Quest for justice
"Where there is any evidence to suggest someone has committed a crime, as is clearly the case with any phishing or hijacking, we work closely with law enforcement agencies around the world to bring these people to account," noted Gerhard.
"Our first and only concern is protecting our player community as we know the high value players place on their unique accounts," he continued.
"Players invest years of time and effort into developing their RuneScape character so the theft of a RuneScape account shouldn't be treated differently to the theft of any other valuable possessions such as a games console, television or car." Because demons have feelings too.
Gerhard said that "just a handful of individuals" were responsible for over 95 per cent of all account hijacking in RuneScape adding that the firm had a "zero tolerance approach to anyone who attempts to undermine the integrity of our vibrant community."
RuneScape is not the only virtual world to have fallen victim to criminal activity either. A while back an Australian man acting as the CEO of a virtual bank in a sci-fi online trading game managed to sneak 200 billion 'kredits' out of the vault and into the real world where he used them as a down payment on his very real house.
Crimes can be of a somewhat more violent nature too, with (real) Japanese police arresting a woman who murdered her virtual husband in a game called MapleStory after he abruptly "divorced" her in the game. Virtual crime of passion, anyone?
The police in Britain too, it seems, are taking virtual crime more and more seriously, with a PCeU Spokesperson declaring "people who seek to destroy others online gaming experience could be committing criminal offences, leaving themselves liable to prosecution."
In the US, the FBI is also joining the quest against cyber crime, something Gerhard said he had the "sincerest appreciation" for.
