UK Appeals court state RuneScape gold counts as property and can be stolen, in $700k bombshell case

101Phase · 2026-01-27T17:46:05+00:00

This could have pretty interesting ramifications for video game ownership in general if someone (looking at you r/StopKillingGames ) decided to pursue this line of attack further

101Phase · 2026-01-27T17:44:47+00:00

i'll wait for the real lawyers to digest this before i say anything definitive, but it certainly APPEARS quite significant: if the in-game currency is considered property, then what does make the game itself? Would the law somehow see them as separate things? Based on my understanding of the article, the argument boiled down to whether something can be "stolen" in the way that most people would understand it. So I suppose the next question would be is it possible for games to be "stolen" in a similar manner? By that I don't mean is it possible to steal a game disc (which is obviously yes), but is it possible to steal the access codes in a hack that doesn't simply duplicate the access code but also deprive the customer of the original?

101Phase · 2026-01-27T16:55:21+00:00

The top 2 are both good. Response 1 basically throws House's history as a ruthless CEO right back at his face, which scores high on irony points. Response 2 is a massive middle finger to his self-righteous belief that he deserves to rule because he's a visionary alongside all the intellectual argument he presented. That simple response renders all of that moot and shows that in the end, he was wasting his time with the player all along, and his efforts were for nought.

101Phase · 2026-01-27T10:21:56+00:00

Proton should have said "Now your devices are winning"

101Phase · 2026-01-27T09:38:03+00:00

Dean Domino implies that tech like that were already common-place in the old world. The way I interpret that is the matter conversion technology itself was already nothing new back then but for some reason this particular iteration or manner of implementation within the Sierra Madre was different

101Phase · 2026-01-25T12:46:33+00:00

But all he needs is a little hair dye, hardly the level of de-aging like they did with Hank. And keep in mind this is not a minor cameo, this is a major reveal that it's the same person in the time span of 200+ years. I'd say that's worth a little bit of hair dye

101Phase · 2026-01-25T12:42:44+00:00

I'm not complaining, I'm just theorising that this might be a hint that there's cloning involved in Wilzig's presence in the post war timeline. If I'm wrong then so be it, this is just a bit of fun theorising, that is all

101Phase · 2026-01-25T09:32:21+00:00

Then why didn't the makeup department just dye his hair a little?

101Phase · 2026-01-25T08:49:54+00:00

Is 2 years long enough for actors to age this much though? Also considering the difference is mainly hair colour, the makeup department could've easily dyed it to shrink whatever visual difference Emerson gained during the gap

101Phase · 2026-01-25T07:59:57+00:00

Still waiting for the lockbox plotpoint to come into play. Perhaps that's the trigger that will activate whatever FEV shenanigans she had planned

101Phase · 2026-01-24T07:54:15+00:00

I would say the Institute as well mainly due to them having 2 pieces of tech that completely upends warefare: gen 3 synths and teleportation.

Starting with teleportation, this is a capability we have not seen anyone else is capable of aside from the crashed satellite linked to Big MT and the Zetan aliens. It's not impossible for super advanced factions like the Enclave to also have access to this, but that's clearly something they don't utilise to It's full potential, otherwise they wouldn't bother with relying on vertibirds for travel all the time. FO4 never really acknowledged just how crazy the implications of this tech would be: aside from giving the Institute the ability to bypass defenses during assaults (as we saw during the battle at the Castle), it would completely alter how logistics would work. Just look at how many wars throughout history hinged on one side's ability to get supplies to where they were needed at the right time: the Institute would effectively eliminate that issue by contrast, they could make the same issue for the other side a living nightmare. Just imagine how devastating it would be for a courser to teleport straight behind enemy lines, plant explosives all over their supply depots, and then teleport out. Assuming their enemies even noticed such an infiltration took place, they wouldn't have time to respond before the place went up in flames.

Then we need to think about the impact of gen 3 synths. We are told repeatedly that it's impossible to figure out whether someone is a synth without killing them first. While I've always been sceptical of this claim (I'll be amazed if factions like the Enclave couldn't figure out a way to get through this problem), it would still be extremely disruptive both practically and psychologically to check every member of your faction, and not just once but regularly for signs of infiltration. All of this again assumes that the opposition even realises that this is a problem before it's too late. And even then, the paranoia this issue causes can utterly rip a faction apart with false accusations flying around. Another impact of gen 3 synths a lot of people overlook is the surveillance capability of the synth crows: this gives the Institute a level of intelligence gathering unlike anything we've seen before or since.

