When Qiu Chengwei reported the theft of his "dragon saber" he was laughed out of the police station. So the 41-year-old online games player decided to take matters into his own hands.
Swapping virtual weapons for a real knife, he tracked down the man who had robbed him of his prized fantasy possession and stabbed him to death.
Qiu is now facing a possible death sentence in a Shanghai court case which has highlighted concern about the social, psychological and economic impact of one of China's fastest-growing industries.
A spate of suicides, deaths by exhaustion and legal disputes about virtual possessions have been blamed on Internet role-playing games, which are estimated to have more than 40 million players in China.
Qiu's favorite game was Legend of Mir III, a South Korean game which is a huge hit throughout Asia.
It took him hours in front of a computer to win the dragon saber, one of the game's most valuable weapons.
He used a feature of the game to lend it to Zhu Caoyuan, who reportedly sold it without his permission for 7,200 yuan (US$870).
Although this is considerably more than the average monthly wage, the police told Qiu that they could do nothing because the law does not recognize virtual property.
He has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Zhu, a crime that can carry the death penalty.
The number of Internet users is estimated to have doubled from under 60 million in 2002 to more than 120 million.
More than a third are believed to be game players, creating one of the world's most lucrative online markets. The operators revenue has grown by more than 40 percent in each of the past two years.
Shanda Networking, the biggest online game company with at least two million users at any given time of the day, more than doubled profits last year.
The national leadership said recently that the country's biggest skill shortage was of Internet game developers.
The information ministry estimates that China needs 600,000 online game technicians to fight off foreign competition. But there is also growing alarm about the social consequences. The government has cracked down on unlicenced Internet cafes, which the official news agency called "hotbeds of juvenile crime and depravity."
Newspapers are filled with reports of Internet-game related crimes and tragedies, such as the suicide in January of a boy of 13 who left notes saying he was so addicted to online games that he had difficulty distinguishing between reality and virtual reality.
Last March, two students in Chongqing fell asleep on a railway track after an all-night Internet session, and a 31-year old Legend of Mir addict reportedly dropped dead after a 20-hour session. Many of the crimes are related to the thefts of virtual possessions.
Hard-core players invest so much time and money into building a powerful online character that the loss or theft of a virtual identity prompts some to take violent action.
At the Shanda customer complaints office in Shanghai, where the staff work behind reinforced glass panels, an adviser, Cassie Fan, said: "We get about a thousand complaints a week. I have been threatened on several occasions. People put so much time and energy into the games that some get extremely upset."
One customer was so enraged that he set fire to himself, suffering serious burns.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
A South Korean judge who last week more than doubled former South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee’s prison sentence was found dead yesterday, police said. Shin Jong-o was found unconscious at about 1am at the Seoul High Court building, an investigator at the Seocho District Police Station in Seoul said. Shin was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he said. “There is no sign of foul play in the death,” the investigator added. Local media reported that Shin had left a suicide note, but the investigator said there was none. On Tuesday last week, Shin presided over 53-year-old Kim’s appeal trial, finding her guilty
RSS