"Free-for-all PvP will die or at least be driven far underground into games nobody plays."

Wait... aren't we there right now?
 

Except you can't cyber-bully a PERSON ingame. You can only bully a pixel character.

The Mittani did not give out real names, nor he suggested to harm a person in any way. He suggested to destroy pixel ships of a pixel avatar. If he wouldn't tell his aim to create suicide, and would just say "this guy had 22!!! accounts, let's blow them all up", you would probably call the event "silly HC players fighting among each other"

EVE is a game and a court rule that considers losing in a game "bully" has much larger effect than you expect. What will be the next? Sport games? How losing in EVE different from losing in baseball? Is "outing" in baseball bully?

A politician may gladly bash a "deviant video game", but I guess he'd soon get a call from his best buddy, the owner of a baseball team that his lawyers found that the "anti video game bashing" will make HIM suable for kids suiciding over sucking in baseball.

And remember: kids DO commit suicide over sucking at sports which is a major factor of social status among high school boys.
 

So why limit bashing to PvP games. Its obviously more rampant in PvP games but it also exists in PvE games - in fact far more subtle and dangerous.

People are evil and the barrier is lower in games as people hide behind an avatar.

Does this mean all online games will be banned when people commit suicide due to griefing?

Might be - remember Rock'n Roll was close to being forbidden because it was from the devil - sounds obviously retarded from todays standpoint but maybe forbidding games sound retarded in the future too.
 

Ok that didn't sound right. Forgive my english :(
 

Except you can't cyber-bully a PERSON ingame. You can only bully a pixel character.

You got that one the wrong way around. You are right that you can't KILL a person ingame, but only his pixel character. But the pixel character is immune to bullying, harassment, or social pressure. Those activities always take place between PERSONS. Why would the law treat bullying somebody on Facebook differently than bullying somebody in EVE?
 

In my opinion acting 'evil' in a game is comparable to acting as the evil guy in a movie or the theater. It's acting. And it stays acting even if you commit genocide in-character, in the movie.

Btw, have you ever listened to what professional boxers tell each other before the fight?
 

@Cam +1

@Gevlon - I do not agree with the characterization "harm a person in any way." If someone spends time or money getting a spaceship and someone else took it away (scammed or destroyed), then I think the former owner could reasonably feel harmed. Slander, libel, defamation and cyberbullying do not require physical harm to have legal consequences.

The fact that kids do commit suicide is why schools have anti-bullying policies and are increasing under a legal obligation to do so.

@Tobold: I am not completely sure that new laws are required for this; just expand the application of existing laws.

Three Google execs were sentence to 6 months in jail (suspended) in Italy in 2010 for a 2006 youtube video of 4 teens taunting an autistic boy. Recently Dharun Ravi was convicted for cyberbullying. Lori Drew was convicted (later overturned) in a cyberbullying suicide.

Nor does it have to be criminal laws that provide the catalyst. I think a video game company would not want the sympathetic family of a deceased person getting the forums and chat logs presented to a jury deciding a multimillion dollar civil case. E.g., imagine EVE forums, chats, and something awful forums being read by a non-gaming jury.
 

Tobold, this is a very well thought out argument.

I would hope bloggers like Syncaine and some of the fanboy defenders of bullying can see past the semantics of the virtual versus the real.

I also still hope some of them still have the decency to feel shame.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

@nils except this was not in game; this was on a free video cast provided worldwide. It was at a CCP event by someone who CCP flys to Iceland and has NDA discussions with.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

@Sally: I agree that what the guy said is unacceptable. If there's a law that can be used against him it should. But if he was just some guy babbling about suicide, just like a thousand do while drunk every Friday night all around the world, it's probably less of an issue.

What I do not agree with is that destroying other people's virtual assets in a video game that is all about destroying other people's virtual assets, can somehow be considered immoral.
 

Oh, I sincerely hope for a shining future for free-for-all PvP. I hope that many games with this approach show up.... so that all the assholes go play there and I stop running in them on other games which are NOT free-for-all PvP.
 

What I do not agree with is that destroying other people's virtual assets in a video game that is all about destroying other people's virtual assets, can somehow be considered immoral.

I think there is a huge difference between the two following cases:

A) Alliance A decides to wage war against alliance B and destroy their virtual assets.

