Can an MMO 'bot be an instrument of real-life crime?

A Japanese court will decide. The New Scientist is reporting that a Chinese exchange student has been arrested by police in southern Japan's Kagawa prefecture for scamming NC Soft's popular MMORPG Lineage II.

The complaint alleges that the scammer programmed a Lineage II avatar to function as an unstoppable mugger that defeated other player-controlled characters, looting their possessions as the spoils of "victory." The player controlling the 'bot would subsequently sell valuable looted items through an online auction for real world cash. Looted items included the Earring of Wisdom or the Shield of Nightmare (hey, I've been looking for one of those!)

Ren Reynolds, a games consultant who edits gaming MMO research blog Terra Nova told New Scientist, "There's an ongoing war between people who make bots and games companies. And making real money out of virtual worlds is getting bigger...Theres nothing exceptional about the virtual world. Wherever there is that sort of money, there's always crime too."

Software 'bots prosper by performing in-game tasks repetitively and very quickly, making them more than a match for human-controlled avatars. Security countermeasures used by MMO publishers includes posing chat questions to suspected 'bots or presenting them with a non-standard situation to see how they react.