Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft reported today on a new development where Japanese company Nexon filed charges against three 17-18 year old gamers for allegedly obstructing business  in online FPS Sudden Attack; the first incident of pending criminal liability for acts of in-game cheating.  Depending on how this resolves, we may start to see policies and user agreements change on more and more games that open up flagrant rulebreakers to legit legal action, beyond simply being beaned with the Banhammer.
Still only a VIRTUAL pounding
In the past, there have been questions well beyond just video games in terms of cheating in traditional games of chance, where counting cards will typically get you asked to leave a gambling establishment, but it doesn’t cross the line of legitimately altering the game rules or processes, as using marked decks of hacking slot machines.  Now that it’s become far easier to record video game footage with Next-Gen inclusion of Twitch and the widespread affordability of third-party video-capture hardware and software, players who subvert systems with replaced code, hacked files or other exploits explicitly against a game’s Terms of Services agreement can be more easily caught.  Granted, actual criminal liability will still be more of a last resort after traditional means of in-game punishment even for the worst offenders, but the bottom line is, you MAY actually want to consider actually reading before you click.
Or, you might end up with a LOT
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