EVE General Discussion

God, I'd love this case to go before Judge Judy.

metaphoricly spoken :)

Oh man, so my space stuff.. is real stuff?!?!?!?!?!

You're saying that humiliation just for the sake of humiliation is the line crossed here. But that is incorrect. Revenge, humiliation, whatever, people do a lot of stuff to hurt others in this game even if they gain nothing or even have to lose something as well to achieve it. That in and of itself has never been a problem. The outrage is only over the nature of the humiliation, and the subject matter of it.

You aren't. Your recent post history agrees with me.

No need to thank me.

If you're suggesting that someone hurts themselves and/or someone else because of a virtual pixel space sim spaceship video game, then that's not the fault of the game developer, nor the people involved in said video game. Rather it would be the fault of the persons family.. if we were to cast blame.

There are two separate contexts involved here.

What is happening in-game, and what is happening outside the game.

1) Ingame:

Erotica1 is free to and within his rights to perpetrate as many scams as he wants. His doubling scheme, insofar as what happens ingame, is allowed and fine. He can aquire ingame assets from other whether consentually by them giving them to him, or by ingame aggression. This is the same and true for all in EVE.

Nobody is claiming that what is happening ingame is a violation of EULA, the games rules or its internal context.

When someone hands over their assets ingame to Erotica1, that is their own choice (though an emminently stupid one) and there is no recourse for complaint either legally or to CCP.

This part is all well and fine. What is actually happening inside the game is not a problem.

2) Outside the game:

This is where the problems arise. Though ingame, everyone is operating under the EULA and CCPs service terms, what happens outside of the game (in this case in 3rd party voice chat communications) the individuals are no longer operating as "characters" ingame. They are now autonomous, responsible and accountable people subject to the rule of law and social norms as is everyone else in all activities in their mundane lives outside of the game.

They are no longer players in a game, they are now people.

What Erotica1 is doing to these other PEOPLE, outside of the game, is absolutely and unequivocably illegal.

Though the assets ingame have already been transferred, legitimatelymboth legally and within the context of the game itself, he then begins an extended process of blackmailing the PERSON, in a 3rd party out of game format, as an independant and responsible and accountable PERSON himself.

By holding the ingame assets as ransom, he blackmails the PERSON OUTSIDE OF THE GAME for return of those ingame assets.
This is no longer hapoening within the game, it is outside of it. He is no longer using the games internal mechanics in order to scam someone, he is doing it IN PERSON to that OTHER PERSON in a format that is OUTSIDE the games context. He merely excercised his freedom of expression, and though what he said was held morally reprehensible by many, there is no crime in that.

As to the actual mechanisms of that blackmail, those are apparent in the recording, and carry several aggravating instances.
-He holds the ingame assets as ransom against the PERSON to perform OUT OF GAME demeaning tasks, such as in this case PERSONALLY reading OUT OF GAME texts.
-The incident is aggravated by demonstrable malice, because there is no longer any INGAME assets to be aquired through the process. Erotica1 already has the other players assets at this point. Ecerything that happens in the voice chat is NOT for the purposes of aquiring any more ingame assets, by blackmailmhappening outside the game, but by MALICE to demean and humiliate the victim.
-That Erotica1 does this with INTENT is demonstrated by the fsct this is not a one off incident. It is not defensible as a one off emotional act without planning or intent. It is systematic and repeated.
-Including other people in the recordings, and other specifics of the act of blackmail, he induces DURESS on the victim. In this specific even to the extremepoint that the victims wife, concerned for the demonstrably harmed harmed victim, tried to entreat cessation of the blackmail.
-The incident is protracted. This is not a 5min affair, the tormenting continues for a full fking 2hrs. This raises the degree of severity of the crime implicitly, as an aggravating element.

CCP is not responsible for this.

Erotica1 is HIMSELF completely responsible for his own conduct outside of the game, which is where ALL of this occurs.

In my opinion, Erotica1s actions OUT OF THE GAME constitute illegal and criminal behavior.

As such, I hope that one of his victims does indeed report this matter to their local police, regardless of jurisdiction.

Furthermore, CCP is also in my view completely within its rights to file charges against Erotica1 for misusing the service they provide to enable his OWN illegal activities of blackmail.

And if the blackmail charges dont stick, the case can be tried as any number of charges relating to willfully causing psychological harm and duress to another person in voth criminal and civil courts.

The one existing precedent we have of this, is the Mittani incident. But The Mittani DID NOT BREAK ANY LAWS.
Even in that case, and as is generally held as a good thing, CCP took actiin to indicate that it does not, as a company, endorse or support anti-social behavior inside OR OUTSIDE the game, as an extension of their services.

To those who argue that CCP delineating on this wouldnbe amslippery slope threatening the precious nature of EVE that we all love, that is not a valid concern for two reasons:

1) Erotica1s conduct in the recording happens OUTSIDE OF THE GAME. What he is doing is not EVE. It is not natural to the game. It is happening OUTSIDE the game.

2) The slippery slope argument works both ways. If CCP does not delineate that it does not support thismkind of behavior by any extension in relation to its services and client base, then this kind od thing that Erotica1 is doing by EXTENSION from the game will only conceivably get worse, to the absolute worst case scenario of some disgruntled individual actually showing up to a Fanfest with a pipebomb. I strongly urge that CCP needs to protect its clients from persons like Erotica1 utilising their service for activities such as this. The EULA stipulates that players can and should be protected from this kind of behavior.

I'm well aware of the real world. And am also well aware that those who go for short term gains, those who are cow towed by the press, suffer in the long term and are not remembered kindly.

Sure CCP could take some damage over this, but the damage will be far greater if give up their principles and give in to the righteous indignation which will come from the press reaction. The bad press will last a day or two and then will go away when they find something more selacious to splash on their front pages, the damage from giving into the unreasonable demands on this thread and in the press will last a lot longer.

Injecting a politically and religiously charged topic into the discussion is not helping; it is trolling.

It serves no purpose in the discussion other than to make people angry.

So if my girlfriend is an EVE player and I bang her sister, I'm banned?