Man murdered for cyber sabre

[emad]

By Richard Spencer in Beijing
(Filed: 09/06/2005)

China's obsession with online computer games has led to its first murder after one player killed another over a weapon that existed only in cyberspace.

The weapon, a "dragon sabre", was won as part of a game called Legend of Mir III by a 41-year-old from Shanghai, Qiu Chengwei. After winning it, players can use it to kill more characters or, as Qiu did, lend it to another player.

Qiu lent the sword to Zhu Caoyuan, 26, who sold it for 7,200 yuan, just under £500, which is five times the average monthly income in Shanghai.

When Qiu found out, he took the argument into the physical world, reporting it as a theft. The police claimed they could do nothing, as the property was merely virtual.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/06/09/wsabre09.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/06/09/ixworld.html

[lenidog]

1. Talk about being totally divorced from reality

You would kill someone over that doesn't actually exist.

[Renew Deal]

2. I have the same response as I did the other day.

[Ready4Change]

3. Mixed feelings.

1st, not worth murder.

However, I do consider what Zhu did to be theft, regardless of the virtual nature of the object in question. To me, that sword was as real as the words which comprise a novel, or the joining of ideas which created the first Apple computers.

[Mutley]

4. A friend of mine is heavy into online games

and he told me a story of a guy who played his game. This guy got so obsessed with this game that he lost his job, his wife left him, his friends stopped talking to him. He lost everything in his "real" life so he could spend every waking minute playing this game.

Then one day this guy lost big time, he lost a lot of points and his skill level or whatever dropped near to newbie status (I'm not sure what the levels are called because I don't play the game) and he ended up committing suicide.

Moral of the story... some people take this stuff WAYYYY too seriously. Though I do agree that selling that weapon was theft, but to murder someone over it?:crazy: :silly:

[Blue-Jay]

5. Didn't this happen, like, six months ago?

That or a very similar story.