Kotaku: crime and punishment

British Prisoners Lose Their Gaming Privileges

Brian Crecente — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:00:00 MDT

A new ban on video games in UK prisons limits gaming to those who have earned "top privileges" and completely bans violent games and shooters with an 18 or older rating.

The rule change comes after new prison directives hit that prevent taxpayers' money from being used to buy games or consoles.

The change in rules come after the Government revealed that they spent more than £10,000 on 80 PlayStations and 15 XBoxes for youth offender institutions.

In a document including the rule changes, Michael Spurr, the Prison Service's director of operations, wrote: "These changes will ensure that prisoners may only earn access to games consoles by a positive demonstration of good behaviour and commitment to the requirements of their sentence plan.

"This is in line with government policy flowing from the Prison Policy Update paper of January 2008."

Prisoners Have Their Playstations Taken Away [Telegraph]

More Crimes to Blame on GTA IV

ogood — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:00:00 MDT

If GTA IV is going to be truly groundbreaking, then it will have to break ground in another realm: Real-life crimes to blame on it. Happily, GamesRadar is on the leading edge of this, spotting eight new crimes that imbecilic mainstream media will be thrilled to pin on "gamers," Rockstar, and this particular title.

Bad deeds 2.0 include:

• Driving while talking on a cell phone
• Simple assault
• Hotboxing a car

Funny take that doubles as a feature on some of the new stuff you'll be able to do, in and out of mission, in GTA IV.

8 new crimes that'll be blamed on GTA IV [GamesRadar]

El Paso Police Nab Fugitives With 360s

Mike Fahey — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:40:04 MST

Rule of thumb here people. If you are on the run from the law for a crime you did or did not commit, you don't win video game consoles. Even if you do, you don't. A lot of fugitives from justice learned this lesson the hard way in early November, when police in El Paso Texas staged a roundup using an Xbox 360 and a television as bait. The fugitives in question were informed that they had won a fabulous video game prize, and when they arrived to pick it up they were arrested on the spot. The operation led to 115 arrests, 129 cleared warrants, and the collection of $25,686 in unpaid traffic fines. Not one Xbox 360 was given away. Once again, if you are on the lam, you win nothing. Don't try to collect a prize, show up for the game show you suddenly get invited to, or follow that piece of candy being mysteriously drug along the ground by a string towards a waiting paddy wagon. It can only end in tears.

115 fugitives, lured by gifts, arrested in El Paso sting [El Paso Times via GameRush Entertainment]

'Spectacular and Arbitrary' Punishment the Answer To Gold Farming?

Maggie Greene — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 14:30:14 MDT

There are some interesting thoughts at PlayNoEvil regarding gold farmers and buyers, and how best to deal with them. One potential solution? Visibly, spectacularly, and seemingly randomly punish people buying gold - to hopefully discourage people from buying, disrupt the flow of gold from farmers to consumers, and make repercussions for buying gold random, retroactive, public, and aimed at damaging the whole system (not just an account (or thousands)):

The more I have considered this issue, I think spectacular, arbitrary punishments are the best penalty for gold buyers.
I'm leaning towards "The Roll Back". The game operator detects a gold buyer. He reviews the account file and makes a notation of where the player was when he bought the gold (or farther back, or at the time he is detected). This state is quietly saved. Then, at some random date in the future - say, 1 to 6 months later, the player is notified that he was busted for gold buying and his account is rolled back. No gains, no experience, no nothing from the time since counts.

This should be done rather publicly on a daily basis... banner headlines - a Player was rolled back from Level 63 to Level 20. He lost X gold, Y experience, the following items..... One of those annoying news tickers (with RSS feed, of course).

He's got some more interesting thoughts that are worth a quick read through. While such a system seems fraught with potential technical challenges and ups the amount of effort that must be invested by the operator, it's not like companies aren't spending any time going after farmers/buyers - and what better way to stem the tide of RMTs for virtual gold than putting a punishment system in place that punishes not just people you actually catch, but the whole system?

Proxy Products for Gold Farmers and RMT in Blizzard's World of Warcraft [PlayNoEvil]