Secrets of the City

Sorry Jason.

“Online gamer calls real police when virtual treasure gets stolen.”

Which sign of the apocalypse is this?

the dumb sign apparently.

Which sign of the apocalypse is this?

How about no sign?
He worked hard for something, and it was taken from him, he was distraught and used the first thing that came to his head. Oh noes! How dare he!

Blessed Trousers

did he try telling his mommy before calling the cops?

maybe somebody should steal his virginity so he can worry about something real.

careful grote, gamers are a protected class

I’m confused because he did show a real monetary value to these items –they can be bought or sold — stocks are traded virtually, not sure what the difference is . . .

Good choice Jason! It helps that your wife is a pretty lady, though.

I have no direct sympathy for gamer dude, but it’s an interesting slippery slope for modern times: At what point in the theft of something with resale value do you actually prosecute and treat it as a crime?

Just because the cops don’t understand the weird RPG currency market doesn’t mean this situation should just be laughed off.

There’s plenty of stuff with dubious value created for any art fair, but if it’s wrongfully take from its creator and resold, that’s a crime, right?

Octaneboy: I was thinking the same thing. But, my guess is that it’s going to be awhile before virtual crimes like this are ever addressed. Unless, somehow the gov’t see’s that it’s losing some revenue stream with taxing it like gambling or something.

apparently I like to randomly add an apostrophe to every’thing.

I can’t fnid the link but supposedly in the far east they hire people to do repetitive tasks in MMORPG’s to accumulate cash and then sell the online currency for real dollars. If you believe the article it is a Billion Dollar a year business.

in my mind, it has less to do with money — a fair market value can certainly be assigned — than with:

having technical know-how to be able trace and demonstrate who did it

where the crime occurred — who’s jurisdiction is it? and

even though the dood could assign a market value, does he technically own and have rights to those fancy trousers . . . or are they the game makers?

btw, where is bobby b these days?

spaceman: I think it’s all about money.
Value is defined within the game environment and it translates to real currency in the real world as it’s sold on ebay.
I think it can be fairly easy to track – the dude with the money, but I think it’s beyond the local cops jurisdiction.

spaceman hit on why the in-game theft issue is a lot more convoluted than it appears. A lot of MMORPG makers state in their ToS that the gamers don’t actually own any of the items and so any actual sale of items is on the black-market. Mind you a very nerdy black market, but one all the same. Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, will ban accounts if they find evidence of items being bought for money, or in game gold coming in from accounts flagged as Chinese gold farmers.

So any monetary worth of this kid’s items might have been nullified by the fact that he never actually owned any of it to begin with.

But if a value is already assigned in the virtual/game world, one could argue that he indeed did own it.
And if people are buying the items in the real world, even if it’s on the black market, a real value has been assigned so I would think there’d be a foundation to build a case.

Cat, that’s exactly what I said — it has real world value, so the argument that they can’t charge because, as they article says, there’s no value to assign, isn’t a good argument. It’s the other reasons that I listed that are the problems (again in my mind anyway)

It’s kind of startling how much mnspeak content is about Jason DeRusha lately (two posts today, much of the open thread). Not that it’s a bad thing … just an observation.

Actually, both posts linked to essentially the same story, in order to make Jason exquisitely uncomfortable.

And so that slutty could be worked into just about every comment.

How slutty of you to notice Cat…

I can’t fnid the link but supposedly in the far east they hire people to do repetitive tasks in MMORPG’s to accumulate cash and then sell the online currency for real dollars. If you believe the article it is a Billion Dollar a year business.

Mpls Simpleton, indeed – it’s called farming and the people who run the MMORPGs go to great lengths to prevent it by blocking programs that are known to be used for automating tasks and monitoring players online behavior for signs that they may be involved (Such as insanely high transfers of ingame currency).
I wouldn’t doubt it’s a billion dollar industry – there’s a ton of games out there. World of Warcraft hit 10 million paid subscribers recently – there’s about as many players as the entire country of Belgium or the Czech Republic.

Why thank you, Douglasg. I appreciate you noticing my sluttiness.
Although I missed my slutty/weiner opening at the Edina Cub Foods, there is always this evening.
It might be a better time if Sock Monkey is going to make an appearance.

This is from the game’s member agreement:
SEI (and, to the extent applicable, its licensors) owns and shall retain all right, title and interest in and to the PlayOnline Service, the Software and all Documentation, and will be the sole owner of any and all data you generate through your use of the PlayOnline Service

Sony retains all right to anything in game, so any real-world monetary value for the items is moot from a legal stand point, as they never belonged to the kid. Just because the kid bought them with pretend game money doesn’t mean he gets real world ownership.

I recently read an article about virtual economies and how gov’ts around the world are watching them to figure out a way to regulate them.
And from the sounds of it these virtual economies are beyond the control of Sony.
And if I feel motivated, I’ll look up the article and post it here… motivated being the keyword.

What kind of a suckhole swashbuckling adventurer is this dude?

Surely the correct response when someone steals your treasure – online or in real life – is simply to don the Bifrost Armor and take up the ebony Sword of Restless Souls by its icy pommel to go forth to avenge yourself upon them and their kingdoms, yea even unto the third generation.

oliver, thinking like that is where those bizarro “man attacks friend with ninja sword” stories come from.

Those people are just sad fantasists. A real ninja would hang upside down from the ceiling and drip an obscure neurotoxic poison down a thread into their ear while they slept

Now I have the Princess Bride in my head.

“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
“Stop saying that.”

Best. Movie. Ever.

Well, one of them anyway.

One of my all-time favorite movie scenes. I laugh just thinking about it.

“Get back, witch.”
“i’m not a witch, I’m your wife.”

Never gets old.

“You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means…”

LOVE that movie.

Actually, both posts linked to essentially the same story, in order to make Jason exquisitely uncomfortable.

Mission accomplished.

Glad you liked it, Maz!

Keep buying me cars.