Friday, October 24, 2008

When Gaming Gets Serious

Anyone who has played massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) will tell you that a lot can happen in a virtual world. You can kill monsters (mobs). You can be a craftsman, making weapons, armor, even food. You can make a lot of virtual money. You can buy virtual stuff like houses, food, clothing, color to dye your clothes, pets and more. And you can get married. Yes, married.

And if you can get married, you can get divorced. But like in real life, virtual divorce can get ugly.

A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.

The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

Well, thank God for that!