The digital world of MapleStory (maybe) mourned the untimely loss of a super-deformed character with slick anime hair earlier this May, but this was no ordinary in-game death at hands of an aggro'ed monster. It would be a tale of vengeance using another person's login information, and details have recently emerged regarding what exactly happened to make this noteworthy.
A sudden "divorce" from an online "marriage" situated purely within the realms of Nexon's MMORPG MapleStory encouraged a scorned 43-year-old piano teacher in the real world (Miyazaki, Japan) to log into her divorcee's character account in May without permission and enact divine retribution. In this case, deleting the offending character from the account. Incidentally, the woman already knew the login information for her (former) online spouse's character account as a result of their time together during their digital "marriage". The account owner reported to his local police department when he discovered what had been done to his MapleStory character.
An arrest was finally made yesterday and the woman in question was detained by police. To be sure, she was technically jailed on suspicion of illegal access to another computer and the manipulation of electronic data within. Should she actually be convicted based on charges, she faces either a maximum of five years in prison, or a fine of up to $5,000 USD. We suppose it's fortunate things didn't simply come to fisticuffs between the two parties, though it's still awkward to see criminal charges potentially being laid out over the "death" of a MapleStory character, of all things. It's a case of judging the actions in the real world. It's certainly a violation of the game's user policy!
