From:
Sent: 15 January 2010 22:34
To: Parents Mailbox
Subject: A Parent's plea
Dear Jagex Ltd,
My son James (otherwise known as '0wn 4 Skill' in the game world) has played Runescape for many years. For the past few it has seemed that he has discovered 'Macroing' or 'autoing' which he was 'banned' for. He fully understood that it was a breach of Rule 7 and when his account was finally 'banned' in August 2009 he was completely devastated.
Now, what you don't understand is that he played this game with his every waking minute.. In rain or sun he was in his attic room playing. He was completely addicted. And then in his every sleeping minute he left his computer on.. Trying to further himself in what seemed pointless to me - But I allowed it.. Not knowing the full implications of what could happen had he become banned. Myself and my son wish to fully apologise to you for this. He has never been so sorry in his life.
James is now half the boy he used to be.. A full array of friends on Runescape kept him happy and pushing his school work to his fullest capacity. (We used to use it as a bargaining tool to him) But now he just doesn't seem to care, his school work is slowly but surely taking a turn for the worse and his recent GCSE results reflect this.
As a parent I have to do something to rectify this.. He has made many new accounts but the effort he put into '0wn 4 Skill' was massive - no new account can amount to what he did with this one. I promise that I will be sweeping his computer checking for any 'autoing' tools every night and he, himself, has promised not to do it again.
Now I have to explain the abusive comments that were left as his 'appeal'. This was in no way my son's doing. His friends came round one day and he was discussing what he should put for his 'appeal'. Cut a long story short, his friends 'sorted it' for him (as they said). Needless to say.. He is not friends with those boys anymore. It is not exactly something that is fashionable to play Runescape and I understand this now - his so called friends showed no remorse but he would not stop crying after they left.
Please Jagex, I do not ask you as person to person - I ask you as parent to parent as I'm sure most of your staff are.
Yours Sincerely,
Jennifer Bell.