Man steals 38kg of gold to fund online game habit

[cesariojpn]

http://kotaku.com/5932064/man-sells-fam ... was-robbed

38 kilograms (38000 grams/around 1221 troy ounces) worth of gold = 6 million yuan ($941,706 US)
(Yes, I know current prices pegs it at around $2 million, but the thefts were spread out for over a year).

He traded the gold in order to obtain a "legendary item" in the online game.

[barrytrot]

Not just a legendary item, it was a full set of legendary items. So it kind of makes sense.

Actually if you live in the game more than in "real world" it probably does make sense.

[scyther]

Wow. I wonder if it was runescape...

[barrytrot]

Wow. I wonder if it was runescape...

Hm, good point, we need to find out what that game is. It has to be pretty dang good

[jacer333]

Boy I'd love to see his World of Warcraft setup now, must be a juggernaut!

[creshka46]

Wow, who could possibly get so addicted to something?!?!

He probably even had his own membership to an internet forum where they wasted hours a day posting about nothing other than their "hobby"

Some people.....

[SilverDragon72]

Now THAT is really crazy! I played WoW for a number of years, and never ONCE did I have any desire whatsoever to buy virtual items with real money! Especially with a 38kg GOLD bar???

A little over the time, wow....

[SilverDragon72]

Wow, who could possibly get so addicted to something?!?!

He probably even had his own membership to an internet forum where they wasted hours a day posting about nothing other than their "hobby"

Some people.....

Yeah, really! I mean, who would spend so much time posting such nonsense?!

[mflugher]

Lol I used to sell gold on Wow and Everquest, and buy silver coins with it, along with groceries and rent etc. it was my full time job at the time. guess it makes sense someone else would have the opposite reaction, but still really funny to hear. I spent an awful lot of time on those games...

[scyther]

Lol I used to sell gold on Wow and Everquest, and buy silver coins with it, along with groceries and rent etc. it was my full time job at the time. guess it makes sense someone else would have the opposite reaction, but still really funny to hear. I spent an awful lot of time on those games...

Sorry I'm not really familiar with these games... were you selling "gold" in the game, for real money, and using it to buy real silver? If so that's cool... maybe I should make an account...

[creshka46]

Lol I used to sell gold on Wow and Everquest, and buy silver coins with it, along with groceries and rent etc. it was my full time job at the time. guess it makes sense someone else would have the opposite reaction, but still really funny to hear. I spent an awful lot of time on those games...

Sorry I'm not really familiar with these games... were you selling "gold" in the game, for real money, and using it to buy real silver? If so that's cool... maybe I should make an account...

Yeah, I was a little confused too. But if you meant what scyther things you meant, that is crazy! selling fake gold for real silver .

[barrytrot]

There are those that make a living in REAL LIFE by selling in-game items.

I myself sold some "money" (whatever it was in City of Heroes) some of the time on eBay. My hourly wage was probably 10 cents But it was better than the zero cents I was getting for my time originally

[mflugher]

Lol I used to sell gold on Wow and Everquest, and buy silver coins with it, along with groceries and rent etc. it was my full time job at the time. guess it makes sense someone else would have the opposite reaction, but still really funny to hear. I spent an awful lot of time on those games...

Sorry I'm not really familiar with these games... were you selling "gold" in the game, for real money, and using it to buy real silver? If so that's cool... maybe I should make an account...

Yeah, I was a little confused too. But if you meant what scyther things you meant, that is crazy! selling fake gold for real silver .

yes that would be a correct understanding of what I did for a living,

I also bought a few computers, a cool ancient copper coin which I keep to this day, a few gold items which I had to subsequently resell along with the silver, groceries, rent, utilities, a portion of the down payment for my house I bought a few years later... I've always been a bit of a saver. I claimed all income on my taxes and self taught myself how to write a schedule "c" form (did you ever think you could write off internet access, world of warcraft game cards and subscriptions, computers and delivery pizza (employee lunches), this is probably what got me far enough into tax preparation that I actually listened a little to the idea of opening the franchise office that spring boarded my gold business.

I also remember on the morning of 9/11/2001, about 11 am, I didn't bother to turn on tv, I went straight to email to see who had placed orders the night before, only one sale had occured, a flowing black silk sash (at the time a highly desired item in everquest) for $135, the paypal had come through, and in my email was a message to the effect of "I know a lot is happening this morning, but I really am hoping to get that FBSS, are you available to meet still today?" after arranging a meeting and delivering I asked what was up, he said you need to check CNN right now bro, which I did... I don't think I'll ever forget that day as no one should.


