I wouldn’t call myself a gamer. I don’t play too many games, or maybe I should say I don’t like many games. I play a lot, but because of the sheer quantity I need to filter through, I must be frugal. I’ve been playing the same old Counter-Strike matches for the past ten years. That being said, I don’t get many new games, and about 2 years ago I purchased my first XBox 360 from Craigslist. There was nothing strange about it, no ominous air of death or any sort of shady dealings. I met a broke kid and didn’t even haggle with him. He was polite and the whole thing took place pretty quickly on his front porch. He lived in a pretty nice part of town, but probably didn’t get hand-outs from his folks. It felt like a pretty standard trade, exactly the way you would want it to be.
There was only one slight problem. The controller he gave me didn’t work. I still got a pretty good deal on the console, but had to get a new one. I was in luck and got a pretty good price on a used one. (There’s me being frugal again…) Since I saved a few bucks, I picked up a headset and a 3 month subscription to Xbox Live. Luckily, they were both also on sale! When I got the console, he included a copy of Modern Warfare 3, so I wanted to play that online. I was pretty excited to get my game on after unlocking the “Thrifty” achievement.
I had only tried to turn the console on twice before I realized the controller was broken, so there wasn’t much I could do without a new one. There were 2 profiles left on there, so I did I system restore or format or whatever that is called. Having erased everything, I created a new profile and made an avatar that looked like me. I didn’t put much effort into it, though. After a few frustrating minutes of network configuration, I punched in the code on the prepaid card I purchased and was online for the first time. Finally, I was connected to a world of “current” gamers and excited to try the latest shooter!
I wasn’t up-to-date with modern games, but apparently my skills were. In Call of Duty, I was getting first place in nearly every match I played. It almost felt like I was cheating. Was I doing something different that no one had thought of? I started uploading videos and posting on forums. Some people would message me and invite me to join their “clan” and I felt like a mini-celebrity. One group even asked me “if it would be cool to use my strategy?” After two months, I had over 300 new “friends” just because I was good at a video game.
It started to eat into my personal time as I turned down plans to game. I broke up with my girlfriend. I considered quitting my job and took a serious cutback on hours. To account for the loss in income, I monetized my videos and had a surprisingly large influx in cash flow. I quit my job. I made more money by playing video games than I would make in any job my resume could land. In less than three months of owning an Xbox and playing this game, I had become a highly respected CoD player and a new game in the franchise was about to come out. Black Ops 2 was hitting stores in one week and I had the potential to rise up the leader boards if I jumped on it the day it came out.
I remember waiting in line at midnight. I remember running out of the mall, not starting the car, but certainly ripping the shrink-wrap with my teeth while driving home. The smell of the new disc was heavenly. I sped and should have been ticketed, but managed to pop that disc in my tray less than 15 minutes after the time printed on the receipt. There was a problem. My Gold subscription was up. No big deal. I punched in my debit card numbers and was online in a few minutes.
After 4 days and 12 hours of total sleep, I had made it to the top 50 on the player leader board for Black Ops 2. I needed some rest and took a day off from playing. This was the first time I really fiddled around with the Xbox. I had been playing Call of Duty non-stop since I discovered my skillset was perfect for that game. I signed up for Netflix, watched some shows, then connected to my Facebook. I didn’t really share my successful game-related YouTube channel with my friends, and a few people commented on the status update that said I linked to Xbox.
After watching a movie, I checked Facebook again via XBox and saw I had 30+ friend requests. Someone had recognized me from the “linked to Xbox update” and now my personal Facebook was widely known to my YouTube channel. This was slightly annoying, so I went private. The problem wasn’t really solved. I still got a lot of requests, so I made a Facebook profile for the YouTube page. After a few weeks and hitting the #10 spot on the Black Ops 2 leader boards, I had more friends on that profile than my personal one that I’ve had for as many years…
It was only a short matter of time before I was invited to a tournament and before long, I was on a cross-country flight to play for $10000 in Los Angeles. I was set to play in front of a crowd. People cheered when I walked to my station. I had been playing the damn game for 6 months of my life and I was somehow famous. An article released before the tournament called me a prodigy and titled the article something like “why I’ll win.”
Then we started. And I failed. Miserably. I played the worst I ever had. Total loser, I placed dead last by a long shot. “I choked under pressure,” they said in video commentaries. As quickly as I had risen to e-success, it was all gone. The fame. The fans. The viewers. The money. I didn’t change anything about the way I released videos or played, but no one wanted to watch them anymore. I even ranked up to #7 on the leader boards, but it didn’t matter. The dream was over.
I needed to get back to reality. I needed to get a new job and re-boot my life. I did so pretty quickly, and just like that, my short-lived life as a celebrity gamer was over. My new job was in the same field as my old, but at an office with a lot of younger folks. They would talk about Call of Duty and I wouldn’t say a word. Little did they know, they had probably watched some of my videos before - unbeknownst one of the game’s best players worked in an office down the hall. Or was I?
The console that had brought me fame sat beneath my giant TV that I purchased with the ad money from Youtube gathering dust. I would occasionally use it for Netflix, but for the most part, I was done. I wasn’t a gamer anymore. It was fun, but it was over. I even used a different account for Netflix so my old “friends” wouldn’t message me and ask to play. Frankly, I never recovered from the failure at the tournament.
Despite not playing anymore, it always bothered me how the huge disappointment in the tournament occurred. I didn’t change my strategies for the tournament at all. In some ways, playing in the tournament felt unnatural. It wasn’t the same as playing at home. Perhaps that’s just it, I thought. I’m sure some gamers who smoke would do better at a tourney if they had a cigarette in their mouth. Despite this, I still should have done alright - but I didn’t. I was #7 in the world but #40 in a tournament of forty people.
