Should ruining online games by cheating be illegal?

[Freighter]

An aimbotter in a fps game that people paid for ruins the ability for honest players to enjoy the game when put against a cheater.

Do you think this should be punished with real-life penalties by the law? Seems like it needs to be cracked down on in online games.

[Blueobelisk]

It's already illegal: it's breaking the game's Terms of Service.

/thread

[Freighter]

It's already illegal: it's breaking the game's ToS.

/thread

How often do you see someone prosecuted for it instead of just having their accounts closed when caught?

[Runenwächter]

What right of yours is being infringed upon and to what degree that this percieved slight of yours warrants the involvement of police and the state prosecutors?

[Freighter]

What right of yours is being infringed upon and to what degree that this warrants the involvement of police and the state prosecutors?

You do not need to have any rights being infringed upon to punish something.

[Terahertz]

No. As much as I'm for extremely harsh punishments for cheaters (perm ban on first offense for any kind of macroing). IRL punishments is going waaaay too far.

[Allybeboba]

Arresting or fining people for cheating in a game that is played for fun?

I think not.

[PACOX]

I thought you were talking about exploiting a cash shop or something.

[Freighter]

Lol...
Arresting or fining people for cheating in a game that is played for fun.

If a game didn't cost money and/or time I wouldn't care about someone cheating in it.

[Runenwächter]

You do not need to have any rights being infringed upon to punish something.

Now there is stupid and then there are statements such as these.

You want the state to take legal action against someone. You want someones rights being infringed upon via punishment through the law. You can not demand the state step in if no right of yours was infringed upon in the first place.

Lets not even talk money. Money is a finite resource, even in wealthy countries, there is only so much to go around to protect the lives and rights of the citizens. So if you want the state spend public money on your behalf, the state ought to evaluate if it is protecting actual rights or a spoiled silver 1 crybabies fee fees.

Since you could not demonstrate the former I take it you want it to do the later.

[Blueobelisk]

How often do you see someone prosecuted for it instead of just having their accounts closed when caught?

Because it's not worth the game company's time, money, and lawyer efforts to sue a single individual over something silly that won't profit them at all.

[Freighter]

Now there is stupid and then there are statements such as these.

Why? It's true. There are several things that do not infringe upon others rights that are punished.

[WskyDK]

Only if every hackusation results in a CSI level investigation eating up billions of tax-dollars.

[Stormspark]

I think companies should have a zero tolerance policy and permaban accounts (Blizzard is pretty good with that), but real life punishments is going too far. Unless you're talking about actual hacking into servers (which hasn't happened to Blizzard but has happened to some others) or DDOS'ing or something...those are real crimes.

[Allybeboba]

If a game didn't cost money and/or time I wouldn't care about someone cheating in it.

No game is "free". Not a single one. Even rock/paper/scissors isn't "free".
They all use the most valuable commodity of all.

[NoRest4Wicked]

This makes sense, I'm pretty sure everyone who kills me in Playerunknown's Battlegrounds is a dirty cheater. When can we start locking them up?

[yetgdhfgh]

Life in imprisonment no parole!!!

[Powerogue]

Ultimately I just don't think that'd be enforceable.

[Seranthor]

An aimbotter in a fps game that people paid for ruins the ability for honest players to enjoy the game when put against a cheater.

Do you think this should be punished with real-life penalties by the law? Seems like it needs to be cracked down on in online games.

How do you justify the involvement of law enforcement and the legal system? Which jurisdiction do you plan to have these 'crimes' dealt with in? the location of the offender, the location of the 'victim', the location of the company's server? How do you plan to justify a particular jurisdiction making it a criminal offense?

Can you answer all of these?

[grexly75]

Yes lets cram more people into an already over crowded prison system because they were cheating in video games. /sarcasm

There are already very creative ways to deal with online game cheaters, bringing in IRL law enforcement to deal with them is beyond ridiculous.