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Warning For on line Gamers

Written by Stewart Smith

Tuesday, 15 August 2006

Microsoft Warns Online Gamers! Woooo...

Gizmodo has been one of my favourite sites for gadget stuff and the likes, here's a story from there, that we all should take heed of, it seems we cant even play pretend without the real Bad Guys being about

You know that Enflamed Axe of Oblivion that crackles with power, makes online enemies cower in fear and other gamers bow (or jealously spit) as you pass? The one that took 100 hours of gameplay, a broken relationship, malnutrition and constipation to acquire?

Well, it’s gone. Hackers in the night stole it and the rest of your online kit leaving you with little more than a pair of Y-fronts, a donkey and an iron club. That's you in that picture up there.

Microsoft’s Dave Weinstein warned online gamers at the Gamefest conference in Seattle that the big MMPORGs like World of Warcraft are being increasingly being targeted by hackers, stealing account details and virtual kit before flogging them for as much as £5,000 online to desperate gamers.

The individual items in a high-level characters kits could sell for hundreds and thousands of pounds apiece. According to Weinstein:

“For a lot of the customers out there, there is more store value on their MMO characters than there is on the credit card with which they pay for the account.”
The police are really good at understanding someone stole my credit card and ran up a lot of money. It's a lot harder to get them to buy into 'someone stole my magic sword.”

Noble knight, you have been warned.

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