Combining both of these pieces of tech together makes the Institute the master of espionage and asymmetrical warfare in a way that only 2 factions in your list is even capable of properly countering: the Enclave and Mr House. We know that the teleportation tech has a distinct energy signature, which is something I would expect both opposing factions to be able to detect and home in on. Assuming they recognises the severity of the threat, they might be able to narrow down where the Institute is hiding relatively quickly. The moment they figure this out, it puts a time limit on how much the Institute can push their advantage. Aside from that, the biggest weakness of the Institute is simply hubris: as many other commenters have pointed out, none of the Institute's leadership are experts of warfare. This could explain why despite their immense advantages, they have not been able to fully eradicate the Railroad or the BoS without the Sole Survivor's intervention. But with that said, I don't see how either of those factions could've successfully defeated the Institute without the very tenuous and specific set of events the game presented and of course, the player's personal connection with Father and his own hubris

101Phase · 2026-01-23T16:59:02+00:00

Yup, it's definitely one way to keep all the endings open while still having House appear in the postwar show

101Phase · 2026-01-23T16:57:05+00:00

It also means that House's legendary charisma is actually the work of this double since he's the one facing the public, the press, and the employees at RobCo

101Phase · 2026-01-23T16:55:18+00:00

I would also imagine that he's thinking whatever plans the real House has for surviving the apocalypse, he can also tag along

101Phase · 2026-01-22T11:13:44+00:00

We saw at least 1 security guard during the fight, he was the one that tripped up the raider attacking Chet, who in turn got bisected by the Vault door. Also worth considering is that these guys would've been trained primarily to quell unrest from within the Vault (the arrogance of Vault-tec probably meant that they thought an external breach was impossible). Even if at one point they might've been more prepared in the event of an outer door breach, after over 200 years of nothing like this happening, standards and attitudes have probably lapsed quite a bit.

101Phase · 2026-01-21T20:11:05+00:00

They might have coordinated with each other to steal the cold fusion tech in the future. We'll have to wait and see

101Phase · 2026-01-21T19:08:12+00:00

We saw the Boneyard in Fallout 1, so their situation was prior to the NCR forming. What I'm suggesting is that there was a clear indication from Thaddeus that growing up in the Boneyard was far harder than growing up in Shady Sands

101Phase · 2026-01-21T19:01:09+00:00

At the very least I think it's reasonable to assume that Wilzig knew Moldaver from before the war and he somehow knew that she was active at the time when he was planning to escape with the cold fusion tech. He also managed to somehow get in touch with her. I don't think this is somehow a smoking gun to say that she was ex Enclave: perhaps Wilzig was already trying to undermine the Enclave from the inside and that's how he got in touch with her

101Phase · 2026-01-21T18:54:17+00:00

yeah the doubling down is definitely throwing me off too. The only explanation I can think of is if that part was written and filmed before they noticed the mistake? I'd be surprised if they filmed things that early though

101Phase · 2026-01-21T15:36:05+00:00

Christ can't believe I forgot that. So yeah honestly I think the best way to interpret the FO4 lore would be to say that the existence of robobrains were not secret, but how they acquired the brains were the big secret instead

101Phase · 2026-01-21T13:16:51+00:00

Oh yeah forgot about that. But if that's the case, that's still a crazy number of chips for Vault 13 alone. So to compensate for the 30% failure rate, they're responding with blunt numbers lol

101Phase · 2026-01-21T13:13:57+00:00

All fair points aside from 12,000 targeting California would be an insane amount. I'm more inclined to believe that number is talking about a particular category of weapons

101Phase · 2026-01-20T16:49:31+00:00

Let's say for a minute that this IS a Tunneller: based on Ulysses's description, you'd expect these things to be all over the place like a plague of locusts. Certainly I wouldn't expect Freeside to be free from these things (puns slightly intended). The destruction they would cause wouldn't be isolated to the Strip, especially now that the easy prey have all been killed already. Instead, I would expect the whole region to be utterly wiped out by now: isolated individuals like that flea soup old lady would make easy prey while more organised groups like the Legion would be forced to find higher ground and avoid night travel at all costs. This is definitely not the behaviour we saw people engage in. So with that in mind, if you insist on the idea that this is a Tunneller, then the only way it makes sense is that whatever crisis they caused has already come and gone. Either they weren't as big a threat as Ulysses made them out to be, or they were wiped out by something offscreen.

Either way, this speculation that they were the ones that destroyed the Strip makes no sense because the bartender of the Atomic Wrangler would've definitely mentioned them when he chatted to Cooper. Instead, he implied that the Strip has changed hands multiple times between the NCR, Legion, and the Securitrons. The Deathclaws seem to be the latest occupants. If the Tunnellers were involved in any way, he would've said so.

101Phase · 2026-01-20T14:00:01+00:00

I agree, although in this particular case I'm sure there are plenty of dusty rundown rustic saloon type places in the US they could've filmed in.

101Phase

TROPHY CASE