Police Investigate Another Habbo Virtual Theft
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
That. Also, if you go into ALL kinds of pages without thinking over what may lie there you deserve to get all your virtual belongings stolen.danpascooch said:
Is this really worth the hours that the finnish(ed) police puts into this case? I mean, the age group for this kind of website is 10-13 right? That means that they tend to click on everything that shines and sparkles online, including those fancy banners that provide you with spyware and trojans... The worst threat to their account security are the users themselves.
Edit: In the olden days, when the grass was green, America called The New World and the maidens fair, I protected my Habbo account with the password: 1234
Also, once you have stolen $1200 in Habbo stuff, how do you fence it? How is stealing Habbo stuff worth your wiles?
I've never played this game partly because for that money I could buy comics and partly because I hate the name "Habbo".
Real or not it has a monetary value, which makes it real in the eyes of the law.
Technically, going by current exchange rates, I have personally been involved in the destruction of over $20,000 US worth of imaginary internet spaceship property while playing Eve, which to be honest is fucking scary.
EDIT:
Technically, going by current exchange rates, I have personally been involved in the destruction of over $20,000 US worth of imaginary internet spaceship property while playing Eve, which to be honest is fucking scary.
EDIT:
Unless said hostile tack over was done by using a keylogger Trojan; that will never happen. Though to be quite honest, if you are dumb enough to fall for one of these scams maybe you shouldn?t hold the keys to the corp wallet.Hopeless Bastard said:
Well, I think it's a status thing to be honest. People do it because they can in many cases, especially when it comes to virtual chat modes and such like Habbo. It's like any other indulgence, or fad from the "haves" that the "have nots" don't get.Stormz said:
When it comes to games, things are a bit differant. If you like an actual game enough where your going to sink a hundred hours into it, buying some extras can be worthwhile. What's more some people are completionists, and as much as I loathe the practice of DLC items, I happen to fit this bill, and have been known to get certain things like items or characters for various RPGs. I for example downloaded most of the "extra" characters for "Disgaea 3" despite ironically having spent most of my time playing it on someone else's system and needing to (eventually) do my own playthrough before I can even use them.
As ridiculous as it is, I can sort of "get" the idea of a cash shop, for people who like the game enough to play it seriously to the point where such things become viable. I can understand the whole "Farmville" thing even if I loathe it and the financial model on
which it runs.
Generally speaking I do think the police should leave things like virtual furniture alone. Actual game play items I can see being worthy of calling a crime, but this kind of thing strikes me as being somewhat pointless. Of course where to draw the line of actual value is debatable. I guess it comes down to the idea (for me) that things like WoW (which I play), can be competitive, where Habbo, generally speaking is not.
When it comes to some other games like EVE, I would argue that deception is part of the game, and going by the various stories and such, many of which have been used to sell the game, one can't really complain about a "scam" costing someone billions since that's part of the game in this case. Of course hacking is something differant. It's sort of like the board game "Diplomacy", you can't complain about someone stabbing you in the back since that's pretty much what it's all about (not a matter of if, but when).
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On a side note however, I will say that I believe that when it comes to games I do not think that real life wealth should have any effect on them. This is why I loathe the idea of cash shops run by the company and the like, especially when actual game benefits are involved.
I do not think people should be buying WoW gold for money to begin with (for example), and truthfully it's the fact that nobody has policed it seriously (no matter how many accounts Blizzard claims to ban) is one of the reasons why hacking accounts, keylogging, and similar things has become profitable.
When it comes to EVE, the massive RL money market for ISK and things which seems to be more or less ignored (and actually encouraged it seems) by the guys running the game, is part of what makes things such a big deal. I didn't like how the game worked to begin with, but the very idea that someone can legitimatly claim to have destroyed $20,000 worth of in game property owned by another player makes me nauseus.... as it destroys what games should be about (IMO). Really when it comes to this kind of thing the only game that makes be feel more queasy than EVE are the "Entropia" games where people are throwing around maddening amounts of money more or less because they can.
surely police have better things to investigate, and people really shouldnt waste money on 'virtual' things...if u have money to throw around how bout throw it at people who really need it
This news has brought me a lot of nostalgia.
If anything getting a few pennies of virtual fake furniture stolen will teach you not to be such a dumbass. It's probably an important lesson for some to learn, better on virtual furniture than your bank details.
Is it illegal though? I guess so.. but you go on a website which is like "Lol put ur password in here" and then vitual items which you don't actually own transfer over to not being owned by someone else. Mmm
If anything getting a few pennies of virtual fake furniture stolen will teach you not to be such a dumbass. It's probably an important lesson for some to learn, better on virtual furniture than your bank details.
Is it illegal though? I guess so.. but you go on a website which is like "Lol put ur password in here" and then vitual items which you don't actually own transfer over to not being owned by someone else. Mmm
Its an economics simulator mate; all about the ISK, and if somebody wants to buy ISK with the USD? it doesn?t destroy the game, it IS the game.Therumancer said:
The developers also work pretty hard at stamping out Real Money Traders, Chinese ISK Farmers disappear in waves once every few months, and the price of certain items that they produce ingame go up, as well as the cost of ISK on the black market, so basically they disrupt the economy pretty badly making it difficult for the hard for actual players to make decent money in these areas, though it?s a fucking great time when you are sitting on several billion in implants when the farmers get banned and the price doubles.
Another way they have reduced the prevalence of RMT is with the PLEX system, where players can pay their subscription with ingame money. A PLEX is an ingame item, which is created when purchased with actual money, which can then be bought and sold, or redeemed for 30 days of playtime.
Thus, the PLEX doesn?t fuck up the economy like RMT does; players are paying other players ISK for their subscription, rather than strait up for cash. The current price is about 300 million ISK (best price) for a single 30 day PLEX, though a few years ago the price was 150 million; some Russian Billionaire had flooded the market with them, when he got banned the price went right the fuck up.
As for tallying up the amount I have destroyed, I only did it recently out of curiosity. And it wasn?t just single players, it was many, many poor bastards. To be honest I was shocked when I did the calculations, but hell, if you undock, you are consenting to the possibility of losing what you are flying and everything in it.
That said, stuff like this is crazy when you think about it:
http://www.killboard.it/?a=kill_related&kll_id=162353
317.82 Billion ISK destroyed, at an exchange rate of 17 million to the dollar, which is over $18000 destroyed over the course of a few hours, in one system, during one fight, due poor decisions by leadership... and lag.
Welcome to eve.
They do have a physical form. Electrical signals are physical. Light being emitted from a monitor is physical.flaming_squirrel said:
For its purpose, being looked at, the object need be no more tangible. If someone stole a file off of my computer--an MP3, for example--I would have grounds for complaint. I paid money for the ability to behold or interact with this electronic signal in some way, and I "own" it, in a very legal sense.
