First reported by Dexerto, former Jagex worker Andrew “Mod Jed” Lakeman has been sentenced to 3 years in jail (suspended for 2 years) for utilizing dev instruments to take away objects from participant accounts, then promoting them on-line. An investigation discovered that Lakeman had earned greater than $400,000 by this exercise.
Former OSRS developer Mat Ok elaborated on among the saga in a 2021 episode of OSRS Podcasts. Lakeman was a content material developer for OSRS employed in 2015, and he used different Jagex worker’s credentials to control the sport’s appeals system for moderation and account restoration to swipe objects and gold from gamers’ inventories.
It is unclear when Lakeman started stealing from gamers, however in keeping with Dexerto, Jagex realized this was foul play and never a glitch in 2018, and set a entice for the digital bandit: The corporate bolstered OSRS’ safety measures with out informing a lot of the dev staff. Lakeman was caught out, fired from Jagex, and reported to the police, who arrested him in 2019.
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“Simply because it’s digital, doesn’t imply he shouldn’t face the complete pressure of the legislation,” mentioned Detective Constable Andrew McKeane in a statement for the Cambridge Constabulary. “Given the speedy progress of on-line and digital worlds, the justice system goes to should maintain tempo and adapt to those new and rising crimes.”
Again in 2022, Lakeman truly scored a minor procedural victory by an unfair dismissal counter-complaint, however his monetary reward was considerably decreased, and he was unable to safe a requested reinstatement at Jagex. Earlier this 12 months, we reported on presiding choose Lord Justice Popplewell’s ruling that Lakeman could be sued for theft over digital assets like RuneScape gold, precipitating this sentencing.
This grim saga apart, issues have been going fairly nice for Jagex and Outdated College Runescape. The corporate held its greatest dwell occasion up to now with the Deadman All Stars esports tournament in Chicago this June, and OSRS is bigger now than OG RuneScape ever was.
Hi, I’m Rishab. I’m a passionate pc gamer and an avid video game content writer. I have been involved with video games for over 2 decades now, and even today, after playing an astronomical number of games over the years, I’m still eager for more. In my free time, you will find me enjoying a hot cup of coffee and playing my favorite relaxing fishing game, Dave the Diver.
