Dutch police are questioning a group of 17-year olds accused of stealing virtual furniture from Habbo, a virtual world much like Second Life. Habbo Hotel is most popular in Europe where teens go to socialize and even spend real money on virtual items like furniture to decorate their rooms.
Apparently, by creating fake websites pretending to be Habbo, the teens were able to steal other users’ passwords and, subsequently, steal items from their rooms. But they’re virtual items. Who cares, right? Wrong. The furniture stolen was reported to have been worth over $5,800.
According to a spokesperson from Habbo:
It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people’s usernames and passwords and then log in and take the furniture.
Over the past few years, users have been willing to pay more and more money for virtual goods that have little to no practical value(at least not in the real world). As much as I love the internet and technology, I still can’t justify spending my hard earned cash on little collections of pixels and code.
I will have are 100 habbo coins