Tourists grab 100-yuan banknotes over a blower in the glass house at Song Dynasty Town on January 26, 2016 in Hangzhou, China (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
A gamer in China spent over a million USD outfitting his character in MMORPG “Justice Online”, which could be a story in and of itself. But he saw that investment go up in smoke as he let a friend borrow the character who sold it for $552.
In a report from the South China Morning Post, the plantiff loaned the character to his “friend” and this “friend” tried to sell the character back to the plaintiff for around 55k. However, the friend failed at his attempt for extortion and instead listed the character on the in-game marketplace for only $552. It was purchased very quickly.
NetEase, the company that runs Justice Online, canceled the sale of the character and made sure that it was returned to its rightful owner. Unfortunately, the plaintiff had to pay over 12k in damages to the player that bought the illicitly listed character.
Norris’ Schadenfreude Filled Opinion: Its REALLY hard for me to feel bad for a person with the resources to pay over a million dollars for an MMO character. What ever happened to NO character buying, no power-leveling and no currency purchasing in games. Everyone looking for an easy way out in this deserved to be fined.