Time went on as I led my normal life, but then, on November 22 of last year, things changed. It was a Friday, which I had off, and slept in to the sound of someone at my door. It was FedEx with a large package. I signed and accepted because sure why not. I was suspicious, but opened it to find a brand new XBox One and a copy of Call of Duty: Ghosts. It was from Amazon. I didn’t order it.
I checked all of my bank statements, my Paypal, my Amazon account and anything I could think would have proof of this purchase. Maybe I pre-ordered during my gaming fame? Nope. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I’m not sure why I thought it would explain anything, but I booted up the 360 and logged into my former XBox Live account. There were a bunch of friend requests and messages from fans, but nothing seemed out of place. Then I received a system message. It asked me if I would like to link my account to my XBox One. This was a little strange, as I hadn’t unboxed the thing yet.
I powered down and set up the XBox One. I logged into my account. It asked me a similar message to the one I saw on 360, but seeing it here made more sense. I had my profile available on the new console and thought I would check out the new game. After all, it was Friday, I had nothing to do. My Call of Duty Elite profile carried over some stats from the two other games I played, but it looked a little suspicious. These results said I was the #4 player in the world for Black Ops 2. How could I have gone up the ladder while not playing for months?
I checked my YouTube channel. It was full of new videos I didn’t post, but in the vain of ones I would. Was someone using my account and keeping up with my gameplay? Even the gamer tag in the videos was mine. It was my account. Was I Jekyll and Hyde? Was something broken in my brain? Did the loss of that tournament cause me to divide my own life in two different worlds? No. I am sane. This is absurd.
Someone was using my XBox Live account and recording videos to my YouTube as if they were me. On top of that craziness, my bank account routing information had been changed. I was still getting a cut from ad revenue, but not nearly what I should have been. Some of the new videos have more views than my best ones. Not only did they take my money, they made it seem as if I was still getting some - just not much.
The passwords were still the same, but my e-mail was no longer associated with either account. I hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t getting billed for XBox live. I guess I had thought the service lapsed. However, my account was active and paid in full for the next 9 months. I contacted YouTube to discuss what happened and they suggested I find a lawyer. This whole situation was not what I expected to get myself into after starting the day with a random new game console showing up at my door for free. I guess it wasn’t free.
After some investigation, I found that the ad revenue from the videos I didn’t know about was put into a savings account that I also didn’t know about. It was my own account, associated with the checking account I normally use. I never set it up, but it’s in my name at my bank. It has more money in it than I have ever seen or made in my entire life. Every day, there are deposits for thousands, sometimes over ten thousand dollars.
The amounts in no way match the profit from YouTube. That’s maybe one or two percent. At this point, I had no idea where the rest was coming from. During my game fame, I alienated a lot of my close friends and didn’t have anyone to really confide in. This was all hitting me pretty hard. I was so confused. I broke down and started crying.
Then the XBox One made a noise. It was a faint beep, but the tone was so consoling. It made me stop crying and I didn’t know why. Nothing at all was making sense. I looked at the Kinect sitting in front of my TV and said to it, “XBox, what is going on?” It didn’t do anything. Part of my was actually convinced it would answer. Suddenly, a new message notification appeared on screen. I checked to find a message with the sender field blank. It was a list of 50+ bank accounts and their web login credentials.
I checked them and they seemed to match up with the amounts in my newly discovered savings, but I still had no idea where the money was coming from. I turned my head to look at the Kinect. “XBox, where is all this money coming from?” Again, nothing happened, but after a few moments I received another similar message. This was a listing of other websites and login credentials. The list included brokerage websites, bitcoin wallets, online casinos, poker sites, and even adult webcams.
I logged into the accounts to see even more unaccounted for amounts in each of the respective accounts, including six-figure balance in one of the casinos. I felt like any minute the police were going to kick down my door and I still wouldn’t understand how. Yet again, I turned to Kinect. “XBox, how?” I asked hesitantly. There was another brief pause and another new message. I didn’t understand this one, though. It was garbled machine code and looked like the results of opening an image with a text editor.
Going through the list of websites again, I found one that was certainly the most strange. It was an accountancy firm with the same last name as me. I logged in to that account and the website greeted me as the company’s CEO. The inbox and outbox were both full of messages running the company. They were all signed with my name.
I called the number that was listed in the site’s “About Us” section to reach a soft-spoken, young secretary. I told her I was a doctor, needing to speak to the CEO about his mother. She asked his mother’s name and I told her my mother’s name. She told me to wait a moment and put me on hold. An incoming call notice sounded on my phone, but I ignored it. She returned to tell me he was unavailable and asked if I wanted to leave a message. I told her it was urgent and she read me his cell phone number. Rather, she read me my cell phone number. I thanked her and hung up.
At this point, I was convinced that I was crazy. I looked at the Kinect as I had done before for answers, saying “XBox, am I crazy?” After the usual wait, a message popped up as the others had, only saying “No.” Then what was it? Where was this secret life coming from? Who was doing this? Had this computer taken on a life of its own? It’s the only thing that made sense. Grasping at my hair now, struggling for sanity, I looked into the Kinect like I was begging for mercy to whisper “Xbox, stop.”
None of those accounts or passwords work anymore, and all of the videos I didn’t upload on my YouTube channel are gone. The money is no longer in my savings account and the bank tells me I never had one. I think I could have been rich, but I chose and preferred to be sane. I sold that XBox One from my front porch just how I bought the first one. I hope one of you frugal gamers out there got a good deal. It was like new, and only used for one day…
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Credits to: postbroadcast
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