Rmtexposed

Leeuwarden district court has found two boys aged 14 and 15 guilty of stealing virtual items from a classmate in a computer game called runescape. The boys were sentenced to community service of 200 and 160 hours for kicking and hitting their victim, and threatening him with a knife until he transferred a virtual amulet and mask to them while playing Runescape. This isn’t the first time this has happened.

In November 2007, police arrested a person for stealing 4,000 euros worth of virtual furniture from a room in the Habbo Hotel, an social network site for youngsters. The suspect was not prosecuted at the time. 4000 euros is a lot of money. And if you steal that much money here, you would face jailtime.

Kids playing Habbo hotel has been offered credits in exchange for nude pictures. There has been reports of kids threatening other kids into buying them credits when they are broke. This shows us that online gaming no matter what brings out the darker sides of  some players, even kids. This goes from bullying in game to sexual harassment, and the use of violence. Unfortunately lots of things never gets reported for various reasons. Just like other cases of harassment.

Fortunately the cases mentioned above shows us that virtual crimes might get you into trouble in real life.