Man steals four million USD, spends one million on Game of War

A 45 year old man in California has pleaded guilty to stealing $4.8 million US dollars from his employer, and around one million dollars was spent on the mobile game/app Game of War, the biggest online strategy title for the platform. The game is a freemium app, meaning you can download it for free but then optionally spend real money on additional gold and credits to faster build your empire (else you'll have to spend a lot of time to progress).

The man worked as an accountant for the company Holt, and spent almost seven years fraudulently using the company's credit card "to buy luxury cars, as well as season tickets to NFL team the San Francisco 49ers, and basketball team the Sacramento Kings", according to the BBC.

The player's account name and his empire's status haven't emerged yet, but his sentence will be delivered in May 2017.

However, it seems you don't need to have all that spare money to easily spend significant amounts on the game, as the same source estimates the average expense per player was about $550 for the last year. Game of War is thus the highest grossing mobile app, and gets the cash required to produce expensive ads involving the Superbowl and stars such as Kate Upton and Mariah Carey.

Beyond the fraud and the crazy amounts spent on the mobile game, the news brings back the debate on whether there should be regulation on these business practises, as it's not the first case of out-of-control spending, nor the second... and it certainly won't be the last. Have you spent a lot on it?