My EVE

from Virtual Psychopathy in New Eden

There's a certain amount of virtual psychopathy that exists among the playerbase of EVE Online. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it healthy, but neither would I necessarily call it detrimental. I'll get to why I describe it as virtual psychopathy in a wee bit.

I like to compare it somewhat to hentai, of the Urotsukidoji variety. (Neither hentai or Urotsukidoji are likely to be safe for work, so no links supplied. Google at your own risk and convenience.) The Japanese have staid and buttoned-down daily existences, so when they let loose in their private lives, they go that extra mile, and then ten extra miles beyond that. Hentai is a reflection of that sort of double-life.

EVE Online has similarities to the hentai phenomenon. People engage in behaviour within the game that they would never dream of engaging in the outside world. And this is okay, because other than some ego bruising, they're not harming anyone. All anyone loses are pixels. Maybe some respect. Considering most everyone is anonymous to everyone else, even that loss of respect can be considered virtual. There's nothing at all wrong with having an arena where you can relieve some stress, act out, or simply roleplay a baddie.

Scamming someone out of the value of a Titan or robbing the alliance coffers or just running around ganking Hulks, many people (mostly of the carebear bent) refer to this as psychopathic behaviour. They claim that it's a reflection on the player in the real world. If they're willing to steal 50B ISK or blow-up a defenseless ship, then they must be a bad person in real life as well.

Phooey.

At worst it could be considered virtual psychopathy. And virtual psychopathy is not real psychopathy. Just because someone is willing to spend a year to bring down some alliance, doesn't mean in the outside world they'd love to run a giant Ponzi scheme, or are actually scamming grandmas out of their pension cheques. Virtual psychopathy is to cause virtual harm. Folks losing only fake items, pixels, stuff that has no worth outside of the game itself. Maybe they lose some time. Maybe they lose some respect from other players. Again, both are meaningless outside of the game. Their boss doesn't think less of them because they lost a Hulk, because the boss doesn't know they lost a Hulk. Nor should/would the boss care. Whatever anguish caused by the loss, it is self-inflicted.

The Mittani used the trusted third-party scam how many times in late-2011/early-2012? Three or four times? Scamming people out of purchasing Titans. 200B-300B ISK worth of losses to the unsuspecting (even though they should have been as suspecting as hell.) Many people have met The Mittani at Fanfest. Did he come across as anything other than a personable and well-rounded individual? Did you check your wallet afterwards? Just because he scams in game does not mean he's not a great husband, a good dog owner, someone who helps out friends and family in need. Virtual psychopathy does not translate to actual pychopathic behaviour. There is zero correlation between the two.

What a player does within the context of the game is exactly that, done in the context of the game. It has no bearing, whatsoever, beyond the game.

Oh no, though, as some will argue that in a few of those massive ISK losses, the ISK might have been gained through GTC purchases, therefore The Mittani did cause real world loss. Therefore he is a real psychopath.

Phooey.

Anyone that buys ISK with GTCs (I have, for instance) does so of their own volition. They aren't cajoled or hoodwinked into it. They do so because they wanted to take the quick path to some instant in-game currency. It's not the onus of the scammer to determine whether the ISK he plans to scam was gained through a GTC purchase or via 80 hours of diligent ice mining. Grifters are not responsible for how the grifted wish to play the game (or not, where GTC purchases are concerned.)

tl;dr: Virtual psychopathic behaviour is not psychopathic behaviour.

****

Now, there was an incident a week or so ago, where a couple of players convinced their target to purchase GTCs so that he could outfit his ship with very expensive modules. I won't link to the threads and posts describing what happened, because I don't think the scammers deserve any more publicity than they've already had.

This, though, would be an example of real psychopathic behaviour. Two individuals going out of their way to cause real-world harm to a victim. Peer pressure is a powerful thing. Especially coming from individuals who a target feels they can trust. So, the blame for purchasing the GTCs cannot be laid solely at the feet of the target. He was cajoled, pressured, bullied (so to speak) into purchasing the GTCs, which were converted into ISK, which were then spent to outfit his ship with billions in modules, so that the scammers could blow up the ship, to then harvest some of those modules for their own gain.

This cannot be described as anything other than real psychopathic behaviour. These two individuals targeted another player with the express goal of convincing that person to spend hard-earned money, money that person likely would not have spent on GTCs otherwise, so that they could profit from his real-world loss. Not too mention that they revelled in their target's losses afterwards, especially the fact that they convinced the player to spend real money on their eventual scam.

That is reprehensible behaviour. It is psychopathic behaviour. Nothing virtual about it.

(in-game)

Would read again.

