Cheating Online, Behavior, and Accountability
SkyGheNe
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
No, I'm not talking about downloading the latest map hack or aim botting your way to victory in Counter Strike. I’m referring specifically to what happens when two strangers meet online and develop so much of an emotional connection that they decide to cheat on their significant others. If two people come together outside of the game I’m sure many would say that such a union would be a form of cheating, but what happens if that relationship and behavior remains within a digital realm like Second Life? Collosus.
Second Life, for those of you unaware of its existence, is described by The Guardian as “a place where the everyday constraints of normal life drop away and vivid fantasies can be played out.†For David Pollard, that meant having virtual sex with another woman while his wife, Amy Taylor, had a private investigator watching his every move in the virtual world. For those of you interested in getting a good sense of what happened to their relationship, you can read it here at the guardian. The basic jist is that man falls in love with woman in Second Life. They move in together, get married and a few years later he is discovered having virtual sex with a woman in the game. This relationship never extended beyond anything into the physical realm, and according to David Pollard himself, “we weren’t having cyber sex or anything like that, we were just chatting and hanging out together. It was nothing really major. I don’t think I was really doing anything wrong.â€
And so I ask you, the gaming community, should our actions in the digital world be tagged with what some might call our “true†identities? How many of you would consider what David Pollard did cheating? Let’s first assume that he had no emotional attachment to the woman he was having virtual sex with, but let’s also suggest that he got some sort of pleasure out of the act, whether it be mental or…well it has to be mental. He doesn’t care about the woman he’s committing the pixilated deed with, but gets a kick out of it. Now, extend this into the physical realm, the reality that we live in – had he done the same thing, there would be obvious physical benefits tied to the act as well as mental benefits – so is the only thing that distinguishes the two the physical side of things? And if so, should we consider it a form of cheating? How much of our real identity can we hold accountable online?
As the internet has become more mainstream, we have seen our real identities slowly becoming tied to the ones we hold in the virtual world. While anonymity has never been 100% over the net, it’s become less so in the last ten years. Our Avatars have slowly begun to reflect what we really look like or who we desire to be, so for some, the avatar fulfills a physical fantasy of ours. In David Pollards case, it was being a cowboy hat wearing dream boat who porked prostitutes. Games have offered up a conundrum: our fantasies are no longer restricted to the thoughts in our heads or our imaginations. Today we can take a form of action and play out our fantasies within the confines of a digital world.
Porn has the potential to go from a passive medium to an active one through games, where the viewer participates and if this were the case – is this cheating? People are quick to call watching porn a fantasy act that is not necessarily cheating, but what happens when the act is more active? What if the character model reciprocating that e-love isn’t acting based on it’s A.I. and is instead a player controlled character? Such is the dilemma.
While we’ve talked about how the internet and games have allowed us to play out physical fantasies, the more frightening prospect and one tied more closely to human nature is the mental fantasy many have under the assumed “anonymity†the internet provides. I don’t think that those who play online are a stranger to the caliber of people you can run into. Bigotry, immaturity, and general hostility is pervasive across the internet and online gaming and some would say that this has little or no reflection over the kind of person you are. By day you go to the local shelter and serve spaghetti suppers to the homeless, but by night you run around Xbox Live killing allies on your team and calling others by homophobic epithets. Some would say that the latter has no bearing on who you are because it’s “just an online game†and “who seriously expects anyone over the internet to use capital letters and proper syntax?â€
The level of accountability is in some cases non-existent online. Using the N word out in public would get you a few stares, but no one bats a digital eye over such an epithet when playing Call of Duty 4. In some cases, the idea of making other people miserable online has developed its own terminology known by some as griefing. The internet has become a place to satisfy our darkest mental desires: for some that includes being douche bags to others in order to gain some level of satisfaction out of hurting another person.
For those of you that have tried to call out such individuals on their behavior, what kind of response did you get? I can’t imagine it being at all like what would happen if you were to do it in the context of, say, a grocery store. Such a claim to accountability is dismissed or considered altogether preposterous simply because of the context: we’re online, chill, it’s just a game.
