Out of Pod Experience

I never understood the implication of psychopathy being such a "bad" thing. Oh no, I make decisions using reason instead of automated kneekerk emotional responses and/or what i think everyone else wants me to do.

Well adjusted people don't "play" games exclusively to win the game. They play for fun, for challenge, for the act of bonding with the other players. There is context to their play that informs their actions in the game and they are able to step outside the game and judge those actions in that greater context i.e. they can differentiate the in-game motivations and consequences from the out-of-game motivations and consequences.

No one is holding a gun to a ganker's head, making him carry out a gank. It is a choice to complete the action of ganking, same as mining or trading or any of the other things that can be done in EVE. The difference being the consequences of a gank versus shooting asteroids or NPCs. Asteroids don't feel bad when you shoot them. People do, and whether those feelings are justified or not, they are "real". They do not take place within the confines of the game, and neither does the decision to cause those feelings. A ganker doesn't just choose to "win EVE". If he/she is a well-adjusted person, then he/she understand that their decision to gank "in-game" is also a decision to risk causing another person to feel bad "out-of-game". That's what it means to be able to distinguish the game from the real world. Some of you clearly do not have that ability to distinguish, or you are pretending not to have that ability, because it is convenient to your self-image.

To OP:
From the article you linked (which did not link the scientific article, a pity), you misinterpreted the results. The study was interpreted as "playing an (by common media) evil-associated avatar leads to the wish to causing discomfort", it was not about playing a game on the evil side. As no Avatar in Eve can be clearly defined as evil (All characters are unknown and from human specimen) this result cannot be used on eve. The interpretation you used "playing eve evil makes you evil" resulted clearly from your wish of interpreting the short form of the article. Thats pretty evil... ;P

Shampoo-Banana (Champaign-Urbana) - I spent two years (a good twenty plus years back) there and while I learned plenty about real life and how people truly are, when it came to academics, I see some aspects just have not changed...

This is true for any game, I'm not sure what your point is. If we're playing poker and you're just there to hang out with buds and I'm there because I like to compete, does that make me a bad person? Hell, it's not exactly binary either, why can't I like both?

EVE is just a game, just like poker is just a game. You can bet big and lose big, but trying to paint the guy across the table from you as some sort of psychopath because he bested you in a game is juvenile at best.

Relevant

Also, crazy people don't know that they're crazy. So I'm not crazy or a psychopath. The other 499,999 people in this game are ****** in the head though...

EVE is a computer simulation running on one of the most advanced and sophisticated pieces of computing technology in the history of mankind, requiring hundreds of people to maintain it and complicated, distributed telecommunications infrastructure through which other advanced and sophisticated computing devices can input and receive outputs from said simulation in real-time by running "client" software programs on behalf of "users", of which many thousands can be connected to said simulation at any given time and with the results of those inputs and outputs persisting in the simulation and able to affect each and every other user according to a complex set of rules . . . etc., etc., etc.

Poker is played with little sheets of dried wood pulp that have colorful symbols and drawings on them.

Are they really the same thing? Or are you a ******* ******?
What is EVE's equivalent of a "royal flush"? What is poker's equivalent of a "hot drop"?



Is EVE about blowing up spaceships for you? Why must EVE be about getting my spaceship blown up, for me, just because it is about blowing up spaceships for you? Do you realize that there are NPC spaceships that you can blow up without upsetting an actual person? Do you realize that you can blow up your own spaceships if EVE is "a game about blowing up spaceships"? Is it nice for you to impose your perspective of EVE onto my gameplay? Don't you want to be a nice person?

Think about this: If person A needs professional help, maybe person B shouldn't be taunting and griefing them. Why would person B be doing that? Doesn't person B want to be a nice person? Why not?

I would also submit that ganking, piracy, gate camping, etc, are not example of psychopathic behavior.

Take, for example, the new order and their mining permits. In the real world, that's called racketeering, and is typically the legerdemain of the mob or local drug cartel. Criminal? Yes. Psychopathic? No.

Likewise, ganking a freighter is like robbing an armored truck carrying cash/gold/valuables to the bank. Criminal? Of course! Psychopathic? Nope.

Gatecamping? Pfft, highwaymen robbing passerby's on roads and bridges is a time honored tradition since the days of the Roman Empire. Again: Criminal, yes, psychopathic, no. The moral of the story? If you've ever been scammed, exploded, or otherwise wronged, odds are it wasn't an example of psychopathic behavior. Just your regular, absolutely banal criminal behavior.

In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find anything actually psychopathic in the community of new eden. I suppose the closest thing would be individuals that use in game means and motivations to leverage or threaten out of game consequences, or those that judge others based on their faux-crime lives in a videogame.

It does always amuse that people cant seem to separate fantasy from reality.

I love to play first person games, I derive great satisfaction from shooting other people in a virtual environment. For me its the challenege of beating another person in either reactions or accuracy.

However, I despise violence IRL and honestly think that those you use it as a first resort are somewhat unevolved.

Also, OP quoting the Daily Fail and expecting to be taken seriously. Many lols.

And the Daily Fail strikes again.

Do you understand how bad the Daily Fail's history is of poorly reporting on any research findings in scientific fields? Let me know when you've read the actual research paper and have found a myriad of details the Fail managed to omit.

There is nothing, absolutely no evidence, to suggest that someone's behaviour in a videogame can reflect what kind of person they are in reality. I'm sure you'd like to think there is, because it makes you feel better about yourself, it helps you feel superior to the person that just humiliated you to think that IRL, somehow, you're a better person than they are. But it just isn't the case, and by trying to link someone's in-game behaviour with their RL personality, or equate it to a mental disorder or psychopathy, you are only demonstrating the full nature of your butthurt.

As for the Daily Mail, this is worth a read. It talks about some interesting relationships with supposed 'researchers' and the industries that pay for them, particularly in the UK. Those same industries then go to the media with their 'findings' and pay them to float it in a 'science' column. UK media is some of the worst in the world, possibly worse than that in the US, at impartiality. But that's just because more of it is owned by Rupert Murdoch.