Housing Ownership System Abuse

[ErysNight]

The players who play are not virtual people. They're real. They spend real time and money playing the game. Their joy and frustrations are also real.

Sure you don't have to care about them but it looks like you're saying "none of this is real!" to justify your stance.

You'd be better off sticking to how you're not breaking any rules because at least that stance has some merit. Going into "it's just a game" territory just allows others to say the same to house hoarders when they say SE should take away their grandfathered plots.

But your point was on whether our in game actions have moral and ethical merit. I didn't speak to the individual motivations, I was addressing your point on whether the action of taking up something for themselves could be seen as selfish in an environment that doesn't have real world consequences.

For example, it's exactly the same with sports (another form of game) one team does not have to stop scoring touchdowns on the other because of some prescribed notion. MMOs are about accomplishment and achievement. Hoarding and collecting ARE the rules and the TOS supports it. So at the time the grandfathered employees were winning this "competition of sorts", that was the norm.

Returning to the sports thing, sure the losing team can be mad, but it would be insane of them to look at the other team and say "You're selfish, and greedy how dare you score all those points". Why not? Because it's not real life in the sense that the social contract of that game is set. The Referees (our TOS) are the only rules that need to be abided by.

It actually IS just a game lol.

[Penthea]

But your point was on whether our in game actions have moral and ethical merit.

No it was not. You'll find I made no mention of this at all. I was merely trying to dispel the notion that: being permitted = cannot selfish and greedy.

Permission to do something doesn't automatically mean doing that thing is incapable of being a selfish or greedy act, or that continuing to cannot be even when the situation changes.

There are a multitude of examples in the real world of selfish acts that are permitted by law. Such as underpaying your employees for the work that they do, outsourcing labour to countries where people can legally get paid pennies and work incredibly long hours that are illegal elsewhere, keeping employees under a contract system so they're technically not employed by you so you do not have to spend extra money to give them access to health insurance and some other employee rights...I could go on for a long while.

Again I say permission and restriction are not automatically indicative of moral standing. Some rules and laws are intended to be, but the harsh truth is that a lot of things that have very negative effects are permitted. This happens everywhere, even in games.

could be seen as selfish in an environment that doesn't have real world consequences.

So just because there are no real world consequences an act cannot be selfish? Experiencing or the risk of consequences as a result of certain types of behaviour is not the definition of selfish.

Taken directly from google: Selfish: (of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for other people; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.

There is nothing about the definition that says an act cannot be selfish if there are no real world consequences. The definition doesn't even make any mention of consequences. In fact a lot of people engage in certain types of selfish acts because they know they will not get any truly harsh negative consequences for it.

Engaging in your right to do something doesn't mean that the act of doing so cannot be selfish. It only means you're permitted to do certain things. Nothing more.