I'm personally ok with thieving and scamming in EVE, even though i don't partake in those activities myself. And i don't even consider those psychopathic traits on their own

However, the people who do set off my psychopath alarms online, are those who not only seek to cause emotional harm to others, but get a rush out of doing it. That is textbook psychopathy. And not just an act they're putting on. Doing certain things can be an act, but how they react to the things they do gives them away. They are incapable of emotions which are considered higher thought processes like empathy, yet have all the basic 'proto-emotions' like rage or envy. They see people who are capable of emotions they aren't as weaker, and believe they are superior because they they aren't held back in life by things like compassion or remorse

But that's not to say they're out there in real life doing those things to others if they do it in a game. There's a good book called "The Mask of Sanity" which explains what that's all about. Basically, psychopaths know they aren't like other people, and become very adept at appearing to be like everyone else to blend in. They can't actually have a lot of emotions those around them do, but learn to mimic them. They know they're supposed to feel guilty about certain things, for example, so they act guilty, and may even make the most convincing apology you've ever heard, but it's all just an empty machine response. For these reasons it's extremely hard for a psychologist to diagnose someone as a psychopath, without them getting caught doing something extreme which they can't talk themselves out of. They could be anyone you know, and contrary to what Hollywood shows, they're superb impression managers, and usually don't creep people out or anything. In fact quite the opposite, they're more likely to act in a way which makes you give them your complete trust

What the internet and games like EVE offer them, is an escape from all that, where they don't have to pretend anymore, and can just revel in their true nature. I think some people out there are just pathetically trying to act like the bad guy in a movie they saw, because they think he's cool or something, but like i said earlier, it's how they react to the things they do which gives them away. Still not enough evidence to be sure, but it's a damned good indication.

I can understand how some people's friendships would mean never betraying their friend in a game, that might just be understood between them. But I would not hate anyone even if I knew them if they scammed me in EVE o_o I wouldnt trust them in EVE anymore but that is the fun of it! If you want a situation where everything goes right you might as well play checkers against yourself :|

The reason you build sandcastles in the first place is to eventually watch the tide eat them c:

P.S. I would never betray anyone in EVE, but the idea that anyone can betray me or do anything to me is probably the ooonly really interesting thing that EVE has going for it. It makes a dull adventure fun!

Apparently you don't know eve players very well.

I was gang leader in a 2 man fleet with a good irl friend in 0.0 when the **** hit the fan and we had to find a way out. Bad people had a gatecamp set up on one gate and had a scout watching the other, no doubt having their whole fleet ready to chase anyone with the audacity to try to slip past.

So I got a brilliant plan to get out of the situation, I would gang warp us to the camped gate and cancel my warp leaving him the sole target of the enemy fleet while I slipped to safety. Brilliant!

Anyway I got the gates confused and warped him to safety while I went to the gatecamp

He thought it was funny as hell because I got my comeuppance

You got one word right in your entire theory

Phooey.

Not to far back there was actually a thread that described something close to this. He was bored in a 0.0 alliance,created an alt and joined a high sec mining corp purely to gain their trust and with the long term goal to rob them blind. He got to know them and eventually joined the corp with his main and helped the corp prosper.

I wish i remembered where i saw the thread or who wrote it.

But this also isent such an..unusual thing as you might expect. I suspect that there is a high amount of players that start off with something like this in mind and then end up not wanting to go trough with it because they feel "closer" to the people then they expected they would. From personal exsperiense i have also seen this with war targets. Classic griefer corps that war dec you just for fun,but then get to know the people they have war decced and both sides end up just having fun with it. I remember in one particular case we actually ended up agreeing to just not agress eachother outside of of certain systems or speficic days,and in the meantime they tried to help us with advice and so on that could help improve our PVP skills, and on the last day both sides just met up in a system in cheap cruisers and blew eachother up

But ofc i have also seen things go the other way. I remember one member we had..really good guy even if he couldent be to active due to being in the army. He was in the corp for over a year and many of our members really trusted him. But then he came back from the army on leave once and next thing we know he had robbed us blind since he was joining a friend in a pirate corp or something. He said that his friend had talked him into robbing us but who knows...
But me and him still split on good terms.. We both realize that its just pixels and your ingame actions does not reflect who you are in real life (as an example a guy who works as a prison guard who was a hard core pirate ). I know the members felt betrayed,but thats just how EVE is and it dident do any harm but to cause them to be even more paranoid then they already where,which in EVE isent always a bad thing.

But as mentioned in other posts as well..there if a fine line... Harassment is one of the few things i feel are really crossing the line from being ingame/not real to something that affects you in real life. Im saying this after knowing several female gamers who run into issues with guys refusing to leave them alone and really making them feel uncomfterbale. I have also heard about things where people will trash down on you (deliberatly to hurt you) because your female,or gay. And in worst case i heard about it was a girl that was a mute who got harassed so badly by the other girls in the corp because you couldent "proove" that she was a female that she ended up avoiding joining any corporations and eventually just quit the game all together. All these things are personal attacks on something that is real. Some can deal with them,some cant. Some people that do it dont see why its wrong,and others do it to make up for being bullied in school. But no matter what...You cant play any online game without expecting this to happen and sadly there is little that can be done about it. But again,i wouldent go as far as to say that this behavoir indicates a serius mental issue. Desperation to get acknowledged and dont have the proper exsperiense to get it any other ways perhaps but...

Bah this post became a bit longer then i intended,so here is the TLDR version

Just because you THINK you know someone it dosent mean they wont rip you off. And if someone causes you harm in EVE it certanly dosent mean that they are bad people or mentally unstable/damaged in real life.

No, sociopaths don't feel any emotion. Eve players obviously get a lot of enjoyment out of whatever they do



Awesome

Scamming for in-game stuff is one thing, but actually going out of your way to convince someone to sink money into plex in order to take that isk is not only ****** up, but also against the TOS.

You never, ever scam for real things!