.

Korea.

Damn, I was close. Figured with that fella who died playing video games and all, Korea was the most likely candidate.

Man alive, they are SERIOUS about gaming in asia. I wonder if parents in Tokyo get in as big of a huff as Senator Clinton does about GTA? Or video games in general. As an aside, does anyone have any info on the societal and cultural implications of video games in non-anglo societies?

[Keer]

As an aside, does anyone have any info on the societal and cultural implications of video games in non-anglo societies?

Now I'm in no way Mr. Socio/Anthropologist. But living in Japan for 4 years (most of it off of military bases, interacting with citizens) lends me some perspective on the issue.

As we've seen before, yes there is a very serious video came culture in Japan and eastern Asia in general. The view of what may be viewed as "childish" there is much smaller than some other places. On the subways in Japan it's not uncommon to see gray-haired seniors reading anime. Books of comics, not just cartoon strips in the newspapers. It's similar there with video games. Not exact , but similar.

As for societal and cultural implications, I can best speak of Japan. In a nation that largely condemns criminal violence and civil disobedience in general, I can see maybe some folks being more wild in something like a video game. In Japan, it's no big surprise to have your lost wallet returned to you in the mail or left at a police station with ALL of your cash and valuables still inside. While I was there a fellow troop left his video camera on a street bench during a parade. On a lark he went to the police and his camera was there...with the entire parade recorded for him by the man who found it.

The man in the story that Jabe posted, will probably be shunned for the rest of his life for what happenned regardless of the legal sentence or that it happenned during a video game.

In a short answer to Krush, my guess is that escapism, through games or otherwise, is perhaps more pronounced in Japan or any society that holds itself to such strict cultural proprieties in real life.

Note: this is not to say that there isn't crime in Japan. There is. It's just more organized. VERY organized.

[Krusshyk]

So parents in Japan don't tell their kids "violent video games rot your brains and make you criminals"? Of course they would say it in Japanese, but I don't know those characters.