The technical hope for virtual reality has always been to make computer simulations seem real, as if you were actually there. When you turned your head in any direction, what you saw would be as good as if you were standing right there … in a room – or a meadow, at the ocean or on a football field. You would sense the temperature, hear the sounds, feel the wind.

But the failure of virtual reality is not about how hard it is to simulate physical reality. It’s that human experience goes far beyond the five senses. And for a human being, everything is real, which he or she believes is real.

It’s why a jilted Japanese woman would log onto her ex-boyfriend’s online video game account and delete all his cyber-weapons. She knew it would hurt him.

And it’s how a 41 year old man came to stab and kill a young man in his twenties, all because the young man had borrowed and then sold something which only existed in cyberspace.

No doubt you’ve heard or read about this Shanghai murder and the resulting death sentence for Qiu Chengwei, which was then modified to life in prison, with the possibility of just 15 years given good behavior. The sentence for such a murder is understandable, while the circumstances give us pause.

Qiu Chengwei, having discovered that the young man had sold his precious “dragon sabre” for roughly $1,000, turned to the police to report the crime. And what was he told? Cyberswords don’t exist under Chinese law. The thief can’t be prosecuted. What happened next was clearly driven by overwhelming human emotion.

Which leaves us with the burning question: If a cyberweapon doesn’t exist, how can it be sold? But this is the legal question. The human version of this question – as to whether or not cyberspace is real – has already been answered. For Qiu Chengwei – and for the young man who was murdered – cyberspace is all too real, and getting “real”-er by the moment.

In China alone last year, online role-playing game subscriptions generated nearly $300 million in revenue, with nearly $2 billion in telecommunications access charges. This, in a country where the average monthly income is measured in hundreds of dollars.

Taking cyberspace out of the equation, the law is quite used to dealing with things which are real but do not exist in the physical world, the most obvious example being money. Money is imaginary. There is no greenback for every dollar in your bank account, nor is there gold or silver sitting at Fort Knox to back each and every one up. But money, nonetheless, is real. And if a person absconds with your money, there is legal recourse.

So, now we have the challenge of online fantasy role-playing games, accommodating thousands of humans at once, each with his own cyber-identity. And if you’re feeling a bit picked on or just want to go to the next level, you can trade with other players in your game, or go out to eBay and buy yourself a new virtual weapon or two. Which you pay for with money – which is kind of interesting, in and of itself.

But don’t forget about the Japanese woman and her ex-boyfriend. In her case, the law found a way to mete out a dollop of justice. She was charged with illegally accessing an account, which has the same ring to it as convicting Al Capone for tax evasion. But there’s the clue: When the charges reflect the true crimes, we’ll know we’re on the right trail.

I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.

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