Confusing Game With Real Life

There have been those who have taken offense in the past in my using analogies to characterize Eve behavior; the roles ones play in Eve.  I am sometimes accused of of getting the game confused with real life over this.  But am I really confusing the game with real life?  Take a look at my previous blog post, and you see I use analogies to things like Borg Drones and Firefly Reavers, clearly neither of which are real life comparisons.  Even if they were from real life, it wouldn't matter, as these are analogies.

Analogy (noun):  a comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification.

Furthermore, and most significantly, I am most often discussing character behavior, not the disposition of the real life person behind the character.  So at what point might I actually be saying something about the real life person behind the character?  When is there some crossover into real life as I see it?

First, lets clarify my position on villains versus good guys.  In most games, it doesn't really matter much.  There is usually no loss associated with getting killed by another character.  If I kill your character in Battlefield 1942, you don't lose anything.  You respawn with all the same gear you had before.  But in Eve, there is a real loss, and it takes real in game effort to replace that loss.  This makes the distinction of good guy versus villain far more significant in a game such as Eve. 

 How does this translate into the interactions between characters in Eve?  At first, it might not be apparent that there is much difference between attacking an opposing alliance member who is a known enemy in terrible standing with your alliance, versus attacking a neutral player who happens across your space.  Here's where the analogy can help with clarification.  If two countries are at war, and one uniformed combatant comes across an enemy uniformed combatant, and the first kills the other, who is the villain?  There generally isn't one; it was state sanctioned combat.  Now what if one uniformed combatant comes across a plain clothed person carrying a Playstation, and he then kills that person and takes the Playstation.  Now there is a clear villain in the interaction.

At this point, we are still just talking about what happens in game.  Why does any of this matter?  Here is where real life starts to creep in just a little bit.  If a clear villain attacks without provocation, and that is causing a real loss in terms of game effort to replace that loss, this can cause negative emotions in some players whose characters were the victims.  Now, if they are level headed, they will let it go, as it was just part of the game as it was designed.  But those emotions were still both real and negative, and can drive players away.  And that is why I feel it is better for the entire community if players refrain from playing villains in a game like Eve where losses have significance.  Try to stick to the "state sanctioned combat", as there is still plenty of that to go around and it helps avoid driving people away.

Now that's all still pretty minor.  So where does real life get confused with game in a significant way?  There is only one case I can think of, and it's been at the heart of a lot of the controversy over the last year or more.  When players, often beginning with high-sec ganking, attempt to grief other players.  When this happens, their intent is to anger and/or emotionally hurt the real life player on the other end of a character.  When they are called out for this, they hide behind a shield of "it's only a game".  So I ask you -- who is it really that is confusing game with real life?