Man in the box

People usually play MMOGs as a way to escape real life. Well, according to The Guardian, real life may just be trying to push its way into MMOGs. Several EU government bodies recently came together and released a report titled, Virtual Worlds, Real Money: Security and Privacy in Massively Multi-Player Online Games and Social and Corporate Virtual Worlds. Sound heavy? It is.

It seems the impetus for creating this agency position paper was that "2007 was the year of online gaming fraud." The executive summary states that malware targeting MMOGs increased by 145% and over 30,000 new programs emerged with the aim to gain access to accounts and steal virtual goods to sell for real money. The report describes 14 key risks in detail, including avatar identity theft/identity fraud, harassment, problems with online dispute resolution, and security risks for minors just to name a few. The agency also makes 12 recommendations to governments and MMOG developers to address these risks.

It seems inevitable that one day we'll have Big Brother looking over our shoulders as we peck away at our keyboards pwning n00bs. It also raises a couple big questions. How far will they go? Will it improve things or make them worse? Time will tell.