Out of Pod Experience

Just gonna say that the British aren't saints when it comes to this either. Ever heard of Andrew Wakefield?

I don't know if I believe it. If I were you I would reevaluate my out of game personailty and see if there are any tendancies that are not so nice... look back at your experiences and interactions with people, not the good ones but the ones where things didn't go well or as you expected. Anyone can respond to people kindly when everything is cool, when others are kind to you.. what do you do with things are not that way or when you are irritated? that's the test.

LOL at going into offense is the best defense mode. "Yes, we're doing it wrong but It's okay because look at those darn Brits."

But gratz on being seemingly the only person that actually understood what I wrote.

Mr Epeen

I have no doubt that one's actions in a virtual reality influence one's behavior in real life... but not in the way people seem to assume.

Games are fascinating in that they let us explore possibilities without consequence. They put us in an environment with a set of constraints and ask us "What would you do?" They let us assume a character and personality, one that could be wildly different from our real selves. In my experience, however, very few people create characters wildly different from themselves - it's just too hard to immerse oneself in a character, to believe their actions are realistic, if they're wildly different from your own.

I'm not saying one's character in-game is a perfect reflection of their real personality; if that were the case, EVE would play host to the single largest gathering of mass-murdering psychopaths the world has ever seen. Rather, a character in a game is often, from what I've observed, based on its creator's personality, with significant alterations mainly due to the lack of consequences or greater (perceived) freedom of choice. It's why most people who play games with a moral choice system take more good or neutral choices than evil. People do what makes sense based on their own personality and experience in the context of the game's world.

As a personal example, I tend towards "evil" alignments in most games. I'm not an omnicidal sociopath in reality (as far as you know ), I just make choices that make sense to me, with one key change: I don't concern myself with what happens to others. With the removal of consequence, I tend to take actions that benefit me, even if it's at the expense of others. Likewise, I've met some fairly cold individuals who, in the context of games, consistently choose "good" alignments. In reality, they're reserved and seemingly callous, but in a game, they're generous and compassionate.

What's important is that my character's choices are consistent with my own, with one critical change. The choices I make in-game make sense in that game's context. Since there is little lasting consequence, I make decisions without considering the harm to other characters. When watching the aforementioned people, they make choices consistent with their real personality, but without worrying about personal consequence.

In short, games allow one to explore their own personality in a unique context. One's character in-game is likely very similar to their real-life personality, when viewed in the context of the game. Take away consequence or add new restrictions, and people can behave in surprising ways, but their choices are almost always based on their own experiences.

I'm a misanthrope in game and IRL.

Because people, what a bunch of bastards...

Are the two realms really so far apart? Destroying other players stuff in this game still represents the destruction of time invested by the victim in acquiring what he had, effectively wasting it. Time is part of the real world, and is irreplaceable.

When we play a strategy game, pass hours and hours (and days for some) to build our empires and these ones are crushed by an AI opponent is it a waste too? IMHO no, since it's a game and we should had fun to build it before it. I know, in a strategy game you can load a previously saved game and go back in time, but in this case you also pass some more time to reconsider your options and strategies, it isn't a waste either.
If you undock and lost your ship, first we all know that we should use what we can afford, because in other cases that can be a total pain to goes on the road again from the start, but if you have many iterations of it already it's not the same thing. Second, it's not a waste because we can review our strategy and methods and the weakness in it.
If someone think to waste its time playing a game and loosing sometime stuff in it, perhaps it's not a good game for him/her.
The fun doing whatever we do is something irreplaceable too.
Another and last example; in chess you begin each play with a set of limited assets in which you irremediably know that you will lost some of them over time during the play, and even worst you cannot replace them and must build and deconstruct strategies over time to reach the goal of a check mat.

We understand your point. However its the Daily Mail, a paper that is renowned for its anti game stance. See UK papers are like US mainstream tv news, all opinion and few facts.

They did, it got locked along with its variations.

I think any anonymous situation, particularly on the internet, brings out people's true selves. You've seen them, people road raging or refusing to give up a seat on the bus to an elderly person when nobody knows who they are. Acting in ways they never would if their friends or family were with them. I'm pretty sure the internet is a lot like real life in this respect.