Police – MMO Fallout

News out of Norway is that Funcom employees showing up to work this morning were met by the economic crimes unit Økokrim. Police raided the Funcom offices, retrieving boxes full of seized documents. According to News in English, the raid is related to an investigation over whether or not Funcom breached disclosure requirements related to The Secret World, as well as who had access to inside information leading up to the game’s release. Funcom is also being charged with negligent bookkeeping according to a news post on the Oslo stock exchange, from which the company has been delisted until the investigation is complete.

This isn’t the first time that The Secret World has landed someone in hot water. Funcom’s former CEO Tron Aas came under investigation after he left his position and offloaded his shares of Funcom the day before The Secret World launched and Funcom’s stock plummeted. Employees have reportedly been sent home for the day.

(Source: News in English)

There is a special level of stupid that describes a person who thinks that it’s funny to make public threats to shoot/bomb a school, whether they make them in offhand comments on online games or actually contact the school via phone/online/mail to make the threat. Eventually you have to ask yourself how many people need to be arrested and charged with making a threat before the other idiots get the clue and keep their unique sense of humor private.

I don’t know when that will happen, but I do know that 18-year old Thomas Frongillo of North Oxford has likely ruined his chances at a decent career. According to Telegram, Frongillo was arrested after he allegedly made the comment “I’m shooting up my school tomorrow” on the online game RuneScape. The incident was reported to Jagex by players, who presumably used Frongillo’s account information to identify him, and the evidence was sent to Oxford police, who in turn alerted the campus police. The transcript also included anti-Semitic comments and Frongillo drawing a swastika in-game.

Frongillo has been arrested and charged with threatening to commit a crime and threatening a bombing or hijacking. The kicker in this story? Frongillo is in the police academy studying criminal justice. According to Frongillo’s defense attorney, the comment was “a harmless jest,” and was not meant to be taken seriously.

What is it about RuneScape and real world violence?

(Source: Telegram)