Deal Gone Bad Has One Runescape Player Facing 15 Years in Prison

For as long as MMOs have existed, so has the sale of in-game currency for real-life cash. Rarely, the developer will allow such dealings to go on, and when it does, it’s usually managed through a sanctioned service (think Blizzard’s auction house for Diablo III). But when the need arises where you have to keep things out of the game, sometimes real-life dealings are your only option – and as we’ve heard many times in the news before, sometimes these dealings go awry.

A perfect example of this is with the MMO Runescape, where one player is now facing 15 years in jail for allegedly threatening someone’s life when a deal fell through. When Humza Bajwa tried to purchase $3,000 worth of in-game currency with counterfeit bills, the seller caught on and complained about it. At that point, Bajwa put a gun (later found out to be a BB gun) to the seller’s head, and demanded that the in-game currency be transferred. It was.

After the police investigation, Bajwa was arrested at his home in Massachusetts. He might have had his sights on fake money and used a fake gun to threaten someone, but the police sure weren’t amused.

The moral of the story? When you’re addicted enough to a game to threaten someone’s life just for some in-game currency, it’s probably best to turn the PC off and go grab another hobby.