Blizzard takes banned player's suicide threat seriously
by Mike Schramm 
Nov 27th 2006 at 6:06PM
ClassifiedPeon (who has an awesome name) posts on her LJ about hearing a story on the radio about a kid who got banned from WoW, and then decided to try and bribe his way back into the game. At first, he pleaded Blizz to let him back in, and even offered them money ($3,000 via Paypal, supposedly, though how a kid like this gets money like that who knows). Blue, of course, declined the offer, which is when he sent them an email threatening to end his life if they didn't let him back into the game.And that's when Blizzard got serious. According to the original messageboard where the story was posted, not only did they send the kid an email with phone numbers for depression crisis centers, but a few hours later, the cops reportedly showed up at his door. Blizzard had apparently identified the kid from his IP address, and called the cops on his suicide threat. The story's been posted on Fark.com as well (and Digg also got their say), and the (hilarious) consensus there is that Blizzard did exactly the right thing in calling this little punk out on the stupid stuff he said. If the kid is really suicidal, he does need more help than Blizzard can offer him, and if he was just trying to lie his way back into his account (which is more than likely considering the kid was not only outright cheating, he was also supposedly using a "stolen serial"), he deserves to have the cops show up at his door.
Unfortunately, apart from the messageboard post I can't find any actual news source on the story, so for all we know the whole thing is made up by the guy who posted it (and who posted it last January, you'll note). But it's an interesting tale, and it supports my thoughts from the other day: while there are probably some false positives floating around Blizzard's ban list, most of the people they give the heave-ho probably deserve it.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Locksmith Nov 27th 2006 11:52PM
A guy on my server supposedly had the cops show up after he jokingly reported to a GM that afer not getting the other half of his bindings on his birthday after one year of searching for it (take note the gear is highly advanced and MC is an extreme bore for him) he would end his account and his life. The hilarious screenshot here: http://tuhar.ytmnd.com/
Slant Nov 28th 2006 7:17AM
Its one of the policies at Blizzard to take suicide threads very serious. It is a Senior Gamemaster that needs to call the cops and convince them that this is not a joke and a possible serious threat to a persons life.
Just image what would happen if Blizard just ignored someone like that and he would really kill himself.
Slant Nov 28th 2006 5:02AM
I forgot to mention that the address they send the cops to is the adress you have in your account information. there is no way they would get an owner of a dynamic ip adress fast enough if the blood is already dripping ;-)
Habitats Nov 28th 2006 5:30AM
What a poor little soul.
RainMan Nov 28th 2006 2:36PM
When I was a GM for Everquest this happened every once in a while. Whether we thought it was fake or real the policy was that if we had proof or Verification such as an emailed Threat or one captured online we would try to locate the Players information and contact local authorities about the Suicide Threat.
One I recall clearly was a younger player who had been denied a character restore for a deleted character only to then claim he was going to kill himself if we didnt restore him. This was in Direct Tells to a GameMaster and from what the Local Authorities told us after they arrived at his house was that his Mother was Furious with him. And they thanked us for the report. Another I recall happening was a player that had the police called to there house was actually taken for a 24 hour suicide watch.
Its always better to be safe than Sorry.
Ron Nov 29th 2006 1:10PM
talk about a addict