But is it? How much accountability should a person have for their behavior? I think the people are still testing the limits of what they are accountable for. So far it’s okay to harass a funeral held online harass a funeral held online because it’s within the context of a game, but sometimes the online communities underestimate the effect their behavior has on others.
How much accountability is enough and how far it will go? I think something as organic and the internet and online gaming will evolve naturally rather than involve laws mandated by a legislative body, as right now the internet is seen as a free realm of sorts in many ways (no one “owns†the internet, so to speak, but anti-net neutrality might change that). I wouldn’t be surprised if as time goes on, we begin to see a resistance of some kind against the aggressive and hostile behavior so prevalent through out the internet. A sort of Culture of Kindness if you will, where players develop small pockets of friendly communities. Such a thing is happening now, but nowhere near the level I think it will grow to in the coming years.
So I guess what I'm asking is: Did this guy cheat? How much of our internet behavior should be tied to our everyday identities? Is the online self the true self, or the self we wish we could be or merely a fun diversion?
Second Life, for those of you unaware of its existence, is described by The Guardian as “a place where the everyday constraints of normal life drop away and vivid fantasies can be played out.†For David Pollard, that meant having virtual sex with another woman while his wife, Amy Taylor, had a private investigator watching his every move in the virtual world. For those of you interested in getting a good sense of what happened to their relationship, you can read it here at the guardian. The basic jist is that man falls in love with woman in Second Life. They move in together, get married and a few years later he is discovered having virtual sex with a woman in the game. This relationship never extended beyond anything into the physical realm, and according to David Pollard himself, “we weren’t having cyber sex or anything like that, we were just chatting and hanging out together. It was nothing really major. I don’t think I was really doing anything wrong.â€
And so I ask you, the gaming community, should our actions in the digital world be tagged with what some might call our “true†identities? How many of you would consider what David Pollard did cheating? Let’s first assume that he had no emotional attachment to the woman he was having virtual sex with, but let’s also suggest that he got some sort of pleasure out of the act, whether it be mental or…well it has to be mental. He doesn’t care about the woman he’s committing the pixilated deed with, but gets a kick out of it. Now, extend this into the physical realm, the reality that we live in – had he done the same thing, there would be obvious physical benefits tied to the act as well as mental benefits – so is the only thing that distinguishes the two the physical side of things? And if so, should we consider it a form of cheating? How much of our real identity can we hold accountable online?
As the internet has become more mainstream, we have seen our real identities slowly becoming tied to the ones we hold in the virtual world. While anonymity has never been 100% over the net, it’s become less so in the last ten years. Our Avatars have slowly begun to reflect what we really look like or who we desire to be, so for some, the avatar fulfills a physical fantasy of ours. In David Pollards case, it was being a cowboy hat wearing dream boat who porked prostitutes. Games have offered up a conundrum: our fantasies are no longer restricted to the thoughts in our heads or our imaginations. Today we can take a form of action and play out our fantasies within the confines of a digital world.
Porn has the potential to go from a passive medium to an active one through games, where the viewer participates and if this were the case – is this cheating? People are quick to call watching porn a fantasy act that is not necessarily cheating, but what happens when the act is more active? What if the character model reciprocating that e-love isn’t acting based on it’s A.I. and is instead a player controlled character? Such is the dilemma.
While we’ve talked about how the internet and games have allowed us to play out physical fantasies, the more frightening prospect and one tied more closely to human nature is the mental fantasy many have under the assumed “anonymity†the internet provides. I don’t think that those who play online are a stranger to the caliber of people you can run into. Bigotry, immaturity, and general hostility is pervasive across the internet and online gaming and some would say that this has little or no reflection over the kind of person you are. By day you go to the local shelter and serve spaghetti suppers to the homeless, but by night you run around Xbox Live killing allies on your team and calling others by homophobic epithets. Some would say that the latter has no bearing on who you are because it’s “just an online game†and “who seriously expects anyone over the internet to use capital letters and proper syntax?â€
The level of accountability is in some cases non-existent online. Using the N word out in public would get you a few stares, but no one bats a digital eye over such an epithet when playing Call of Duty 4. In some cases, the idea of making other people miserable online has developed its own terminology known by some as griefing. The internet has become a place to satisfy our darkest mental desires: for some that includes being douche bags to others in order to gain some level of satisfaction out of hurting another person.
