Mafia Boss Arrested While Playing Godfather Xbox Game

from the more-fun-on-screen? dept

Tue, Nov 2nd 2010 7:33am — Mike Masnick

There have been plenty of "mafia" or "mobster" related games available these days: on gaming consoles, on mobile devices and (especially) on social networks. It kinda makes you wonder what real mobsters think of them all. Well, at least in one case, we have an idea. Glyn Moody points us to the news that Gerlandino Messina, described as "Sicily's no.2 boss," was arrested last weekend and when police showed up to take him away, he was playing The Godfather game on his Xbox. The game, of course, is based on the movie of the same name and is all about the mafia. You see, in the virtual world, you don't actually go to jail (or get shot). Seems safer.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: games, mafia

21 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 7:38am

Games as tools
Business modeling anyone?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 7:43am

and tha game was made by
another maffia....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 7:44am

i hear the game company hired him
as a beta tester
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 7:44am

I can see it now. Those brave cops surrounded his house with 30 cop cars, 10 helicopters, and a hundred guns. On their megaphone the brave cops announced, "We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up." The very dangerous and unarmed mafia boss came out with his hands up. The superhero cops arrested him.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pickle Monger (profile), 2 Nov 2010 @ 8:26am

Re:
Yes... those poor Mafia bosses... They are so unfairly maligned by the police.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 8:39am

Re: Re:
I'm not saying they don't deserve it, just that the police waste resources overreacting to minor things. I've seen Cop episode from other countries and they don't nearly overreact like the cops do in the U.S.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 8:43am

Re: Re: Re:
(and then you wonder why every city keeps complaining that they don't have enough cops. When you send your whole police force to get a cat out of a tree, what do you expect?)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 9:35am

Re:
More like the mafia boss went, "SHIT! This game is REALLY realistic! It's like I'm IN the game!" Then he continued his mission, and upon unlocking an achievement, was snapped back into reality because there's no annoying synthetic pinging noises in the real Mafia, nor are there bubble messages.

By this time, it was already too late to run, so he saved his game and stashed his hard drive so that one of his nephews wouldn't come over and delete his save file while he was in jail. I would have done the same.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
raelalt (profile), 2 Nov 2010 @ 10:23am

Overreacting US police?
Anonymous Coward:"I'm not saying they don't deserve it, just that the police waste resources overreacting to minor things. I've seen Cop episode from other countries and they don't nearly overreact like the cops do in the U.S."
.
??? This was in Sicily.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
interval (profile), 2 Nov 2010 @ 10:39am

Re: Re:
It would be uncanny if he was watching the game cops knocking down the doors and windows of his game hideout while they were actually knocking in the doors of his real hideout. Then, just like Clark Duke, the boss is playing the game in his jail cell when his lawyer come to see him; "Just a second, I've got to get ready for a court date..." and he's fingering the game controller like mad.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Danny (profile), 2 Nov 2010 @ 10:39am

Art imitates life
Finally. Inconravertable evidence that violent crime leads to video game playing!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TtfnJohn (profile), 2 Nov 2010 @ 12:12pm

Re: Re: Re:
Not only that but he's using a cracked, pirated copy of the game!

Another charge! By far the most important of the bunch!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 1:16pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
There's a big difference between a cat out of a tree and going after an actual mafia boss. It's not exactly hard to imagine them having quite a few armed people ready to defend, if need be.

A sting on a local crime boss is not, in fact, a minor thing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 1:23pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It wasn't meant to be that serious of a post. Lighten up a bit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 1:25pm

Re: Re: Re:
You know what they can do to make the game more realistic. Insert lawyers into the game.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Nov 2010 @ 1:25pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
(that would not only make the game more realistic. It would make it terrifying as well).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jose_X, 3 Nov 2010 @ 5:18am

That is correct
Crime is not as fun.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jose_X, 3 Nov 2010 @ 5:37am

Re: That is correct
Sorry to have added seriousness to the parade, but since this issue is currently up before the Supreme Court, let me clarify parent comment by saying that game playing, no matter of what, offers a release mechanism to someone that otherwise might have contemplated or "needed" more seriously the topic of the particular game play.

Of course, game play also makes it easy to get away with living in a surreal world without the risks or damages involved in trying to create a similar reality. It can be such cheap painless fun that it clearly becomes a very different thing than the reality. Of course, this is related to the psychology of people requiring the thing to truly be different enough and not *that* close as to confuse.

As someone that has shot, squashed, and even dismembered a great many things on the screen back in the days, I can say that the more games I played, possibly the more harmless I became.

What we need now is an easy way for people to digitize the image of those that bully them to place in a game where they get to beat the crep out of them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
you outghta know, 4 Nov 2010 @ 8:24am

Re:
There was no megaphone, the italian special forces combed the wall, came down, and busted down the door. And Messina WAS armed with 2 guns,but was blinded by this special light the force uses and couldn't see what was in front of him. No mafia boss comes out EVER with his hands up.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
you oughta know, 4 Nov 2010 @ 8:28am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
This is the sicilian mafia. Messina has been Italy's #2 most wanted. Very very powerful and rich man. On the run for 11 years. It was not local police that broke down his door. It was Italian special forces, specially trained for mafioso.
This is not any cat out of a tree. You obviously are ignorant to Italy/Sicily and how the mafia operates.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
you oughta know, 4 Nov 2010 @ 8:32am

Re: Re: Re:
...and you do understand this wasn't in the US. It's in Sicily. The mafia is entrenched in every hole of every wall in Sicily. It is no waste of resources for Italy to spend every dime to get these mafioso. They are special units, squadra mobili, not street cops.
[ link to this | view in thread ]