B) The player representative of EVE says on video on the internet that he knows a guy who is depressed in real life, and asks everybody to hunt him down and destroy the guys virtual assets to see whether all together they can drive the guy to real world suicide.

Case A is a use of activities in-game to reach an in-game goal. Case B is a use of activities in-game and out of game to reach an out of game goal. Trying to drive somebody to suicide is evil, regardless of what means you use to get there.
 

Some people enjoy acting immorally, stepping over the line, being nasty. That can go on as long as it doesn't have big effects on society as a whole.

But the need/urge to pass - and apply - laws grows pretty much in line with the harm done. Two examples:

(1)Cyberbullying being on the rise amongst teenagers, we will see more and more rules being put in place and being applied against that.

(2)The DNS: There are hundreds of similar systems in action, but it is because of the DNS's importance that it is drawing political attention, while the other, similar but unimportant systems remain untouched.

And - as much as I despise clueless politicians telling us what to do about games - as games grow in importance, rules will grow, too. Gamers can and hopefully will influence this agenda, but not with smartass remarks like one of the comments found in this thread. Gamers: speak up, but think about who you can influence how before you do.
 

I find cyber bullying abhorrent personally. True, in free for all pvp, you have to accept the fact you are gonna get slammed on a regular basis. Griefing is a matter of recourse. What is too far? I'm not sure. When we look at MMO's they are the social world of gamers. Social behavior whether good or bad arises back and forth. It shows the true personalities that people tend to repress on the outside.

I thoroughly disagree with Syncaine's opinions as I have lost friends to suicide, one of which was clinically depressed, chemical imbalances that was identified too late. To say they took the easy way out is horsecrap.

We are seeing a turn in the MMO world towards consensual pvp (ie pvp toggle on off). Saw it first in WoW and now in the near future of AoC development a trend to move the same way. It still won't completely stem the issue of cyberbullying in the pvp realms, but it may mitigate some of the issues at hand.

On the same note, not everyone is cut out to be a pvper in the hardcore sense. I dabble with it, but if it gets frustrating I walk away. There is no real way to identify people who aren't cut out for it.

Lets face it, in the MMO world, even though avatars are simply pixels, they gain meaning by the player and some players seek self validation through their in game achievements.

While perhaps some people do not directly advocate bullying to the extreme of having someone commit suicide in RL, they let it happen. The pvp community tends to allow this to happen. There are many factors in a person's decision to commit an act that cannot be reversed. I don't think pvp alone is the only factor but can be a contributor to an already messed up soul. It's sad that these discussions have to be opened to ridicule and or scoffing attitudes. I think unfortunately, the internet world has a bad habit of de humanizing the person behind the keyboard without thinking of second and third echelon effects.

On the defense of the pvp community, If you can't deal with getting hammered in pvp, you shouldn't be playing. If you are a casual pvper, make sure you have a way of going pve to stay out of the brutal zerg mentality of pvpers. Remember, while there is a huge amount of social pressures rising in the mmo world, it is after all a game.

If it were ever to be found out that the pvp'ers were in fact TRYING to incite a suicide...then maybe we have allowed the gaming world to go too far.
 

@Tobold: in every game you spend time and money to get "game points", that can be chess ladder position or pixel ship. The point of every PvP game, including chess, basketball and EVE is to defeat the opponent and take his "game points".

If you accept this behavior bullying then all and every game must be banned.

Also, on Facebook you bully a real life person, trying to make his real life miserable. The perpetrators are usually schoolmates, coworkers, local people. People you can't walk away.

In a game, not only you can log off and be completely safe from them (remember, they don't even know your name), or you can just start a new alt and disappear.
 

The point of every PvP game, including chess, basketball and EVE is to defeat the opponent and take his "game points".

I don't dispute that. But what if you bring a revolver to the chess game to "persuade" your opponent to lose? War between alliances in EVE Online have used out-of-game means like denial-of-service attacks on Teamspeak servers to gain "game points".

Somewhere there is a line between what is still in game, and what is out of game.

For example, when you use your blog to call people morons & slackers, do you believe that these are in fact highly intelligent players who chose to role-play a character who doesn't gem and enchant his gear? Or are you talking about the real player behind the virtual avatar? And if you can from game actions of an avatar deduce that the player behind it is a moron & slacker, then why shouldn't it be possible to determine that the player behind an avatar is evil?
 