I also paid rent/food/utilities with WOW/Everquest gold/platinum/items. I didn't even harvest the stuff myself in most cases, I bought it in $1000 lots and sold them for about 10x $150 lots, or 35x $50 lots, plus whatever I earned by actually playing the game I sold as well for "free" profit. Worked out to about $15/hr when I did the math (assuming 8 hour day, I actually played closer to 12-14hr/day), when it dropped to $9/hour I took a job at a law office. Also the heat was on from the game authorities, they don't like this being done, but I think they aren't looking for me anymore When the profits dried up I played the game for fun for a while then determined the opportunity cost was too high. 3 years of my life full time playing the game for a living and 5 more years playing "casually" only problem, "casual" play involves not less than 4 hrs/day.

Scyther; I do not suggest you play these games, they are time vampires, and with the Chinese sweatshops harvesting items full time (yes it exists) and botters (computer automated player characters) you are lucky to make that 10c/hour, its good for a Chinese peasant, but probably not going to support your lifestyle, hand sorting pennies is probably more profitable. Also since world of warcraft is the current game of choice, you should consider the risks to your account being deactivated by their totalitarian rules/automated "cheating" detection, trading items for out of game profit is "cheating" so is botting, obviously.



Here is an excerpt of the email they sent me when I got caught, this was effectively the end of my "part time" participation in this business, my full time participation ended about 3 years previously. I continued to play World of Warcraft for another 2 years under a new account and I did my best to "Damage the in game economy" and cause them as many headaches as possible. I learned to use "bot" programs, and managed to kill bosses with my 5 characters that would normally take a group of 20 average individually played characters, (or 5 skilled players), and dumped the results on the market at cutthroat prices, also I would buy up relatively common and cheap raw materials up for sale then destroy them to inflate the prices, I was a bit bitter, but it was fun to me, amazingly my new account was never sanctioned for this behavior... I still firmly believe that any items earned in a computer game should belong to the person who played to earn them and they should have a right to dispose of them as they see fit. If I write a book in Microsoft word, Bill Gates gets no input on how I dispose/sell that intellectual property. I'd like to point out I sold about 3000 gold for approx $200, I don't remember the exact details. A high level player could get 3k gold in less than a week of hard work at the time, under today's conditions I think you could earn the 3k in a night of botting, and 10k goes for about $20 retail, $12 wholesale, hardly exploitative or destructive to the "in game economy" Its about equivalent to a guy with a copy machine making a couple dozen $20s out of $1s compared to the Federal reserve



here is an excerpt of what Wow and blizzard entertainment does if you sell a few gold for a little rent money... I did appeal the decision 3 times, they never even acknowledged with any specificity what I had done (I knew what it was but I wanted them to enumerate it so I could justify it) I'm not sure what the recurring exploits had been since I hadn't sold anything in that game ever before it was literally my first offense...



*
***Notice of Account Closure***

Hello,

Account Name: XXXXXXXXXX

This is a notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Access to this account has been permanently disabled for exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation. While we try to be as lenient as possible in our assessments of the results of exploitation investigations, reoccurring trends in exploitative endeavors on your account have ultimately resulted in account closure.

*

So now you all know my dirty little secret,

I AM MFLUGHER, DESTROYER OF ECONOMIES!!!!!!!!!!!!

I sincerely hope you have all found this informative, if your children play these MMORPGs, or god forbid you do, get out asap, there is no real life reward for them, they trick your brain into thinking you are doing something productive and valuable, but its just like a drug, waste time, waste money, waste of opportunities...

[scyther]

yes that would be a correct understanding of what I did for a living,

I also bought a few computers, a cool ancient copper coin which I keep to this day, a few gold items which I had to subsequently resell along with the silver, groceries, rent, utilities, a portion of the down payment for my house I bought a few years later... I've always been a bit of a saver. I claimed all income on my taxes and self taught myself how to write a schedule "c" form (did you ever think you could write off internet access, world of warcraft game cards and subscriptions, computers and delivery pizza (employee lunches), this is probably what got me far enough into tax preparation that I actually listened a little to the idea of opening the franchise office that spring boarded my gold business.

I also remember on the morning of 9/11/2001, about 11 am, I didn't bother to turn on tv, I went straight to email to see who had placed orders the night before, only one sale had occured, a flowing black silk sash (at the time a highly desired item in everquest) for $135, the paypal had come through, and in my email was a message to the effect of "I know a lot is happening this morning, but I really am hoping to get that FBSS, are you available to meet still today?" after arranging a meeting and delivering I asked what was up, he said you need to check CNN right now bro, which I did... I don't think I'll ever forget that day as no one should.


