Ohmygod. A dude in America is about to be sentenced for embezzling his company out of $US5 million ($6.67m), and the details of exactly what he spent his money on are coming out.
Kevin Lee Co embezzled the money from his employer Holt over a course of five years (from May 2008 to March 2015), when some idiot put him in charge of the company’s commercial credit account. He then abused his position to conduct hundreds of unauthorised credit card transactions, manipulate and falsify records, and mislead the bank when it called to check on the unauthorised transactions and falsified records.
And do you know what Kevin spent the $5 million? Luxury cars? Season tickets? Well, those too, but he also spent one million dollars on Game of War, a smartphone game that rose to prominence when it successfully appealed to the sweaty nerd virgin market by casting Kate Upton in all its ads.
I repeat: $1 million. On shit like ‘fake swords’ and ‘fake armour’ and other things you’d buy in a game about medieval warfare (I’m only guessing here, not being a sweaty nerd virgin myself).
In fairness, the app had the largest in-app spend of any mobile game in 2015, and has been likened to “gambling, but with no possibility of winning.”
But in not fairness, he spent more than most people make in a decade on a shitty mobile game.
Co spent the rest of his money on luxury cars, plastic surgery, membership at the exclusive Whitney Oaks Golf Club in Rocklin, California, and season tickets to see the Sacramento Kings and the San Francisco 49ers.
But he will forever be remembered as the dude who might spend 20 years in prison (he’s yet to be sentenced) because he wanted to level-up a mobile game.
Source: BBC.
Photo: Game of War.