The reason why people commit suicide is for three reasons. Firstly in the belief that they themselves are evil(or worthless, bad or anything in general they are opposed to) to such a degree that they find themselves unsaveable. The second reason is they find someone else who they attribute the above evilness to and believe their own death will cause harm to them emotionally. The third is to escape evil. This applies more the physical bullying where people believe death will be better then what they are going through.

With this is mind what constitutes emotional bullying is when someone views themself as increasingly more evil or worthless as a direct result of the actions of the bully. For example if I call two different people an idiot, it depends on how they handle that which determines whether or not it is bullying. If one guy shrugs it off while the other guy thinks to himself you're right about him being stupid you only bullied one person, not two.

Generally legally we view intent as a major motivator in whether something is unjust. So for me what it comes down to is does the bully know that bullying the person in such a way will result in them percieving themselves as worthless. With most cyberbullying people don't know the person they are being mean to enough to understand whether or not the result it will have.

So the question boils down to is the bully responsible to understand the mental state of the person they are being mean to prior to bullying? In my opinion no they are not. However if you are aware that the above bullying will cause the person to percieve themself in such a way and you go and bully them you should be liable.

So for the case of Mittens it matters whether he knew the destruction of the man's ships would lead him closer to suicide or not. The fact the guy was already considering suicide is irrelevant.
 

I completely agree with your response to my comment, Tobold. In fact, the first paragraph of my comment that you replied to, said that it's wrong to try to make somebody commit suicide (is this even debatable?).

But I think in many comments here we see an unhealthy mixing of in-game and out-of-game issues. Destroying somebody's virtual assets in a video game that is about destroying these virtual assets has nothing to do with encouraging people to make somebody commit suicide. Just like defeating somebody at Badminton is not evil, 'killing' other people's chars in a PvP game is not evil.
 

There is also something else to consider before we go the cyber-bully route.

Are we talking about Children or Teenagers playing a game, or Adults? That point needs to be made. If I am, say, a rich adult, and buy my way into starting for a local baseball team, and then horribly botch my first game and am booed and ridiculed by all of the stadium, would you then stand up for me?

This is a very common misconception in EVE. That everyone is a goon. It's like saying everyone is a hardcore raider in WoW, a whatever in . I can pretty much say for a fact that my friend and I that play eve have not had a single pvp encounter in 4 years outside hulkageddon.

If you join the game and don't know who the Goonswarm Federation is, then you are to blame for your emotions when you meet them, usually on the tail end of a kill-mail. They are trolls, plain and simple, and they do not hide it. They are also very adept and manipulating the public. If you know them like I do, it is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that this entire instance is a publicity stunt, a fictional situation just to get the white knights of us in an uproar.

But, all of the above is moot if we are talking about adults. You are an adult. If you join something with the possibility of getting ridiculed, you are responsible for what happens next. Personal Responsibility cannot be ignored. If you are playing a game unsafe for you, you can stop. If you are logging into a game, a game known for being a true free for all environment, you cannot have a reasonable expectation of someone to take any call-for-help style things seriously. Especially when it has been used as a ploy in the game itself.

What we are actually getting angry at here is essentially a politician gets into politics and then tells the piranha style media to stay away from his family. I'll let you guess what happens next.
 

But, all of the above is moot if we are talking about adults. You are an adult. If you join something with the possibility of getting ridiculed, you are responsible for what happens next.

Are you saying that if somebody is an adult and for example joins a company as employee, knowing that there is the possibility of workplace harassment, he is himself responsible if he actually gets harassed? Sorry, but the law doesn't see it like that. There is no restriction of cyber-bullying laws being applicable only to minors.
 

@Tobold:Are you saying that if somebody is an adult and for example joins a company as employee, knowing that there is the possibility of workplace harassment, he is himself responsible if he actually gets harassed?

If it's something that comes as a part of the job, then yes. Workplace harassment isn't something that usually comes with a job, like harassment isn't something that usually comes with a game. However, in some cases it can be, like a pole dancer submits herself to some amounts of verbal sexual harassment, and an EVE player submits himself to some amounts of fraud and harassment.

In the end, it's sorta about expectations and consent. You pointed out a poignant line earlier: harassment to achieve in-game goals vs. harassment to achieve out-of-game goals. I think by now, EVE players all consent to the former (at least implicitly, if not explicitly through EVE's legal agreements), and I think it should be enough (legally speaking) for CCP to allow the former while firmly against the latter.

