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Anti-cyberstalking Policy
DEFINITIONS
1. “Online Harassment” AKA “Cyberstalking” AKA “Online Abuse” is the use of the Internet to repeatedly, unwantedly, and disruptively follow someone in order to gather information, initiate contact, make threats, or engage in other forms of intimidation.
2. “PvP” AKA “Player versus Player” is a term used to describe the in-game ability for one video game player to engage another video game player in competition or virtual combat.
FORMAL REQUEST
Cyberstalking is a tort offense in many jurisdictions of the United States, including to varying extents, the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, New York, and Wyoming. Interstate cyberstalking is also addressed under US Federal law. Some countries other than the USA also impose anti-cyberstalking law. These laws must be appropriately applied to all venues upon which real people can interact with each other.
To assert anti-cyberstalking law and, on behalf of all video game players who attempt to enjoy the “World of Warcraft PvP” experience, this is a formal request for Blizzard Entertainment to impose an anti-cyberstalking policy upon all its players. The difference is evident between “random, unsolicited PvP encounters that lead to character death” and “deliberate, repeated stalking behavior that causes PvP encounters which lead to character death”. The former is not being contested as it is an enjoyable and expected aspect of the video game. The latter however, presents a real-world concern that should bear real-world consequences like “in-game honor loss” and/or temporary player bans which become permanent if the stalker fails to desist. In extreme cases, Blizzard Entertainment must be able to respond to legal subpeonas to provide the real-world identity of stalking players.
EXAMPLE CASE FACTS
A real-world person was playing the “World of Warcraft” video game on Saturday October 21 2006 between 10:00 AM MDT and 11:55 PM MDT. Between these hours, this player (VICTIM) encountered another player (ASSAILANT) who portrayed a character from an “opposing faction” in a game territory where players of opposing factions are permitted to murder each other’s game characters (known as “contested territory”). The assailant exercised his game-authorized capacity to engage the victim in surprise combat, killing the victim’s character. The assailant’s character was invisible to the victim before the attack, utilizing an in-game cloaking capability to sneak up on the victim.
The victim utilized the in-game capability to revive the lost character. Upon doing so, the assailant again murdered the victim’s character immediately at the site upon which the victim’s character was revived (an in-game tactic known as “corpse camping”). The victim again revived the lost character and the assailant again murdered the revived character. This process repeated several times.
The victim utilized the in-game “Defense Channel” mechanism to alert other game players to this behavior, providing the name of the assailing game character. The victim was advised by some responding game players to leave the PvP server if this behavior was deemed offensive. Other responding game players offered in-game assistance to the victim. These responding players moved their game characters near the victim’s corpse location. When the victim again revived the lost character, the assailant appeared again, murdering the victim’s character. This time however, the assisting game characters murdered the assailant.
The assisting characters then guarded the victim’s corpse and protected the victim upon again reviving the lost character. The assailant also revived his lost character, at which time the assisting characters again murdered the assailing character. This retribution behavior appeared to discourage the assailant, who elected not to revive his lost character in the same location.
The victim then engaged the video game with limited protection from the assisting characters. This support ended within thirty minutes of game play. Within an hour, the same assailant again appeared to the victim, murdering the victim’s game character. As before, the assailant engaged in “corpse camping”. The victim again utilized the in-game “Defense Channel” for support. This time, no one offered assistance.
The victim then utilized the in-game “Guild Chat” mechanism to summon other friendly players to the assailant’s location. The friendly players brought very high level characters to the victim’s character location. As before, when the victim revived the lost character, the assailant appeared and murdered the victim’s character. In doing so, the friendly players murdered the assailant’s character and also engaged in “corpse camping”. As before, this discouraged the assailant from further harassing the victim.
With the support of friendly players, the victim again attempted With the support of friendly players, the victim again attempted to engage the video game for entertainment. The friendly players supported the victim for approximately one hour. After this time, the victim continued to play the video game, required to remain in the “contested territory” by the in-game “Quests” he was attempting to accomplish.
After a few hours of enjoyment, the assailant again appeared to the victim, murdering the victim’s character. Rather than immediately reviving the lost character, the victim alerted other players through the in-game “defense channel” and summoned other friendly players to the same location using the “guild chat” mechanism. As before, the responding players murdered the assailant’s character and guarded the victim’s character while it was revived. The responding players again guarded the victim for approximately one hour, this time successfully detecting and murdering the assailant’s character whenever it came near the victim’s character. This happened several times.
Due to the stalking behavior of the assailant, the supporting players advised the victim to report this incident as harassment to the video game support employees. The victim did so. The victim felt harassed and suffered emotional distress, ultimately removing his character from the “contested territory” region to await a response from the in-game support employees. He received a response within one hour.
The support representative instructed the victim to discontinue playing on “PvP servers”. The representative also advised the victim that the game company had no policy to restrict “corpse camping” behavior or cyberstalking. Believing that on-line harassment is an issue that should not be resolved by being told not to play the game, the victim attempted to plead this issue to the support representative’s supervisor. The support representative denied that request. The victim insisted, but the support representative further deferred the victim’s claim of abuse to the game company’s on-line message board system. The victim then “logged out” of the video game and documented the incident to further pursue relief against cyberstalking.
VICTIM’S OPINION
“I understand PvP in World of Warcraft. I specifically created my character on a PvP server because I wanted to take part in this system. You see, in-game A.I. can be droll and predictable. A player can get bored killing the same virtual beasts over and over, doing the same exact thing every time. PvP offers a chance to mix it up with other real people who offer intelligence and unpredictability that adds more fun to the game. Good PvP matches are educational to both the winner and the loser.
“[My character] has been killed many times by other opposing faction characters. It’s always a surprise when you’re just out in the field doing your own thing; trying to level or complete quests. But I don’t hate that. It’s random and unprovoked, but it’s fine. It’s a minor frustration that only drives me to want to make my character stronger, faster.
“What happened today was not random. That person, whoever was controlling [the other character], was after me. He was hunting me. Everywhere I went in that contested territory, he’d find me and when he did, he killed me, over and over. This wasn’t PvP, it was cyberstalking.
“Cyberstalking is a problem that changes the purpose and flavor of PvP combat. It is harassment, bottom-line. It is unpleasant and it completely removes the players from the game, making it a real-world problem. The player who was stalking me really brought me a lot of grief. The game wasn’t fun any more. I felt both furious and helpless. I appreciated the help that all the higher-levels gave me, but they couldn’t remove the sense of fear I had while playing the game. I was constantly afraid the other guy would just pop up behind me and stab me in the back again. I got twitchy, popping my shield every time someone approached me from behind even though it was my own friends. I couldn’t tell the difference any more.
“Blizzard’s policy on PvP servers is insufficient. I’m not asking for them to stop PvP. That’s what PvE servers are for. I don’t want PvE. I want cyberstalking to be punishable. The fear and anger caused by that harassment shouldn’t be condoned by Blizzard. Losing my character in random encounters is fine. Losing my character time and again to the same person who hunts for me is not fine.”
This post has been edited by bluehell: 25 October 2006 - 03:33 PM
