Final Fantasy XI player ‘mugged’, police refuse to help
February 5th, 2008 by Colin Temple
Many Final Fantasy XI players are aware of a rash of account hackings that occurred over the past couple of months. A number of players saw their account passwords suddenly changed after their gaming computers were compromised. Square Enix has been unable to help most of these players, who saw hours of game-work disappear when their characters were stolen.
One 20-year-old has taken it upon himself to seek justice with his local police department, reports a Minnesota newspaper. Geoff Luurs reported the crime, in which 75 million Gil worth of virtual items and coin that belonged to his character were stolen. Although Square Enix prohibits players from participating in real-money trade (RMT) between game items and real currency, the gil is worth about $4,000 U.S. on the FFXI “black market”.
The police, however, refuse to investigate the event. According to them, virtual items have no monetary value whatsoever and no crime has taken place. The response angered law professor Joshua Fairfield of Washington and Lee University:
“What happened here is somebody stole almost USD 4000 and got away cold. This is just a matter of zeros. The first time IBM loses USD 10 million, we’re going to see some police action. The argument that a magic sword isn’t real, that doesn’t make sense to me. You can ask the question, why would somebody buy that? But you can’t say it’s not worth real money.”
Putting aside the fact that swords in Final Fantasy XI aren’t normally magic, Fairfield brings up a good point. Despite the fact that it’s against the rules, RMT is a common thing in FFXI as well as in most other MMO games, some of which allow and even participate in the trade of virtual items for real-world money.
Recent hackings involved exploits on some Final Fantasy XI information sites that were finding back-door entries into players’ computers, but in the case of this player, it’s also suspected that he gave out his information at some point. Luurs named another FFXI player as a former friend and current suspect, raising the question of whether or not he actually gave out his password in the past. This is a somewhat common practice, although it’s also forbidden by Square Enix due to security risks.
So what’s your take? Is this a case of the law being behind the times, or is this FFXI player crying over spilled milk? Having spent hours in Final Fantasy XI myself, I can certainly respect the amount of time and energy it takes to build up a character — there’s certainly a value to what was stolen, even if it’s hard to quantify.
#1 Valenna
February 6th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Well, I think it’s true that that law enforcement is behind the times on this, but if this were pursued by law enforcement and it turned out that the player gave out his information then he should be fined for wasting public resources.
And I love the context-sensitive ads offering FFXI gold. ^_^
#2 Chris Schaffer
February 14th, 2008 at 9:04 am
It may be spilled milk, but the fact is that law enforcement is way behind the times as well. the fact that we (myself included) should be spending time doing something in the “real world” that enriches are lives is irrelevant when the object or information does in fact have a real market value.
After all, aren’t all those little number in your bank accounts just digital representation of what we hope is real money?
#3 Anonymous
February 21st, 2008 at 1:51 am
The police can’t do anything. The person should have contacted the IC3. They are an internet crime center that is affiliated with the FBI. Contacting a lawyer is a good idea too, but the IC3 will have more resources to actually ‘find’ the crook. Once the crook is found then the police can be contacted.
#4 Enkidu
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I cant wait for the day that police would actually investigate this type of thing. things such as this are happening alot recently. like the case where a second life community was sueing a guy for stealing items. “Internet crime” is going to be the next big thing lol D=
I hope the guy gets help and that he wasn’t the one giving out his own password >_>
#5 powerpatriot
October 30th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I believe at some point in time this guy gave out his password to this “friend” of his. I have never seen any proof that a FFXI account has ever been “hacked” without the “hacker” knowing some of the players information. As for contacting the police about his virtual stuff being stolen, why should the police use their precious man hours on this stupid of a “crime” when they could be out looking for real criminals. Also, he would need to bring proof that these items were stolen, and since SquareEnix does not keep a record of all items or gil that a certain player has, it is almost impossible to be able to find out if that is real. I could just as easily say that 75 million gil of coin and items were stolen from it (although I don’t have that) and claim that I want it back. People like this make the game un-fun to play and should just stop crying and whining about it and go back to their real life. Stop giving out your information to other people and we can all avoid this type of thing.
#6 Colin Temple
October 30th, 2008 at 10:27 am
At the time of this article there was a rash of FFXI account hackings that were not the case of them giving out passwords. No, I can’t give you proof, but I can’t prove that all instances were of shared accounts, either. I personally knew people, in real life, who had their accounts hacked in FFXI.
That said, hacked accounts are computer crimes. Not a “crime” but a real, full-fledged crime. Yeah, it’s just a game, but if it involves breaking into someone’s private account, it’s still a crime. If I hacked into my neighbours network and deleted some of his family pictures, or hacked someone’s email to play a prank, is that not a crime? Does it have to be a theft of something with obvious monetary value to deserve legal attention?
After all, a significant amount of the stolen accounts and gil, especially those that happened a year ago, were supposedly done by people who went and sold that gil for real money.
#7 Glori
December 26th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I just want to say that my account was stolen and I have NEVER given out my password, NEVER participated in any RMT dealings (in fact, I often turn them in, especially the ones that farm leeches), and that no one in my “real life” plays the game. The entire situation has been horrible.
#8 FFXIPlayer2004
March 12th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Think of an MMO this way, an Investment, you pay for the software (the investment) and then keep building on that investment (building up the character). Not many people would like to see a bank robber run off with thier savings account which they have been building since they invested in the bank account would they. Now if you gave out your account info whether it be your bank account or your character account well then your just dumb.