Starting in 2017, I tried several games from GameLoft, the French video game giant, but most of them just didn't appeal to me - either they had really long load times and short play times, I didn't like the game, or I just wasn't good at it. That's true of a lot of games, though.

Then, in late 2017, I installed Dungeon Hunter 5 on my iPad. It sucked - it was full of glitches, so I gave up and replaced it with Dungeon Hunter 4. My son tried to install DH5 on his iPad and had the same problem. I heard from many players in DH4 that they'd tried DH5 and gave up because of the glitches. Over the ensuing months, I built up my sentinel (a type of archer) to over level 100, and this was despite a fair number of glitches that GL apparently didn't see fit to fix (probably because of DH5 and its glitches!).

Then certain things happened in the game that caused me to stop playing. Here's the critical one.

Pedophilic Satanist

My 12-year-old daughter decided to join the game. She'd found it boring, however, and tended to spend a lot of time in chat. She was befriended and defended by certain other players and one player, F^|L3NK!NG666 (Fallen King 666, meaning Satan), in particular, who claimed to be a 17-year-old in Georgia, got a lot of her attention. The conversation moved from DH4 into Google Hangouts and Gmail. In January 2018, not long after her birthday, I made the shocking discovery that this person, who proclaimed himself a Satanist, was making inappropriate advances on her. My daughter, having gone through a great deal of trauma over the previous few years and was socially shy, was very vulnerable. Initially, she resisted his advances but he was persistent and she started to respond. By January, they had exchanged photos and virtual kisses and more was happening. Here's a sample of some of the things he'd written to her!

Kiss ur lips slower and harder and stroke my fingers down ur back......roll u on top look up at u, I love u jazzy8>

Kiss ur lips again and again and again slow asf with my tongue
Jazzy......I noticed how u changed from when I first met u. Bc at first u wanted me no u act like u don't. Y deny it now just go with it plz jazzy kiss ur neck for me ur Senpai8>

This won't happen every day baby this is just our rn moment. What r u afraid of kitten, kiss u softly I'll take it slow with u.

It's ok as long as we talk an make out before u go ;)

Just come here jazzy pull u close to me and kiss u super softly 8>

Spank ur butt super hard squeeze it and then kiss ur lips with my tongue harder and harder......I'll make u;)

U better share with ur Senpai or I'll do bad things to u lol I'll tease u kitten

Pick u up and wrap ur legs around my waist while kissing ur neck slowly licking it up and down.

Pin u against the wall and kiss ur neck softly so u won't share with ur Senpai? Hmmmm holds ur waist gently

Spank ur butt***

Bite ur ear a litle harder u better share with me......or I'll punish u bad smile at u

Spank ur ass oh I will make u alright kitten

Bite ur ear softly as a punishment share with ur Senpai

Yes baby hold u from behind u will share with me right:) kiss ur ear softly

But we still can make out right my little kitten:) rub noses with u

And many more, including on Hangouts, such as: "Let's sleep together baby"

Even before I'd seen this, I had tried to warn her about Satanists, serial killers and pedophiles, but she remained oblivious, so I clamped down because it was clear that he was grooming her in the way that Satanists and pedophiles do. There was no way I could allow that to continue!

I tracked his IP and determined he was in a completely different state (Kansas) from his claim, but I could find no evidence of a family named Samuels at that location. The photo appeared nowhere else on the Internet, which made me wonder if the photo was really him, too, but I found his name: Andrey Samuels. I even found him on Facebook.

Andrey was unrepentant and mocking in DH4's chat. Among the actions I took, I contacted GameLoft via email on 2/2/18 and asked for their help against this person. I told them, briefly, about the problem. I wrote a detailed explanation on Facebook.

An automated confirmation arrived at 11:57 AM. They wrote back at 4:03 PM and asked for more details, and screenshots.

Please understand, DH4 has a short chat buffer which isn't preserved if you close the game, and the chats had been on my daughter's tablet so there was no way to get those. After I found out what was going on, she denied it completely and deleted all records, so I had no proof.

