Death in space and the piracy debate: negotiating ethics and ontology in Entropia Universe

Entropia Universe (EU) is a science-fiction themed, multiplayer, online game with a real-cash economy. This means that players can deposit and withdraw real money from the game, at a fixed exchange rate of $1USD to 10 Project Entropia Dollars (PED). The social world of Entropia is influenced by both the cash economy and the game platform. Game specific ontological and ethical systems emerge, in game, in response to these combined influences. As such, significant updates to the game platform can result in social disruption. This paper provides an ethnographic account of community responses to a 2011 update which introduced interplanetary space travel into the game. This update was significant because space was programmed to be a 'lootable' player versus player (PvP) zone – meaning that, in space, players could kill and plunder other players. Consequently, the profession of space-piracy emerged, prompting an ongoing community debate about the ethics of role-playing 'theft' within a virtual world where items cost real money. An examination of this debate reveals the processes of conflict and negotiation that virtual world communities go through when augmentations to a game's technological platform conflict with established social ontologies