However, in general, it's really rather fuzzy as most gamers will lack the ability to separate comments and actions directed towards the character vs. towards the player.
 

Free-for-all PvP will die or at least be driven far underground into games nobody plays.

I'd say that's current status for a while now.

Yeah, EVE is all about going around the game to win the game. That's how the high stake players play.

The arguments against Tobold here are weak. Mittani is on tape saying, that he wants people to depress a suicidal dude. The means are unnecessary, this is not a good thing to do. If the dude kills himself, it will fuel social demand to change how EVE plays. CCP will have no choice then to make those changes.

But then you can't overexaggerate Mittani's influence over EVE Players. There's only a handful of high stake players that consider the game as serious as life. Most of them still play a game. A cool game where you can take certain risks and get away with certain actions if you're smart, but still a game. These players can differ between good and evil, so I don't really see them fulfilling Mittani's request to harass the poor depressed guy, or at least not in great numbers.
 

To echo many comments above, in a world where WoW is the measuring stick for games, EVE with 400K accounts, which probably means 200K players (the guy claiming to be suicidal was running 22 accounts as an example), is effectively the game nobody plays in the grand scheme of things already.

And that trajectory was set 13 years ago when EQ started pulling players away from UO because people did not like free-for-all PvP. So you seem either to be a bit late making this declaration.

But, more importantly, while people reading this comment thread get the difference between WoW and EVE, people in general do not.

So if somebody is driven to suicide by in-game behavior... and I think that is more likely to happen with WoW both because of the vastly larger population and because of the perception that it is safer, though griefing clearly occurs there... it will be used by those who dislike online games to restrict and regulate online games across the board, since in the eyes of the zealot, they are all equally bad.
 

I do not know the exact exchange that took place between The Mittani and this suicidal player, but what I do know is that a very influential player used his platform to encourage others to harass another player to suicide (which is a violation of the EVE ToS), he candidly (while intoxicated) suggested they try to push him to suicide. We wouldn't accept it if a sports star was interviewed after the game and started saying "Hey I know this guy in my hometown, he's suicidal, you should all call him and tell him to end it." Now the guy needs some help; if Ice Mining in EVE is all that calms him down now then he probably has some issues, but that doesn't excuse one person calling for harassment of a notably unstable person.

CCP has to tread carefully, they are partnering up with SONY for Dust 514 and I don't suspect SONY is going to be cool with these sorts of events repeating.
 

@Clockwork: CCP has to tread carefully, they are partnering up with SONY for Dust 514 and I don't suspect SONY is going to be cool with these sorts of events repeating.

I'd argue that treading carefully is the absolute opposite of what CCP should be doing here. They should take an firm stance against this type of OOG behavior. It is no better than a death threat, and I don't think that it compromises EVE's position any as the "fraud-centric theme park attraction". There isn't any reason for CCP to not draw a line somewhere.
 

I suppose I'm not surprised this topic has blown up, and while I usually avoid this kind of heated debate, I'm stepping in today.

The idea that there could be any justification, any reasonable excuse for one person to intentionally and overtly try to drive another human being to suicide just goes to confirm every negative gaming stereotype that exists. The Mittani didn't make himself look like a callous douche, he made all of us look like that.

Perhaps if the gaming community had unanimously come out against such a stupid behavior, some face could have been saved, but instead, we find ourselves arguing about the morality of what he did, instead.

What he did was wrong, period. There is no justification. Driving a sick person to killing himself is in no way different than doing it yourself. Free-for-all PvP has little to do with the situation; it was only a means to a cruel and sick end.

As one other aside, I don't think "you can always just log off" is a fair response to the problem, either. It's a typical "if you don't like X, then leave X" solution, which does nothing to actually solve problems.
 

Interesting side aspects:
Mittanis account is banned for 30 days.

Mittanis wife posted and said they got multiple threats per week, even their dog got threatened to get killed. CCP never cared.

But this time they did. Wtf. It is also interesting that from a business perspective to ask what was different this time on Fanfeast.

Mittanis speech (available online) to the Goons sheds some theories :)
 

It is also interesting that from a business perspective to ask what was different this time on Fanfeast.

CCP answered that one: "This situation is entirely unique because the panel was displayed via CCP’s Fanfest video stream component, a platform analogous to our forums."

