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Man spends stolen $1m on Game of War

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oni-link

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A man went on a $1m (£800,000) spending spree on the Game of War app after stealing $4.8m from his employer.

Kevin Lee Co, 45, from Sacramento, California, pleaded guilty to fraudulently using company credit cards to steal the money.

Court documents reveal Mr Co spent about $1m of the embezzled funds on Game of War, one of the world's highest grossing mobile games.

Players buy gold and other in-game credits to help build their empires.
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Mr Co worked at Holt, a California-based dealer of Caterpillar machinery, for about two years before he started the fraudulent scheme by May 2008.

He became responsible for managing Holt's accounting department a year later and continued to hide the transactions until March 2015.

He left the company a month later.

Over the course of nearly seven years, he used the company card to buy luxury cars, as well as season tickets to NFL team the San Francisco 49ers, and basketball team the Sacramento Kings.

Other items included plastic surgery, home furniture and golf course membership, according to a copy of his plea agreement obtained by tech news site Ars Technica.
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It is estimated players spent $550 on average last year on Game of War, which has featured singer Mariah Carey and model Kate Upton in its adverts.

That was double the next highest grossing mobile game, and largely came from buying $52 crates of gold, according to data analysts Slice Intelligence.

Mr Co, who pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering, will be sentenced in May.
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Bury me in a million dollars worth of in game credits if old
 
Is it common to only have one guy handling the company accounts? Seems like having a few people on the job would reduce the risk of funds being embezzled.
 
And the owners of the game just happily thought "Man, this guy REALLY likes the game"?

At least we now know why it's the highest grossing game.
 
I couldn't help but laugh.

Like, holy shit, you got your hands on seven figures of paper, and you shell it into a phone game?
 
Keasar said:
And the owners of the game just happily thought "Man, this guy REALLY likes the game"?
Click to expand...

Yeah you would hope this is the kind of thing they would flag up

"Hey Dave, this fella blowing 7 figures on our game, do we think he's a sane and rational individual making sensible choices?"

This market needs to be regulated
 
oni-link said:
Yeah you would hope this is the kind of thing they would flag up

"Hey Dave, this fella blowing 7 figures on our game, do we think he's a sane and rational individual making sensible choices?"

This market needs to be regulated
Click to expand...



I'm sure there are many cases of dumbassery but I like to think the millionaire/billionaires play phone games also.

Then Again My Point Is Flawed Because They're Probably Too Busy Making MONEY To Play Phone games.
 
Time to put spending limit to video game. No game should cost more than $500, $500 should grand you full access of any game.
 
Keasar said:
And the owners of the game just happily thought "Man, this guy REALLY likes the game"?

At least we now know why it's the highest grossing game.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't be surprised if they can't see how much individual users spend because the transactions are handled by Apple and Google. Any app developer know whether this info is easily accessible to the devs?
 
oni-link said:
Yeah you would hope this is the kind of thing they would flag up

"Hey Dave, this fella blowing 7 figures on our game, do we think he's a sane and rational individual making sensible choices?"

This market needs to be regulated
Click to expand...

Ew, what? Why? It's a video game in a free market.
 
$550 on average!? Ok, spending $400 on a console doesn't seem bad at all when comparing it to this, considering it's $550 for last year, not lifetime.
 
Can financeGAF tell me who is going to get hit for the stolen money? The game company or the credit card company? I would think since it all went through a credit card that they would have to return stolen money, ergo, why corporate over at GoW doesn't give two shits who spends how much since they will get to keep it in the end.
 
The average is high because of people who spend a lot. If you pick a random player, they probably spent nothing to a few tens of dollars at most.
Pretty sure most F2P do get their profits from few high-spending players as opposed to masses.
 
Gridlock said:
I'm sure there are many cases of dumbassery but I like to think the millionaire/billionaires play phone games also.

Then Again My Point Is Flawed Because They're Probably Too Busy Making MONEY To Play Phone games.
Click to expand...

Well, with mobile games you never know. That kind of money probably means the game is rid with action timers which means what eould take you hours or days of "game time" is probably just minutes of real game content.

But damn, being able to spend a million like that on a game means there's infinite ways to spend money. This shit needs regulation asap because it is obvious game studios can't self regulate if they allow people to spend like this without raising a flag.
 
Orpheum said:
550 Bucks on average??? what the hell.
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A couple of years ago I would have laughed at this but now? Nah. Mobile games are far more popular than they once were and people are willing to shell it out. When I worked for Verizon a couple of years ago some guy asked me why his bill was so high and when I checked it he had been spending about $500 a month on some fucking dragon game and putting it on his bill. 6 months in a row....I was speechless.
 
I didn't read the article but what was the scheme exactly? Did he just use a company credit card for personal stuff or was he somehow laundering the money through the mobile game?
 
I have said this many times after working in the mobile gaming industry.... Mobile gamers are the most hardcore gamers there are.


.... If your definition of hardcore comes from talking with your wallet.
 
That's pretty sad...

These F2P games are some of the scummiest things I've seen in recent memory. That said, the guy is an absolute moron for doing this, but man...it just shows you how damaging addictions can be.
 
These games are designed with pin-point precision to tap into the very unpleasant side of us which gets addicted to gambling, and then combines *that* pressure with social and community pressure as well.

F2P games like this are an abusive cancer on the industry.
 
How the hell could he buy all that stuff and didn't get flagged from the bank? I was basically doing the same job as his for a different organization and whenever there is spike in spending the card is automatically put on hold until I clear up what exactly I'm buying.
 
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