14 DAY TRIAL // Although I don't see any reason for stealing virtual furniture, a 17-year-old boy did this and he's now arrested by the Dutch police after being accused of this illegal activity. It all happened on the Habbo Hotel platform, a service that allows registered members to create their own rooms and decorate them with virtual furniture. The furniture can be bought by the consumers with real money and as Reuters reported, the teenager caused damages of $4,000 euro. According to the same source, Sulake, the Finish company which last month announced that it has reached the 80 million registered users milestone, is currently available in 31 countries all over the world.
Besides room decorating, the Habbo clients can create their own characters and play several games with other registered members but the entire service is based on some credits available through real cash. By stealing the virtual furniture from rooms in the Habbo Hotel platform, the teenage was actually stealing real cash from the users who actually invested in the game.
"Four other 15-year-olds have also been questioned in the case, which was instigated by the Web site. They are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own online hotel rooms," Reuters reported in the articles published today.
As I said, it might sound stupid to steal virtual furniture from a web-based platform to decorate your room without investing your money. But here you go, somebody really did it and he might be forced to pay much more than he could ever invest in such an online service.
Sure, we all dreamed of a way to decorate our rooms and Habbo Hotel is a pretty nice virtual method to make our dreams come true. But from registering for a service and investing cash in it to stealing virtual goodies from other registered members, it's a long long illegal way.