Basically if anybody would threaten The Mittani on video at a CCP Fanfest, he'd be banned too.
 

and this would be a bad thing, to have this type of PvP to disappear. Humans have entirely to many ways to be cruel to others. Do we need even more ways to do that?

Oh, who is Tobold Stoutfoot? :)
 

Are you saying that if somebody is an adult and for example joins a company as employee, knowing that there is the possibility of workplace harassment, he is himself responsible if he actually gets harassed? Sorry, but the law doesn't see it like that. There is no restriction of cyber-bullying laws being applicable only to minors.

Oh, no, notice I said 'joined'. Also, as the other commenter said, expectations are important. I think the one thing that is truly driving both sides crazy here is where the game stops. Devil's Advocate time. Yes, that means we are going to look at the Mittani side.

You are the leader of an organization of griefers, pirates, and 'horrible people'. The basis of your organization is that, all these people who are good in real life and griefers in game need a home. He provides that home, and in some ways a greater service. You know anyone from the Goons is a goon. Goons actively flock to there. You are the head of the goons, so you are definitely one of the 'worst'. As 'The Head Goon', you are then entered into an election for the CSM board to help steer the game future. So, you, 'the Head Goon (THG)', go to FanFest. Note, THG is attending fanfest at this point, NOT the player. This is the point of the CSM, the point of the alliance panel. This by all accounts should be equal to having an in-game event over eve-voice. That was the expectation on most people parts. In the past, that has been CCP's stance. At FanFest, you are the character attending, not necessarily the player.

In that situation, which it really sounds like that's what Mittani believed, he was THG giving one of his great PR Troll pieces to the public as the THG, not as the player behind the character calling for someone's death. He was calling on his teams of suicide gankers to get this guy to 'off himself', i.e. ragequit. This is where Mittani would probably win any legal issue, that he has many many instances in the past where he has called for deaths upon deaths of many players, and I believe the term 'Making them wish they killed themselves' was used by him in terms of hulkageddon before. If he had said that at fanfest, would we then consider him a genocidal maniac?

Also, I'm still not entirely sold that this whole situation was real. He says this is a common thing the griefed say, but why does he specifically remember this one pilot? And why does he just give only the pilot name when he knows he has multiple accounts? If he really wanted to send him over the edge, he'd say the corp or all the names. We just have to face it, this man is a politician. Especially with the 'Burn JITA' campaign this has springboarded, seems very suspicious that this ends up being the perfect situation to spawn a Goon Invasion of High-Sec. Which will now be the exact topic on the CSM board, meaning instead of 'Balance Null-Sec', the argument will be 'Guard Hi-Sec from Null-sec', splitting the board and reducing it to being useless this year.

Discounting this man as an idiot is a scary reminder of how he became so powerful in the first place, a molder of public opinion against 'the cause'.
 

Note, THG is attending fanfest at this point, NOT the player.

Wrong! I recommed reading Azuriel's excellent reading of EVE's Terms of Service, which says specifically: "You may not use “role-playing” as an excuse to violate these rules. While EVE Online is a persistent world, fantasy role-playing game, the claim of role-playing is not an acceptable defense for anti-social behavior. Role-playing is encouraged, but not at the expense of other player."
 

Ah, I see where we may be missing each other here. I am talking purely about the outcry about bullying. Whether he broke the rules and deserved/didn't deserve the ban is something very black and white. It's the argument that he is bullying that is a grey area. The CSM members that attend are basically attending as who they are in the game, and unlike most other games where you have a face/look entirely different, EVE is more about your persona. Unfortunately for him, he was voted into a spot that the requirements are against his standard method of operation.

But hark, with one single comment he is removed from the CSM, gets the 10k people that voted for him to be ticked, rallies his base, gets them all in line to plan to invade multiple places as well as take out a major care-bear trade hub, turns the topic of the CSM into pure Null vs Safe meaning nothing will likely get done, all the while doing what he loves, angering said carebears.

Definately broke the rules, I'm only arguing that it more appears he broke them to free himself of the rules.

Also, as an aside, web-rep tools are blocking that link, that person may want to check his reputation on known internet security sites to see if someone is pushing malicious java/flash ads on his site.
 

When a boxer calls another boxer names - they eventually meet and beat the crap out of each other. The person taking the abuse can do something about it.

