PAX East 2010: I Think Someone Made A Huge Mistake
One of the few groan inducing moments of PAX East this year came during the question and answer portion of the "Enforcement on Xbox Live: Tales from the Din Part 2" panel. After Stepto's well told look into what it happens behind the scenes of Xbox Live's rules and regulations enforcement, a young man named Justin May walked up to the mic as the first person to ask the panel a question and pleaded to be unbanned from Xbox Live. The panel showed more patience than I would have* by asking him why he was banned. Of course, this would be nice if May was banned for something accidental or unintentional, but this kid got kicked off for playing pirated game online early. [Insert groans here] Thankfully, the panel was about impressed with this excuse as the audience was and gave him a resounding "never."
Sadly, Mr. May's PAX antics didn't stop here supposedly. Deciding to take his douchey acts to the next level, May allegedly attempted to copy the source files of a game on display in the expo hall. Now I was impressed with Atomic Games' Breach as much as the next person at the show, but at no point did I ever think about whipping out my laptop and attempt to steal it. According to a spokesperson for Atomic Games told Joystiq that he copied "about 14MB [of the game] to his laptop before our staff caught him." Speaking with Joystiq, May claims that he wasn't trying to do anything illegal, but rather just trying use an ethernet cable "hanging outside their booth" to get online in the convention center. Let's pause here for a moment, folks. A self-proclaimed pirate is claiming that he plugged in his laptop to an ethernet cable just "hanging" around the middle of the expo floor to get online. Does anyone believe this guy at all? Anyways, May then took what must have been a lovely trip downtown with Boston's finest where he would spend the next four hours in jail while his modded game consoles were confiscated by police.
Think it stops here? Oh, honey, we're just getting started! In their latest update, Joystiq has learned that after May posted bail an arrest warrant was issued for him yesterday because he didn't show up in court Tuesday. Surely this isn't the last that we've heard of May and we'll be following this story for updates, but let's take a moment to review the rules for PAX that were printed on the back of every pass...
- Drugs are bad!
- Don't Steal!
- Don't punch or kick people!
- No cheating!
- Don't harass anyone!
- Don't spray paint or put stickers on stuff!
- Don't mess with things that aren't yours!
Those are words to live by, people.
*Side note to those that came to our panel and asked us questions: Thank you for the extremely thoughtful questions. I love you all!
[Breach thief jumps bails, currently playing Modern Warfare 2] Joystiq
Game-Boy
Posted to Miscellany, Video Games on 31 March 2010
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: atomic games, breach, he's doing time in jail, huge mistake, pax east 2010, why?
I was in that panel...yeah...he was a douche. I did not peg him for such a deliberate recidivist, though.
I didn't see this guy...and didn't hear about it until after PAX. Which was my first PAX and I am thoroughly happy with overall.
I didn't get to see many panels, or about 500 of the other things I wanted to do..I feel like I missed out even though I was there every day all day. There was too much to do and not enough time to do it all!
People were also amazingly friendly everywhere I went, and the whole convention had high spirits. I'm so glad something like this didn't (couldn't?) ruin it.