Virtual Genocide
It's been a long time since I had any MMOG posts but this one makes up for lost time: Korean gamers are seeking out Chinese gamers and 'killing' them over a perceived breach of online etqiuette. A case of art substituting for life?
South Korean gamers stage online massacre of Chinese
By Anna Fifield in Seoul
Chinese-Korean relations have their ups and downs, but it's been a long time since they resorted to violence to settle scores.
However, in cyberspace South Korean gamers are ganging up to obliterate the Chinese, whom they view as greedy and rude.
"If we don't kill the Chinese they will grow up to harm Korean players," wrote Fifth Finger, a Lineage player, on the game's message board. "They're just logging on to Korean servers to make money."
South Korea is a pioneer in the online gaming market, which is led by NCSoft, the maker of games including Lineage, Guild Wars and City of Heroes.
In Lineage, which has more than 3m subscribers, players in the form of knights, wizards and elves chase monsters who drop money and other valuable items that increase players' strength, such as swords and medicine. These items can be sold for real money through online trading sites.
However, there is an etiquette to be followed: players interact along the way, but you are not supposed to take things dropped by someone else's monster.
Many young Chinese are joining South Korean matches because that is where the most items are traded and where the most money can be earned. But players say they do not follow the unwritten rules.
"They enjoy the game and they think Korea is cool and they also like earning a little money," says Sunny Choi, a South Korean gamer who speaks Chinese. "But they don't understand the manners so Koreans are killing them - it's a tragedy."
In these games, a little killing is necessary. But areas such as the Island of Dreams - popular with Chinese gamers because it is relatively easy to earn money - are becoming the site of online massacres.
"Korean players stand there waiting for Chinese players to enter - you can tell they are Chinese because they can't speak Korean - and then they kill them," Ms Choi says. "I befriended some Chinese teenagers and tried to teach them, but Koreans kept trying to kill them so they all left the game. I just cried."
Kim Shi-mon, a 26-year-old student, admits he once killed a Chinese player.
"He stole an item that I had just won from a monster but I didn't know whether he was Chinese or Korean," Mr Kim says. "Then I met two players looking for him to kill - they said he was Chinese."
There have been reports of Chinese "sweatshops" where gamers play for hours to earn money using South Korean identities.
More than 220,000 South Koreans have had their online identities stolen in connection with Lineage, NCSoft said yesterday. Victims filed complaints with the operator after discovering they had accounts for the game without their knowledge. The fraud is being investigated by the police cyber terror response centre.
NCSoft said it was aware of organised attacks online, but it was not possible to tell for sure whether those being killed were Chinese. "We are tracking IP addresses and blocking those from China, mainly because NCSoft is against item-trading as we think it violates the spirit of the game," it said.
South Korean gamers stage online massacre of Chinese
By Anna Fifield in Seoul
Chinese-Korean relations have their ups and downs, but it's been a long time since they resorted to violence to settle scores.
However, in cyberspace South Korean gamers are ganging up to obliterate the Chinese, whom they view as greedy and rude.
"If we don't kill the Chinese they will grow up to harm Korean players," wrote Fifth Finger, a Lineage player, on the game's message board. "They're just logging on to Korean servers to make money."
South Korea is a pioneer in the online gaming market, which is led by NCSoft, the maker of games including Lineage, Guild Wars and City of Heroes.
In Lineage, which has more than 3m subscribers, players in the form of knights, wizards and elves chase monsters who drop money and other valuable items that increase players' strength, such as swords and medicine. These items can be sold for real money through online trading sites.
However, there is an etiquette to be followed: players interact along the way, but you are not supposed to take things dropped by someone else's monster.
Many young Chinese are joining South Korean matches because that is where the most items are traded and where the most money can be earned. But players say they do not follow the unwritten rules.
"They enjoy the game and they think Korea is cool and they also like earning a little money," says Sunny Choi, a South Korean gamer who speaks Chinese. "But they don't understand the manners so Koreans are killing them - it's a tragedy."
In these games, a little killing is necessary. But areas such as the Island of Dreams - popular with Chinese gamers because it is relatively easy to earn money - are becoming the site of online massacres.
"Korean players stand there waiting for Chinese players to enter - you can tell they are Chinese because they can't speak Korean - and then they kill them," Ms Choi says. "I befriended some Chinese teenagers and tried to teach them, but Koreans kept trying to kill them so they all left the game. I just cried."
Kim Shi-mon, a 26-year-old student, admits he once killed a Chinese player.
"He stole an item that I had just won from a monster but I didn't know whether he was Chinese or Korean," Mr Kim says. "Then I met two players looking for him to kill - they said he was Chinese."
There have been reports of Chinese "sweatshops" where gamers play for hours to earn money using South Korean identities.
More than 220,000 South Koreans have had their online identities stolen in connection with Lineage, NCSoft said yesterday. Victims filed complaints with the operator after discovering they had accounts for the game without their knowledge. The fraud is being investigated by the police cyber terror response centre.
NCSoft said it was aware of organised attacks online, but it was not possible to tell for sure whether those being killed were Chinese. "We are tracking IP addresses and blocking those from China, mainly because NCSoft is against item-trading as we think it violates the spirit of the game," it said.
posted by Basil Epicurus at 3:17 PM
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