Japanese Police Arrest 36-Year-Old Man on Suspicion of Tampering With Pokémon Violet Save Data - IGN
www.ign.com
Police in Japan have arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of selling illegally modified Pokémon save data to customers online — a practice which is banned under the country’s 2019 Unfair Competition Prevention Act.

This dude was selling Pokemans with modified move sets for up to $80 a pop and could now face up to 5 years in prison.

Is this not insane? Or do you think he could face a much less severe sentence and the 5 years prison and $30k just the upper limit for this particular set of crime?

  • loathesome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlM
    ·
    3 months ago

    It's just a strange situation overall. If you consider a player who meets the following criteria:

    • plays pokemon violet
    • is desperate to cheat in it
    • yet does not have the technical knowhow to do it themselves
    • is desperate enough to pay for it
    • know where to pay for it as a service

    The overlap according to my intuition at least feels incredibly small. Especially considering that you need either an emulator or a hacked and possibly modded Switch to make use of it.

    Yet this guy was committing this """crime""" in enough volume to warrant an arrest. It's just difficult to wrap the head around.

    I am guessing it was a situation sinilar to what mobile game companies call "whales" where a few players spend an inordinate amount of money for reasons incomprehensible to most people.

    • 7bicycles [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      Yet this guy was committing this """crime""" in enough volume to warrant an arrest. It's just difficult to wrap the head around.

      I think occams razor here says laws in japan are just fucked up

    • taiphlosion@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      3 months ago

      If you're that desperate enough to cheat in a game that you're willing to spend money on it I think there's a much deeper issue there

      • Flyberius [comrade/them]
        ·
        3 months ago

        People can spend their money on what they want. The issue here really isn't people paying for Pokémon hacks. It's that the Japanese courts are sending people to jail over selling them.

        What do you think the deeper issue here actually is? Disrespecting Pokémon?