If Mitanni wants to give someone real world consequences but not take any himself, then it's the act of a coward. If it was just a game, he wouldn't have done the presentation in the first place.

If he had abused someone in the audience, during his speech, how many people would have found is strange if that person got up and punched him in the mouth?

Remember the news articles about the man who stabbed someone for stealing his in-game sword through a hack? Or the British guy this week who got sentenced to jail for an offensive tweet? Cyber bullies on facebook who serve jail time?

Society is playing catchup to the online presence. The wild west is going to have to move underground.
 

It's a new world. Doing something stupid on camera in a post-Rodney King, Youtube world is dumb. He prepared the slide show in advance and everyone knew the cameras were rolling.

@Pzychotix -the law does not work like that anymore. Since the 80s "hostile workplace environment" is also illegal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_environment_sexual_harassment even mentions that strip clubs can have HWE.

@Kyressar - its not just "rules" IIRC someone went to jain in 2009 and the man who was convicted this month faces up to 10 years in jail.

@Nils: Gevlon said "nor he suggested to harm a person in any way" I was nearly point out that, while allowed/expected in EVE, I would consider having your virtual assets destroyed as being harmed.

---

I think it is the death part of suicide that makes this different.

Saying "Let's go make Bob unhappy by blowing up his virtual ships" may indicate some character flaws but it is certainly allowed and quite in the spirit of EVE.

Saying/Blogging: "Alex is an idiot" is not criminal but you may have civil liability.

Saying/Blogging: "People should go punch Alex" can be considered criminal.

The point is that encouraging others to cause suicide sure seems to me to be the third not the first example. I think saying "Feed Alex peanuts so he would die from the medical condition of severe allergic reaction" is not less criminal if it later turns out that Alex is not that allergic. i.e., whether the player in question was suicidal or claims not to be does not seem to much alter the legal/moral/PR issues of what Mr Gianturco said.
 

There is zero logic in Tobold's post.

1. Tobold states that people will continue to play FFA PvP games "which encourage bad behavior."

What does this mean? That FFA PvP games by their nature encourage bad behavior? WoW's gearscore does the same thing. Anything can be construed as "encouraging" bad behavior, so this is a useless bit of information and is simply Tobold's way of getting a dig in at a type of game he doesn't like.

2. Tobold predicts a bullied player in an FFA PvP game will commit suicide.

What does cyberbullying have to do with a FFA PvP game? Players can be bullied in any game, in any medium. Tobold is correct, legislators will go after games specifically, but there is no way to draw a line between FFA PvP games and non-FFA PvP games. Or PvE games. Players can be bullied anywhere, anytime, whether it's by destroying their ships or stealing their kills or targeting their goods for undercutting on the auction house. So then Tobold's next prediction:

3. FFA PvP games will go down the tube as a result--

Makes absolutely no logical sense whatsoever.

PvP has nothing to do with bullying, Tobold, as much as you might want it to. People can and will behave badly in any medium and your personal distaste for FFA PvP gets in the way of your making a coherent argument.
 

""This situation is entirely unique because the panel was displayed via CCP’s Fanfest video stream component, a platform analogous to our forums.""

I could swear it was last year too.
 

Free-for-all PvP games will then either close down, or change their rules to only offer consensual PvP.

Or more to the point, games which are clearly consensual PVP in that you are not forced to play them will have political pressure placed on them by people too bloody minded to see it's already consensual and instead they insist on having a little protected personal space - thus being bullies themselves to those people who would like to have full on PVP games.
 

@Sally Bowls: From your link:

"Tolerance must be the rule in certain workplaces, and the standard for what constitutes a hostile environment differs from workplace to workplace."

I didn't say the strip club dancers must submit themselves to any and all sexual advances, I said some amounts of verbal sexual harassment. Shouting stuff like "shake that ass!" at a strip club where it is allowed is perfectly fine, and does not constitute a hostile work environment. The dancers agree to submit themselves to such comments in exchange for work and pay. This is completely legal.

Similarly, players of EVE agree to submit themselves to some amounts of harassment within the context of the game, and it is their own responsibility to remove themselves from the game when playing it comes with the detriment of their own mental/physical health.
 

