Heroes of the Storm players reported an intruder, throwing threats in the game chat

A Heroes of the Storm player has been arrested and charged because of making terrorist menaces in the in-game chat of one of Blizzard’s MOBA. Several days ago 26-year-old Michael Mickowski, Las Vegas, Nevada, was arrested after throwing threats in HotS’s chat, where he was reported by other players and later handed by Blizzard to the Las Vegas police, who were able to find Mickowski using the his IP address provided by Blizzard as well. Company’s games recently not doing too well, look at World of Warcraft dynamics for example – 30% decrease in playerbase.

The arrest report says, the messages that caused Blizzard to take such actions included, “Someday, when I have enough money to buy a gun and some ammunition I will shoot up a school where I live,” and “Imagine if I decided to go to an elementary school too. Instead of a high school or middle school imagine. I’ll buy a gun and shoot everyone I can. I’ll stream it on twitch.”

Despite Deputy Public Defender Belinda Harris asserted on Mickowski’s behalf that those messages were “kind of the nature of the video game,” Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melanie Tobiasson quite rightly responded with “If you’re in a game with a bunch of people who play these games on the regular, and they’re reporting it, then obviously it rises to a level far beyond what is normal for the game play.” In aftermaths, Mickowski is in custody with bail set at $150,000 and with a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 25th. We’re glad for him.