Officer, Arrest That Avatar!

An article last year by Honolulu's KITV introduced their readers to how gamers cash in characters and assets for real world dollars. This is not a big surprise to readers of this blog, but what interested me was a short mention at the end regarding South Korea's real-world police units that investigate video game related thefts and *murders.* In a country that claims 17 million "gamers" out of a population of 48 million, they may be writing the book on how to investigate and prosecute these kinds of crimes - a book which may soon become reference material for similar police units in the US and elsewhere. What happens when the crime takes place strictly in a virtual world - e.g. how is evidence of the crime (such as theft of an item) collected and preserved? Will virtual criminals step up their tactics to crashing servers or erasing game files to hide their nefarious deeds? Will players form their own "citezens watch" or private investigator services? Stay tuned to the internet to find out...