22 minutes later, I referred GameLoft to my Facebook statement, which included photos of him, and asked again for their help. I reminded them about the chat not being saved and asked them to look on their servers for evidence.

Two weeks passed with not a word from them.

I wrote again on 2/15/18 at 7:57 AM. Here's the exchange.

It has now been almost 2 weeks since I sent you the link to my Facebook post about his problem.  You have not responded, you have not removed that pedophile from your game.  I consider this bordering on supporting pedophiles and Satanists.  You have servers, you have backups, and yet you make it almost impossible for a concerned parent to be able to do anything.  If this is your MO, then you are not a company that deserves to exist.

TWELVE days later, 2/27/18 at 8:24 AM, I got this response.

Thank you for your reply

In order to take actions against a player, we need a proof that he used bad language or prohibited actions in the game.

We will consider screenshots as a valid proof.

If the communication you reported happened outside of the game, you might want to notify the authorities.
Best regards, 
-------------------------------
Dimitar

There was no explanation as to why I had to wait almost a month for a follow-up. I wrote back immediately.

Hello Dimitar,

How am I supposed to provide screenshots for something that happened without my knowledge, until well after it occurred?  When a pedophile operates, they don't immediately leap to the action of directly actionable behavior.  Research how pedophiles groom, and you will understand.  Research Satanists, which Andrey Samuels publicly admitted to being, and you will see that this individual is a multi-faceted threat.

I have already reported this matter to Gmail, as well as local and county police.  Their responses have been just as unsatisfying as yours.

Just remember that I warned your company about that scumbag.  When things go wrong for other children, I'll lead the march against Game Loft.

Their response came almost immediately.

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, there we cannot mute or ban a player without a proof of illegal actions.

Thank you for your understanding.

As you can imagine, I was not happy.

It is easy to avoid responsibility when you provide no way for users to record such matters after the fact.

They clearly didn't care.

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your point of view.
We value each comment that comes our way, be it positive or negative.

I assure you that your comment has been duly noted, however, and will be passed on to the development team directly.

Thank you for your interest in our games.

Sincerely,
-------------------------------
Ekaterina

To be fair, Gmail didn't want to do anything, nor did the county and city police, because she had deleted the evidence (although I'm quite sure Gmail could've accessed the backups of her account and his).

I locked down her Internet access as much as possible to keep the creep away from her. After that, I deleted my GameLoft games.

GameLoft Doesn't Care about You, They ONLY Want Your Money

A year later, my son got me to reinstall DH4 so we could play together. He really just wanted a shared activity. It didn't take very long for him to get bored, but that's not the point.

That's when I discovered more proof of how little GameLoft cares about its users. Our characters had been deleted. But it wasn't just ours - EVERYONE had had their characters deleted, even the people who'd spent a lot of money and years playing the game. There hadn't been a notification via email, in the game or on their website. There hadn't been a press release. I could find NOTHING to explain it.

After a month or so, they turned off the chat rooms, with a brief notice on their website but no explanation. I found it almost impossible to find any information about DH4 on GameLoft's site. Links to DH4 led nowhere. Support wasn't accessible from the support site for their other games. I finally found a way to contact support. I wrote to them complaining that they should just announce that they're shutting down DH4 instead of treating their users so poorly, but got no response.

This week, I asked a Bernd, who was one of the long-term players, if there'd been any warning or explanation. He said no. He doesn't play anymore. His iPad is broken and he somehow got a virus on his iPhone from another DH4 player.

Conclusion

So, GameLoft doesn't care if there are pedophiles, Satanists and other dangerous people seducing our kids. They don't care about their customers, either, so when they decide to mothball a game, you probably won't get any notice and you'll find that they've deleted all your progress. Sure, I get it, you're wasting money on a video game so you can't expect a return on that "investment," but they should warn their customers before they shut down a game! Why use the products of a company that supports criminals and throws away users so callously?

For myself, they are boycotted. What are you going to do?

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