GTA IV Robbers Get II Years in Prison

Separating a hardcore gamer from the copy of GTA IV that he waited for in a launch line?

Absolutely criminal, said a judge in Great Britain. As reported by the Leyland Guardian, Marc Hughes, 21, and Oliver Aindow, 18, not only stole their victim's copy of the game but also broke his nose and jaw.

So, were these two a couple of violence-crazed gamers who were desperate for their own GTA IV fix?

Hardly. The pair promptly sold the game for cash. As Judge Beverley Lunt told the pair in court:

By your own admission this was a pre-planned robbery. You saw that this shop was opening at midnight to sell this X-Box game. You dressed yourselves in hoods.  You deliberately used bushes as cover to stalk your victim and ambush him and for what? For an X-Box game, valued at £40 which you sold for £20.

This is extraodinarily gratuitous violence because the whole thing was conducted in silence. There was no demand for the game to be handed over. It is only at the end when he is lying bleeding, having had his jaw broken and his nose broken that you took the game from his hand.

 

Judge Lunt sentenced Hughes and Aindow to two years each.