I also paid rent/food/utilities with WOW/Everquest gold/platinum/items. I didn't even harvest the stuff myself in most cases, I bought it in $1000 lots and sold them for about 10x $150 lots, or 35x $50 lots, plus whatever I earned by actually playing the game I sold as well for "free" profit. Worked out to about $15/hr when I did the math (assuming 8 hour day, I actually played closer to 12-14hr/day), when it dropped to $9/hour I took a job at a law office. Also the heat was on from the game authorities, they don't like this being done, but I think they aren't looking for me anymore When the profits dried up I played the game for fun for a while then determined the opportunity cost was too high. 3 years of my life full time playing the game for a living and 5 more years playing "casually" only problem, "casual" play involves not less than 4 hrs/day.

Scyther; I do not suggest you play these games, they are time vampires, and with the Chinese sweatshops harvesting items full time (yes it exists) and botters (computer automated player characters) you are lucky to make that 10c/hour, its good for a Chinese peasant, but probably not going to support your lifestyle, hand sorting pennies is probably more profitable. Also since world of warcraft is the current game of choice, you should consider the risks to your account being deactivated by their totalitarian rules/automated "cheating" detection, trading items for out of game profit is "cheating" so is botting, obviously.



Here is an excerpt of the email they sent me when I got caught, this was effectively the end of my "part time" participation in this business, my full time participation ended about 3 years previously. I continued to play World of Warcraft for another 2 years under a new account and I did my best to "Damage the in game economy" and cause them as many headaches as possible. I learned to use "bot" programs, and managed to kill bosses with my 5 characters that would normally take a group of 20 average individually played characters, (or 5 skilled players), and dumped the results on the market at cutthroat prices, also I would buy up relatively common and cheap raw materials up for sale then destroy them to inflate the prices, I was a bit bitter, but it was fun to me, amazingly my new account was never sanctioned for this behavior... I still firmly believe that any items earned in a computer game should belong to the person who played to earn them and they should have a right to dispose of them as they see fit. If I write a book in Microsoft word, Bill Gates gets no input on how I dispose/sell that intellectual property. I'd like to point out I sold about 3000 gold for approx $200, I don't remember the exact details. A high level player could get 3k gold in less than a week of hard work at the time, under today's conditions I think you could earn the 3k in a night of botting, and 10k goes for about $20 retail, $12 wholesale, hardly exploitative or destructive to the "in game economy" Its about equivalent to a guy with a copy machine making a couple dozen $20s out of $1s compared to the Federal reserve



here is an excerpt of what Wow and blizzard entertainment does if you sell a few gold for a little rent money... I did appeal the decision 3 times, they never even acknowledged with any specificity what I had done (I knew what it was but I wanted them to enumerate it so I could justify it) I'm not sure what the recurring exploits had been since I hadn't sold anything in that game ever before it was literally my first offense...



*
***Notice of Account Closure***

Hello,

Account Name: XXXXXXXXXX

This is a notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Access to this account has been permanently disabled for exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation. While we try to be as lenient as possible in our assessments of the results of exploitation investigations, reoccurring trends in exploitative endeavors on your account have ultimately resulted in account closure.

*

So now you all know my dirty little secret,

I AM MFLUGHER, DESTROYER OF ECONOMIES!!!!!!!!!!!!

I sincerely hope you have all found this informative, if your children play these MMORPGs, or god forbid you do, get out asap, there is no real life reward for them, they trick your brain into thinking you are doing something productive and valuable, but its just like a drug, waste time, waste money, waste of opportunities...

Haha wow, nice post. I won't try to make money on it; I'm sure I'd fail miserably at that, but I might still try playing anyway... the whole concept seems rather fascinating to me. And it's not like I don't waste my time in other ways as it is!

[SilverDragon72]

I played this game for several years, and had fun doing so. The time spent would have been otherwise used to watch TV or a movie.

The game is what you make of it. The thing I don't like about WoW is that there is no real "end game." You know, like you play something like Mario Brothers...you go through all the levels, rescue the princess...and GAME OVER!

WoW has no such concept. You can spend considerable time and effort trying to get the next level of "gear"....finally get it...until the next Expansion comes out. I did, however, play with many of my real life friends and for us, it was another way of socializing. It never caused any of us to call in sick to work, stress out marriages, or end up LOSING your job because
of it. I would never consider paying real money to buy "virtual" gold. To me, I felt like I needed to earn everything in the game. So why play at all, if you have to cheat in order to "get ahead?" I still play games (Diablo 3 is my latest), but it
doesn't dominate my life.

The idea of selling a 38Kg of real GOLD? A person must be out of their mind (or seriously addicted) to consider such an idea!

Some people would consider sorting pennies or nickels a waste of time. For me, handsorting is a long process, but it's a nice way to end a day from work. I might even find something interesting too!

[RD5]

Anybody still play "Runescape" I have some stuff on there, maybe I could help somebody out on there