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Maple Story: Japanese Woman Arrested for Virtual-World ‘Murder’

It was the second news in this week we reported about virtual crime. News from FOX NEWS, A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual Maple Story Mesos game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband’s digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.

The details are as below:

The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game “Maple Story Mesos” to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

“I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That Maple Story Mesos made me so angry,” the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to 5,000 USD.

Players in “Maple Story Mesos” raise and manipulate digital images called “avatars” that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.

The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character.

The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.

The woman was arrested Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sappporo, where the man lives, the official said.

The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.

At the Austin GDC, an interesting panel took place on the issue of changing business models in MMOs - Free To Play has an easy to read, to the point summation of the panel, which included Robert Ferrari of Turbine (LOTRO), Hilmar Veigar Petursson of CCP (EVE Online), Nicolay Nickelsen of Funcom (Age of Conan), and Min Kim of Nexon (MapleStory Mesos), reported by KOTAKU.

The details are as below:

Robert: F2P has a huge influence. But we have been based on subscriptions for years, with some games being around for 10+ years. Subscripitions hit a hardcore audience that is really embedded in MapleStory Mesos games. But as you expand your audience, they aren’t as hardcore anymore and F2P becomes more enticing as subs only wouldn’t appeal.

Nicolay: Both models work. Hardcore gamers are comfortable with sub model and most of the maplestory mesos games with microtransactions have been casual games. But it is possible to have more than one biz model in a game.

Min: There is room in the market for both biz models. F2P in North America will make a large push as teenagers can’t commit to ?15/month, so F2P will work well with them. Nexon saw lots of success when the market went beyond core to mass market.

Hilmar: Consumers are changing the business model of maple story mesos games - consumers making decisions. You can play Eve online through our trial program as a F2P program - users are able to “game” our trial system to play it as a F2P game. It’s a challenge for companies to adopt the needs of the market rather than keeping their head in sand. People will play the game how they want.