# Man steals family fortune in gold to buy MMO in-game items, claims robbery **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 7, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688 "2012-08-07T02:36:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/1 "2012-08-07T02:36:10Z")
Something tells me this guy needs to cut back on his gaming. > [@](#): > > A Chinese man in the northern Shandong province of China sold off 38 kilograms worth of gold bars to fund his online gaming habit. In order to explain why the family fortune was suddenly missing, he went to the police to report that he was robbed. > > Midday on July 30th, the man, surnamed Yan, reported to police that he had been robbed of 6 million yuan ($941,706 US) worth of gold. > > \ > > Yan is currently in jail awaiting judgment on his crimes of both stealing and filing a false police report. It would be kind of ironic if he ended up being used as an [imprisoned gold farmer](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam). ---
**Author:** ![buckgully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb9ed0/32.png) [@buckgully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buckgully)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/2 "2012-08-07T04:18:26Z")
I’m kind of wondering if ‘on-line gaming’ in this context has less to do with mighty kings and spell tomes and more to do with royal flushes and bookies. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/3 "2012-08-07T05:20:28Z")
Oops, I forgot a [link](http://kotaku.com/5932064/man-sells-family-fortune-to-play-mmo-then-claims-he-was-robbed) to the story. He was apparently trying to get a set of “legendary” equipment for an MMO. In the more grindy MMOs those can be very, very difficult to get; to quote a poster on on another forum: [QUOTE=Gecko4lif] I have a legendary set in aika that took about 6 months to grind out. Using 200 people. 288,000 man hours. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/4 "2012-08-07T06:39:48Z")
I’m more than a little disturbed that he spent the money **trying** to buy legendary equipment, assuming Kotaku is implying that despite spending almost a million bucks he didn’t succeed in getting it. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/5 "2012-08-07T06:49:16Z")
Jesus Fucking Christ! What ever happened to hookers and blow?! God-Damn kids these days have no idea how to lose a mil :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/6 "2012-08-07T08:16:23Z")
Me, I’m kinda floored that anybody could have 38 kilos of gold bullion just sitting around the house. Don’t they have banks in China to [del]steal[/del]invest that kind of money ? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/7 "2012-08-07T08:25:25Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Me, I’m kinda floored that anybody could have 38 kilos of gold bullion just sitting around the house. Don’t they have banks in China to [del]steal[/del]invest that kind of money ? China is **swimming** in gold. It’s the only place in the world with the correct type of soil to farm it. ---
**Author:** ![misling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@misling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misling)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/8 "2012-08-08T21:04:11Z")
One of the android games I play, you can spend real money to buy ‘treasure chests’ which have game stuff in them. You have a CHANCE of getting some of the otherwise unavailable cool stuff. From what I can gather off the forums, it’s about a 1% chance of rare stuff, each buy. Usually you get more common stuff. Which is why I’ve never bought one. But visiting other people’s game pages, I see people with several of the rare items. They must have spent hundreds, easily, to get them. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/9 "2012-08-08T21:09:20Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Me, I’m kinda floored that anybody could have 38 kilos of gold bullion just sitting around the house. Don’t they have banks in China to [del]steal[/del]invest that kind of money ? The Chinese like gold a lot, both the Chinese government and Chinese people buy a lot of gold. It’s one partial reason why the price of gold, while fluctuating, has remained so consistently high in the past few years. If not for the newly wealthy in Chinese buying so much of it, most likely its price now would be substantially lower. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/man-steals-family-fortune-in-gold-to-buy-mmo-in-game-items-claims-robbery/630688/10 "2012-08-09T04:54:43Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Me, I’m kinda floored that anybody could have 38 kilos of gold bullion just sitting around the house. Don’t they have banks in China to [del]steal[/del]invest that kind of money ? They don’t trust the banks and they save enough to make ants feel like grasshoppers.