For those of you that have tried to call out such individuals on their behavior, what kind of response did you get? I can’t imagine it being at all like what would happen if you were to do it in the context of, say, a grocery store. Such a claim to accountability is dismissed or considered altogether preposterous simply because of the context: we’re online, chill, it’s just a game.
But is it? How much accountability should a person have for their behavior? I think the people are still testing the limits of what they are accountable for. So far it’s okay to harass a funeral held online harass a funeral held online because it’s within the context of a game, but sometimes the online communities underestimate the effect their behavior has on others.
How much accountability is enough and how far it will go? I think something as organic and the internet and online gaming will evolve naturally rather than involve laws mandated by a legislative body, as right now the internet is seen as a free realm of sorts in many ways (no one “owns†the internet, so to speak, but anti-net neutrality might change that). I wouldn’t be surprised if as time goes on, we begin to see a resistance of some kind against the aggressive and hostile behavior so prevalent through out the internet. A sort of Culture of Kindness if you will, where players develop small pockets of friendly communities. Such a thing is happening now, but nowhere near the level I think it will grow to in the coming years.
So I guess what I'm asking is: Did this guy cheat? How much of our internet behavior should be tied to our everyday identities? Is the online self the true self, or the self we wish we could be or merely a fun diversion?
SkyGheNe on
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I am here in my mind
But I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mind
No, no, no, no, no, no, no,no,no,no,no,no
It's certainly an interesting idea. Obviously the personalities we display in the physical world and digital world are different, and yet, you can't divorce them from on another.
I find the subject of online identity far more interesting and relevant than the question of whether or not he cheated on her. I suspect that's something for them to work out.
That's a pretty awesome link.
I'll have to read it thoroughly, but something caught my eye.
It seems like this idea if suggesting that the reason why people are more violent to each other online is due to the large distance between their humanity. What I mean by that is when you are standing in front of a person, it's a lot harder to tell them to fuck off because standing before you is a living breathing human being. It's also a lot harder to watch them visibly suffer. In the online world, what we get at most is an avatar in the form of a still image and a bit of text that shapes the identity of a person, thus removing much of the physical human element from an encounter, consequently making it easier to hurt each other.
It's tangentially similar to how it is much easier to kill a spider than it is a dog if you really want to stretch it. Still very interesting.
And I think many developers need to take more responsibility in preventing cheating, glitching, and griefing. Map glitches often go unpatched for long periods of time, and so do glaring faults in a game's design, allowing autofire controllers or simple mods to the exterior of a controller to make a mockery of game balance. Achievements and/or in-game economies reward mind-numbingly repetitive tasks, and players understandably look for shortcuts by boosting, farming, or outright buying their loot with hard currency.
Many games with friendly fire have no effective penalties for team-killing, just a negative score modifier that griefers don't give two shits about. And usually there is no penalty for damaging teammates to near-death. The option to kick or ban players allows good hosts to control their games, but it is missing in many online games, and abused to hell and back by douchebag hosts who act like petty tyrants and boot people for messing up their kill streak.
Many of the people we encounter online are idiots, but merely acknowledging that without doing something about it in designing a game's online play is just lazy and sloppy.
This is probably one of the better arguments for integrated communities in gaming like Live and Steam. Just like Gallagher's idea about how to make people drive more responsibly (everybody gets a dartgun, you stick a dart on the cars of people who are dicks, and if a cop sees a car with 5 or more darts on it he pulls it over and gives the driver a ticket for being an asshole), a complaint system lets the users self-moderate to a certain extent and at least puts some fear of consequences back into people's minds.