Pzychotix - If you take it at face value, he incited the players to do things that would result in the death (definition of suicide) of another human being. There is absolutely, positively no way that any Term of Service can legally say that is allowed. There is no situation that the law would say you have consented/allowed others to be encouraged to cause your death. There is no game, no legal contract, no expected player behavior, that would make this legal. Any mention of ToS or player standards is just a red herring.

Now an offhand comment is extremely unlikely to be criminally prosecuted unless the target in question is harmed. If Mr. Gianturco were at the tabloid level of rich & famous, perhaps civil lawsuits would already be discussed.
 

I said some amounts of verbal sexual harassment.

Shouting stuff like "shake that ass!" at a strip club where it is allowed is perfectly fine, and does not constitute a hostile work environment.

If it's allowed and consented to by the workers, it ceases to be 'sexual harassment'. You don't mean some amount of sexual harrassment. You mean what would normally considered sexual harassment. It's like normally it's wrong to hit someone with a ball - but in dodgeball it's okay. Within a certain set space, the rules of normal conduct are changed.


Sally, I dunno, cigarette packets do just that.

The fact is, like people don't have to smoke, they don't have to play eve. The guy is depressed, but that doesn't mean he has to play eve.

But really the other persons vindictiveness isn't part of the game - if A stabbed B during a football match or a chess game, that doesn't somehow become part of the football match/chess game. As an outside entity, it's not really worth trying to state the Eve TOS can't permit it. Really Eve and it's TOS have nothing to do with the event, like the football game or chess game don't as well.
 

How does agreeing to play EVE equal agreeing to get harassed, if the Terms of Service of EVE explicitely prohibit harassing other players?
 

@Sally: I was never talking about this person in this case. I was only speaking generally about how a person who puts himself in a situation where he agrees to submit himself under a certain amount of abuse, is at least partially responsible for himself undergoing that sort of abuse. I never said that this person agreed to death threats or any other actions taken against him that would make him prone to suicide.

Please read comments within the context of the conversation thread that they are posted. I try to include the quote of the person I am responding to for this very reason.

@Tobold: How does agreeing to play EVE equal agreeing to get harassed, if the Terms of Service of EVE explicitely prohibit harassing other players?

It doesn't. But when EVE has a known track record of a lawless player population (e.g. Goonswarm) with nothing done about them (see: The Mittani hasn't been banned or any sort of action taken against him, and I doubt this is his, or the Goonswarm's, first time skirting the rulebooks), the de facto law has shown to be otherwise.

If I go into the very shady part of town for a party where I know my life could be in danger, it's at least partially my fault for going there. I am an adult, and I take responsibility for the actions I take when I am aware of the risks and dangers involved in taking those actions. If I know full well that I might get into a scuffle or get mugged by going into that part of town, then I can just not go; but, if I do go, then I am accepting that some bad things might happen, even though the law of the land, which we all agree to by being here on that land, prohibits any sort of assault, mugging, or other sort of violent actions.
 

While interesting, I don't quite see how the responsibility of the victim is relevant.

If you run a shady, unsafe motel/restaurant/club and I go there and get injured in the usual way, then some of the above posters are saying it is partially my fault. So? I.e., are you saying that reduces your liability? I just can't see that "oh everyone knows we run an unsafe business" is a good defense in criminal or civil court or the court of public opinion.
 

How does agreeing to play EVE equal agreeing to get harassed, if the Terms of Service of EVE explicitely prohibit harassing other players?

It's not agreeing to get harassed (indeed this is exactly why I argued with pzy), no more than agreeing in dodgeball to be potentially hit by a ball is agreeing to be harassed.

Now a jerk can try and hit you will the ball in dodgeball so as to try and hurt your feelings somehow. But being hit by the ball is not harassment! I know, it's hard to seperate the two.
 

But being hit by the ball is not harassment! I know, it's hard to seperate the two.

I don't think anybody in this thread is complaining about the fact that an ice miner in EVE Online can be ganked in empire space. Mittanigate is purely about the publicly stated intention to drive that ice miner into suicide by coordinating a mass-gank on him.
 

@Sally Bowls:I just can't see that "oh everyone knows we run an unsafe business" is a good defense in criminal or civil court or the court of public opinion.

Actually, it is a completely legitimate legal defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_risk

You know all those waivers you sign whenever you do anything that has even a remote chance of giving you a stubbed toe? Those are just explicit forms of this defense, and it's way easier to prove in court, but it can be still be proven without signed written consent.