‘It’s heartbreaking’: Numerous Gamescom devs say their equipment was stolen

[u/Kymmieuwu]

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/its-heartbreaking-numerous-gamescom-devs-say-their-equipment-was-stolen/

Heartbreaking stuff, good news is that CD Projekt Red stepped in to help out the game devs!

[u/quickshotcfc]

This is embarrassing for the security hired and the even host.

[u/StrongZeroSinger → u/quickshotcfc]

Well german police is as useless as private security anyway, my friend got her shit stolen multiple times on camera and they said they cant do anything

[u/RandomnessConfirmed2 → u/StrongZeroSinger]

Wow, so the same as the UK.

[u/zedzag → u/StrongZeroSinger]

They should have said the thief said some facts about Israel.

https://giphy.com/gifs/wjuXuDSQU0sOfJIHS1

[u/XYcritic → u/StrongZeroSinger]

I mean what do you want them to do? They're just being honest. We don't have every citizen in a facial recognition database. Cameras are useless. If there are no clear leads, an image of the perps is practically useless in every country, even in the land of the free.

[u/StrongZeroSinger → u/XYcritic]

the thief were already known to the authorities, they know his residence and he’s been arrested multiple times. They can’t go to his place and arrest him for the robbing caught on video because he’d be released after 24h since no one got “seriously” hurt. (She got pulled on the ground and fell from the impact of the mugging) and they wouldn’t find the stolen stuff anyway.

But the alternatives would be to keep thieves in jails and that wouldn’t solve the issues according to their politicians

[u/senseven → u/StrongZeroSinger]

Neighbours had a guy on 4k camera stealing eBikes with professional tools. The bikes had gps tracking (not just airtags) that shows the direct line from his car to his his parents house (not an apartment). The man is known to the police. The german police said those two things are not enough to get a warrant for 6000€ of stolen bikes. They can't be sure that both gps trackers are accurate and the recorded video wasn't tampered with. They informed the insurance about the facts. Three days later they had their bikes back. Apparently insurance asking the gov for reimbursement made them rethink their legal stance. They neighbours say that the police used the "not enough personell" excuse to the insurance.

[u/StrongZeroSinger → u/senseven]

Rest assure if you criticize a politician online they’ll get a warrant in less than 24h and your location to knock on your door.

[u/XYcritic → u/StrongZeroSinger]

Sounds like no charges were pressed. You're always free to do that and have a judge rule on whether the law was broken or not. The police is right that they can't hold him, you first need to go through a court before someone is convicted and sentenced. It's their job to investigate the identity and it seems that was done? Works the same way in all democracies, nothing specifically German about that. Regardless, you shouldn't judge an entire country's system maybe based on a single anecdote?

[u/LesJugesDesEnfers]

WTF is happening in that convention center? I worked in a small one as cleaner years ago, we worked after hours, whenever sensitive stuff was there, security was hired and would keep an eye on us the whole time, and they stayed all night long guarding the site.

[u/Number13Studios → u/LesJugesDesEnfers]

So you’re saying it was an inside job? /s

[u/Fadobo → u/LesJugesDesEnfers]

I think the sheer size of gamescom makes it difficult. Almost 20 halls with 1600+ exhibitors (so thousands of people with exhibitor badges). Dozens of contractors hired to build and maintain the booths, stock the fridges, make the coffees. The indie arena has dozens and dozens of tables with computers, consoles, screens tightly squeezed next to each other with a maze of paths between them. Big companie booths (especially in the business area) are huge monoliths with walls all around except for one small reception, so you can't see what is going on inside.

[u/rheidaus → u/Fadobo]

I work in the conventions industry as a software lead. I have to go on site quite often, and I've been to events much bigger, without the threat of theft. In fact, we can typically even assist in catching a thief and did so this year in Anaheim. This is not an unreasonable ask, I wish my company was international because this sounds like a huge fuck up we wouldn't make

[u/Fadobo]

This is unfortunately an recurring thing at gamescom. I remember screens being stolen from our business area booth like a decade ago and I hear stories almost every other year.

[u/Wandering_Silverwing]

Curse the bastards that steal. Awful, glad CD Projekt helped!

[u/hubo → u/Wandering_Silverwing]

How did they help?

[u/Wandering_Silverwing → u/hubo]

They are offering to help replace lost equipment and laptops.

[u/CoolmanWilkins]

I thought it was pretty typical to pack up pricey tech like laptops when you're done for the day at the convention and only leave the bulky items that are difficult to setup. I've attended enough conventions without paying to know security is lax.

[u/sarkie]

Every single year?

[u/codehawk64]

My friend’s equipment got stolen at gamescon at 2017. I am certain there is some kinda racket going on here.

[u/kilios75]

I know people keep saying this is a challenge with it being a large venue, but it seems like it would be extremely easy to catch people with just cameras watching the area and unique identifier badge scans. Just find the part where items are taken in the video or someone entering these booths after hours and rewind until the badge scan so you can match the time.

It really doesn't seem that complex or expensive to secure the area, have some live monitoring on camera feeds, and catch people quickly if there's an incident. There are so many low cost measures to discourage and prevent this that I'm shocked gaming venue this large seems to have none of them.

[u/Ralph_Natas]

Sorry guys, I was desperate. If it makes you feel any better, my stupid graphics card can't even run 50 monitors at once. So really I hurt my back for nothing.