If..Else Log

The dark side of MMORPG

On top of hyperinflation, Britannia has suffered a wave of extinctions, paralyzing hoarding, and a crime problem so intractable that at one point the game was forced to, in effect, split itself in half. Considered as an inadvertent and largely unsupervised experiment, U.O. raises questions about whether people can manage to coexist peacefully even when they don't really exist.
The New Yorker

A New Yorker article from a while back (4 years in fact) talks about the social breakdown in Ultima Online.

The local newspapers are full of investigations into child prostitution, rampant crime, mafia-controlled neighbourhoods, shadowy self-declared governments struggling to maintain order and runaway inflation.

Welcome to Alphaville, the biggest city in The Sims Online
BBC News

Similarly, the world of the Sims Online has a darker, seedier underworld hidden beneath all the gloss.

Whilst I've never really found myself engrossed in MMORPG's, it's nonetheless interesting to read about how idealistic principles are subverted by human nature.

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2 Responses to “The dark side of MMORPG”

  1. Gravatar ferte January 3rd, 2007 12:47 pm

    well they do exist in mmorpgs, their characters are the projections of their egos with theyr full list of flaws. ppl are not at peace in the real world so why they should be in a game?

  2. Gravatar Wrecked my relationship…you expect me 2 play nice??? May 31st, 2007 8:37 am

    Yea those stupid online games jus totally ruin relationshipz. And wen you get a guy that puts his comp. before his girlfriend then you wud haf every ryt 2 hate those stupid games…