I have a tough time believing that anyone that really cheats or acts like a douche online is older than 20, 25 tops. It's really something that you grow out of. And much like how once you mature you don't hang out with idiot teenagers anymore, you have some degree of freedom of association online as well. I'd pretty much only play online with my friends or with PA forumers here on out - or if I must hit a random pub server, then I know what to expect and won't act surprised when it happens.
Cheating isn't a legal term, it's subjective. To me, what he did is cheating, or at least grounds for his wife to dump his douchebag ass.
As for how much of our internet behavior should be tied to our real identity, and how much we should be held accountable, that's pretty simple. If you mean legally, then it should be tied only on legal levels, like comitting actual fraud online. If you mean "mentally", then if you cheat on someone online, your wife has every right to dump you for it. It's not like the police will forbid you to dump someone because you don't have enough good reasons.
If you cheat on an official game server, they have every right to ban you from it, they own the server. But they shouldn't be allowed to sue you unless you broke their server with malicious code, etc.
Keep the accountability to the level of the wrongful deed.
Ok, I say that now and I don't know for real since I'll never have a true perfect opportunity, I realize this, but still, I just don't think I'd do it. Having a hard time living with yourself afterwards doesn't require anyone else knowing you did it.
I don't think it would work, considering the "prisoners" could just stop playing/using. The "wardens" would probably act the same though, but i think you would have less of an effect considering you don't have the environment, or the physical loss of identity by having them wear all the same uniform, so they might act against the norm.
Man, in the original experiment, anyone could leave at any time.
I do think it would lose a lot of it's more visceral impact and people would probably be far less affected, but it still might be interesting.
That being said, however, im sure a virtual re-hash would still run into the key themes and insights of the original experiment.
Slightly off topic, but have you seen the ED talk (i think thats what they are called) Where Zimbardo deconstructs the Abu Graib incident in the context of the stanford experiment? Pretty neat stuff.
I just don't get the disconnect that occurs.
Some people think they can get away with being a dick without repercussions in some other way. I'm thinking about the guy having sex in second life (the main form of entertainment there) and wondering if he was really faithful to his wife. Being the moral person I am, I would make the judgment of no. Your committing that act and if it causes you action and sexual stimulus then you have crossed the border of intimacy. You might as well be having sex with that person at that point.
as far as cheating in online games? It just part of the game. I refuse to take part of it because its pathetic and takes the fun out of the game but people will cheat. people will modify their router to have a host advantage and screw with the people who don't. I get pissed off when my latency is abnormal but thats more to the fault of x-box live.
On the subject of accountability, people will try to get away with what ever they can. More often then not, it comes back to haunt them.
What goes around comes around and I have yet to see that fail.
My suggestion is that you should not become familiar with American politics~
Right because the guardian is a great resource and has excellent insight into SL. SL is a limitless sandbox and it can be a place where 'vivid fantasies come true' but to simply call it that is beyond stupid.
What if the guy was caught chatting with a girl on a webcam? That would be just about on par as this.
I wouldn't want my wife flirting/interacting with some other guy online in a manner that did not respect our marriage.
TF2 -- I play a spy
Left4Dead -- I play versus, like, only versus
Any MMO -- play the stealth class
Rock Band -- I annoy the shit out of people with my terrible vocals
griefing doesn't really bother me and it shouldn't bother anyone, laugh it off at the joke, leave the server, whatev
basically going with "fun diversion"
There is griefing to screw around and then there is griefing to be a complete dick. The former is better. In the left for dead demo, one of the most enjoyable parts was 3 of them hanging over the edge and I decided to *help* by shooting his arms and then jumping over the ledge.
Then there was the time where I was still working out throwing of a cocktail. Lets just say it didn't land where I thought it would and we had to restart.
Sometimes its hilarious. Other times people do it and are not crafty or funny about it. They do it to cause frustration and rage. Thats not cool at all.
So what you're saying is...you're a rocket whore? :P
I think he's saying he camps people's spawns with a scoped RPG while driving a tank.
