Housing exposes a fundamental flaw in institutionalized ethics.

[JackHatchet]

I love ethics, because they can change so wildly between person to person. What one person views as right may be wrong to another. To cut it short, housing exposes how obvious it is that some people's ethics are based on whether they system or rules allow them to behave in such a way. An action isn't inherently right or wrong, unless the rule say so.

For example. A lot of people think it's ethically ok to own multiple houses. Not because of any ethical reasoning, but because the rules say it's ok. "I'm not breaking any rules, therefore my behaviors are correct."

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Ethics can be extremely tricky to define, but I like to think on them. When I think of the housing issues. I don't think about "What I can get away with according to the rules," but rather, "what would be the most ethical way to handle this situation? How should I behave as a person in society."

The truth of housing is that it is limited. It's a limited resource. So ethically speaking, could I really justify having additional houses for alts? Is it "the right thing to do?" When you get down to the black and white of it--there's no logically way one can reason owning more than one house other than pure selfish greed.

And I think that's what really bothers me about all the people trying to defend houses for their alts. I don't think it's the act itself, but rather that these people have disillusioned themselves to believing their behavior is ethical simply because the rules say "it's ok."

It's s a dangerous thought-path to have. To base right and wrong based on what the rules tell you rather than taking the time to think-critically on the matter. It wouldn't bother me so much if people just owned up to their selfish desires and admitted that they're taking houses away from other people, and they're greedy and they want to keep what they worked for. You know? That's fair, right?

But I think it's morally wrong to be greedy, and then pretend like it's not wrong.

[Canadane]

There are homeless people in real life, and people who own multiple homes as well.
Now that there's restrictions in place there's nothing anyone can do, the fundamental laws of our universe has been altered. But before such, people owning multiple houses that they actually use wasn't a situation raised in ethics at all, in my opinion. It was not ethically sound and it wasn't unethical of them. It was pretty neutral. It was simply people playing a video game.

[StouterTaru]

The truth of housing is that it is limited. It's a limited resource. So ethically speaking, could I really justify having additional houses for alts? Is it "the right thing to do?" When you get down to the black and white of it--there's no logically way one can reason owning more than one house other than pure selfish greed.

Same argument, owning a personal house vs. a FC having that same house:

The truth of housing is that it is limited. It's a limited resource. So ethically speaking, could I really justify having a personal house? Is it "the right thing to do?" When you get down to the black and white of it--there's no logically way one can reason owning a personal house other than pure selfish greed.

[killstein]

i can't believe we're down to applying real world ethics to a video game to somehow try to understand why people buy more than one virtual home. this is getting weird.

[JackHatchet]

It was not ethically sound and it wasn't unethical of them. It was pretty neutral. It was simply people playing a video game.

It wasn't entirely neutral. Loop-holes in the game allowed players to own multiple houses, and such loop-holes will continue to exist. However, the question is 'knowing' the intention of the system, and what it was designed for. Square-Enix has made it abundantly obvious now that not only do they want only one house per player, but also they want to prioritize FCs. So knowing this, wouldn't it be unethical to undermine the intention of fair play by taking advantage of loop-holes?

It's one thing to accidentally stumble upon a vacant lot on an alt, but an entirely other concept to exploit loop-holes to use the system for a purpose other than intended.

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(DISCLAIMER): I enjoy these debates, but once those servers get back up, you probably won't see me on the forums. This isn't a salt post. Keep it fun. Keep it civil!

[Acilith]

i can't believe we're down to applying real world ethics to a video game to somehow try to understand why people buy more than one virtual home. this is getting weird.

I wrote out a long response then realised this has to be a troll. I mean it has to be. Mateus literally had empty plots for an actual real life year of time, maybe longer.

[JackHatchet]

i can't believe we're down to applying real world ethics to a video game to somehow try to understand why people buy more than one virtual home. this is getting weird.

Are you implying that ethics stop existing because it's a video game? When we're talking about how one person's actions affect another--that involves ethics. It's not like it's a video game in a vacuum.

[Canadane]

It wasn't entirely neutral. Loop-holes in the game allowed players to own multiple houses, and such loop-holes will continue to exist. However, the question is 'knowing' the intention of the system, and what it was designed for. Square-Enix has made it abundantly obvious now that not only do they want only one house per player, but also they want to prioritize FCs. So knowing this, wouldn't it be unethical to undermine the intention of fair play by taking advantage of loop-holes?

You may call it a loop-hole but that's just how the system was built. Yes it was absolutely fair.
Now things have changed.

[JackHatchet]

You may call it a loop-hole but that's just how the system was built. Yes it was absolutely fair.
Now things have changed.

Right, the system was built that way, but you could argue that the original system built was flawed. If you 'knew' it was flawed, does that justify taking advantage of it?

There's been many examples in both video games and in real life where developers and law-writers had accidentally overlooked important details. A good example for America, is that for a long time it wasn't illegal to sleep with a corpse. I mean, really, who's going to actually sit down and write that into a law and go through all the red-tape? But you know, just because you could--doesn't mean you should.

The thought-discussion for this post was to inquire if people think about whether their actions are ethical, or do they just do what they can-regardless, as long as the rules say it's ok.

[Alien_Gamer]

The flaw in the system was, and remains, the number of houses available, not the ability of someone to buy more than one. When SE built the housing system they made the deliberate choice to allow players to own an FC house and a personal house on each character; this was not a loop hole, this was a purpose built feature of the system. And players did what players do, they used the feature as intended and bought houses. This is not an unethical action and it can't be argued that because the rules allowed it, it was still wrong. There is no ethics in buying an item when its bought legitimately as the system intends it to be bought.

However, removing something from the possession of someone who obtained it legitimately for no other reason than to give it to someone else is unethical. When current home owners bought their house they didn't take it away from someone else, they bought what is currently there. You're trying to argue that houses that are currently being used should be given to those that don't have houses simply because you don't like that they have multiple houses, that IS unethical.

The root of the problem is the number of houses. SE refuses to put in enough houses to meet demand and creates an artificial scarcity because of it. The ONLY solution to this will be to release more houses, anything else is a bandaid that really doesn't fix anything, it just changes who's going to be upset about it. The ethical solution is for SE to create more wards or instanced housing, not taking it away from others.