Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-11784273-20130902154747/@comment-10214922-20130903155718

Ranoake wrote: Masarujasu wrote: Ran you are talking about stolen credit cards and robbing banks now. Are you adamant that this is how the third party site works? I agree it's a plausible theory, but I have not seen the evidence, therefore I cannot condemn anyone at this point.

Also I was not aware that there was a practical definition and a technical definition of cheating, however if so then one is a definition that Mobage cannot enforce and one that the community can enforce, provided there is evidence upon which to do so. Again, I cannot condemn anyone at this point.

Regarding Terms of Use, I'm not interested in what is legal - rather I am interested in when Mobage states something is against its Terms of Use, it better well be in there. I've read communications on various FB pages and have seen statements that there have been contraventions of the Terms but haven't seen those actual clauses in the Terms. I never said I knew for sure, just that it makes sense. Clearly we would have to investigate, there is probably cause to suspect something, that is all I am saying.

The term 'technically' exists to differentiate between literal definitions and practical ones, so yes there is a distinction. The word 'practically' also exists for this reason. Many things have technical and practical definitions that are not always the same. We could philosophize about if it is 'technically' cheating or illegal, but for me any illegal activity in a chain of things relying on that illegal activity causes the whole chain to inherit the status 'illegal' as a result. Or at the very least 'ill gotten gains'.

I would say it is worth pursuing, but if our suspicions are right, Mobage won't care that people are using stolen money to buy their coins, Mobage is getting full price, so there is likely nothing we can do. And the site operators are not going to openly admit they are using stolen credit cards, so an investigation would be dead in the water. Like you said, it would be the community, IF we could prove something, which ultimately we probably can't. That said, it certainly does smell of illegal activity, but that is not proof.

I think ethics play a larger role now. If you suspect a site to be illegal, using it when you suspect it is illegal is unethical (as well as implicitly illegal, since you suspect it). Does she really think the site is legit? If so, ignorance is bliss I guess. One of the responses from Mobage early on in the piece was that the site was fake. And from that I infer that it is fake in the way the hack tools are fake. I believe the initial damage control method was to deny that one could purchase coins there undetected at all. Hence now it's more problematic to reprimand the player because by doing so it legitimises the site to a wider user base.

The FB pages play a duplicit role in both trying to get the player investigated by Mobage and also in trying to condemn Mobage publicly for allowing such sites to exist (implying they are complicit in the existence of such sites). Ultimately it just advertises the site to the widest user-base possible, which ironically hampers Mobage's ability to take swift action.

I believe that the player was ignorant of the wider ramifications. To some world-weary players the site may appear illegitimate but not everyone is as savvy all the time. The best we can do is educate rather than condemn. She does not strike me as so calculating, and would not be so open with her information if she was. I'm sure the guilty would cover their tracks a lot better. I don't believe at all she deserves the vitriol she has received over the past 2 weeks.