I'd probably bitch about being on the receiving end of that... :P
But ever since playing Halo 2 online I've always had this voice shouting in the background of my mind that says I'm standing in one spot too long, or using a particular weapon too much, or this or that.. Keeping others completely happy at the expense of my own enjoyment has made me neurotic.
I don't care what medium she is using.
There's got to be something going wrong with your life/relationship if you take to spending a considerable amount of time having virtual sex with someone when you have an actual physical partner there to spend time with.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Affairs aren't all strictly about he literally, physically touched a person. You're "cheating", emotionally or physically, with another person. Going behind their back (which is most of the problem) to seek a sexual or emotional connection. Going outside of the relationship and the rules.
That's bad. Period.
I guess thinking about it now that the only case I don't really care about is that if some girl flirts with a bro in order to get some sort of reward, money in game or whatever
doesn't bother me whatsoever and if my girlfriend did that I wouldn't give a shit
hell... i do that all the time with old ladies at my job
edit: No i didnt
If someone came up to you at a BBQ or something and asked "Hey can I fuck your wife?" you can do one of two things. Play along and be sarcastic because you are confident in your wife's loyalty and say "Yeah sure, go right ahead!"
Or you can go "WHAAAAT!?" and punch the guy in the face. >=(
Well, what do you think he is getting out of this virtual relationship that he isn't getting in his physical one? My initial reaction is that there would be some sort of emotional attachment to the person he's having the "mental" affair with, but assuming that he didn't get any emotional satisfaction out of the relationship, what is left when it is within the context of a game? There's clearly no physical benefits - he's not getting real sex, so what is it about having sex in Second Life that attracts him so much?
If it's to act out a fantasy in a digital realm, ie: his fantasy persona with another fantasy persona, then what are some of the differences and similarities between this and say, pornography?
How many of you have a significant other and still look at porn? Would you consider that cheating? Why or why not? Of course you are not becoming emotionally attached to someone when observing porn, but there is a physical/fantasy side to porn, yes?
Yes, but what I'm saying is let's assume that there isn't an emotional intimacy going on here (in fact, that is what he is claiming). His wife left him because his digital character was found having sex with another digital character on a couch.
Would we consider this cheating if there were no emotional or physical benefits and simply the acting out of a fantasy in a game rather than in our minds?
Also, there is a clear distinction between thinking about something and acting on it, correct? What would happen if he had did it with an A.I. that was modeled after his ideal fantasy? Is that cheating? That is essentially removing the emotional and physical aspect of cheating, which I think is the most interesting thing about this whole cheating through second life business.
Honestly, I think it comes down to what you and your partner agree on. My X-GF flipped when she walked in on me watching porn. (haha, also quite embarrassing) My current GF, will come sit down and watch with me. Maybe this would be a better discussion to actually have with the partner.
She didn't leave him because he was caught cheating, emotional or otherwise.
She left him because his digital character was found having sex with another digital character on a couch. IE hes a fucking nutjob.
Agreed, it can come down to boundaries. My gf is fine with adult material (though I tend not to watch it on my own) and wasn't bothered about me going to a strip club (It's not something I make a habit of but I was on an anti-stag do).
I personally believe the two examples above though are completely different to having an online relationship. It's the time, communication and the relationship you build up with the other person that's the problem. You generally don't build up a relationship with strippers.
ALthough you could then argue that sleeping with a prostitute is fine because there's no relationship involved.
In the end it boils down to common sense. Online affair = bad.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
There is a sexual relation though. The way I see it, porn's ok because it's just visual stimulation for masturbation, the same way a fake vagina or a dildo/vibrator are here to replace your hands (or hers), and not to replace the person.
Webcam sex with some girl, cybersex, fucking a prostitute, all of that stuff involves a real person at the other end. Cybersex involves a real person, even if she's (or he, actually, you know how it is online) hidden behind the screen.
My question was what do you think and why?
So does going to a strip-club, but less so really.
I'm not arguing with you, I think you're right, I'm just confusing myself
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch