Thanks, GamePolitics!

I’ll be the first to admit that the title of this post is verbose and decidedly “un-sexy,” but it’s certainly more accurate than what is found on most of the Internet. According to an AP story posted on Yahoo! News, a 43-year-old Japanese woman was arrested for accessing a man’s computer and killing his Maple Story character. The woman claims that she killed the man’s character because her virtual marriage suddenly ended when the man decided to divorce her, which “made [her] so angry.”

While technically correct, the AP’s headline “Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby” seems to suggest that the woman was jailed for murdering an in-game avatar. This, however, is not the case. The woman was jailed for the very real crime of illegally accessing the man’s computer and manipulating electronic data. In order to commit the “murder”, the woman fraudulently used the man’s identification and password to access his Maple Story account and kill his character.

If convicted, the woman faces prison for up to five years and a fine up to $5,000.

Does the punishment fit the crime? If she is sentenced to the maximum, not likely. However, the Japanese criminal courts work very differently from those in the US and I suspect it is highly probable that she will not serve any jail time. Instead, the Japanese legal system is most concerned with restoring “harmony” in society and, in my opinion, the woman will only be required to apologize and somehow make up for the death of the man’s avatar.

Rodney Gray, an employee of Technicolor Disc Services Corp, was recently arrested for stealing nearly one hundred copies of Microsoft’s highest-profile holiday releases and an additional 807 DVDs. Memphis detectives investigating thefts at Technicolor — a company that provides disc and game packaging, warehousing, distribution, and production services — were eventually led to Gray’s home, where they noticed Gray enter his vehicle with a red bag. After pulling Gray over for numerous outstanding driving offenses, detectives found 31 unreleased video games consisting of Gears of War 2 and Fable II. Detectives returned to gray’s home and found the rest of the merchandise — 97 video games and 807 DVDs valued at more than $100,000. Gray quickly admitted to stealing the discs from work.

Where was Technicolor security, you may ask? Well, our dear friend Rodney just so happened to be a Technicolor security officer. On a positive note, for those of you facing a difficult time amidst the current economic climate, Technicolor is most likely looking to hire a new security officer.

[via Memphis Commercial Appeal]

I typically don’t post an image without story behind it, but Dennis over at GamePolitics just posted a pretty spectacular picture.

I don’t know what it is, but I can’t help but chuckle when I look at it. Maybe it’s the look of triumph in Jack’s eyes; maybe it’s the laid-back atmosphere the picture is taken in; maybe it’s the fact that the subject line of the email containing the photo was “Evidence.” Whatever the case, I would like to thank GamePolitics for sharing.

Update: Larger (and possibly scarier) picture.

Frank Buchanan, 30, and his mother Dorothy Mae Buchanan, 68, were recently arrested in Minnesota for engaging a in scam that defrauded retailers out of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Buchanan allegedly bought and returned nearly 200 video games from local retailers starting in October 2006. Buchanan’s major fault: retailers began to notice that the boxes he returned contained homemade game discs.

Buchanan reportedly would purchase games at retail, remove the game disc, create a fake disc by printing a label onto a blank CD, and then repackage the blank disc in the original box using a heat gun. By returning these fake games to stores, Buchanan allegedly racked up $23,178 in refunds to his credit card and sold the game discs on eBay for roughly $19,562.

Buchanan is formally charged with three felony counts of theft by swindle for obtaining credit on fraudulent merchandise at local Target, Wal-Mart, ShopKo, and Kmart stores.

After being tipped off by Target loss-prevention, Buchanan’s mother was also formally charged with a single felony count of theft by swindle for allegedly helping her son with his plot.

We all knew that people who play Grand Theft Auto games can be very dangerous as every last on of them turns into a homicidal mainiac, but did you know that the game itself is a threat to the safety and well being of people too? In fact one man feels so threatened by the game that he has filed a restraining order against the game. That man is prisoner 40948-018, a.k.a. Jonathan Lee Riches, and he feels that GTAIV and its predecessors are a direct threat to his well-being.

Riches, who was put into FCI Williamsburg in South Carolina, a medium security prison that is currently home to 1,638 male inmates, for wire-fraud, claims in his filing (seen above) that “Defendants contributed to Plaintiff committing identity theft. Defendant’s games show sex, drugs and violence which offends me.” But this isn’t the only horror the as of yet unreleased game has committed upon this troubled soul. Riches also states, “Defendants put me in prison. I face imminent danger from violent inmates who played Grand Theft Auto who will knock me out and take my gold Jesus cross.” Damn you, GTA! Damn you to hell for what you have done to this man!

As if this wasn’t enough for one man to endure, the Job-like Riches filed a complaint against NFL quarterback Michael Vick last year for “$63,000,000,000 billion dollars,” alleging Vick had ties to Al Qaeda. Sadly, he did not win. He has also unsuccessfully sued Martha Stuart, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, President George W. Bush, Steve Jobs and Britney Spears. Will the horror wrought by these foul people on poor Mr. Riches ever end? I for one hope that GTAIV is allowed no where near this man, for sake of his gold Jesus cross and all that is good in the world.