Online fantasy game cheats sentenced to 'death by dragon'

A British computer game has become the first in the world to punish cheaters - in a virtual 'court room'.

Fantasy game RuneScape, which has more than 200 million users, is putting cheats on trial in front of an in-game judge.

The judge can sentence the cheats to death by various means including being stomped on by a dragon.

In online games like Runescape, permanent death of a character is a dreadful punishment - normally characters can revive a limitless number of times.

The company behind the game wants to stamp out the use of computer software which guarantee winnings which can then be sold for real-world cash.

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Players suspected of cheating get two warnings before their character is transported to a mock court room called 'Botany Bay'.

Honest players can then pelt the accused with rotten fruit and vote on novel ways they can be permanently destroyed.

Punishments include being stomped on by a dragon, blasted by a ray of light from the RuneScape gods, or being eaten by a giant worm.

RuneScape lead designer Mark Ogilvie said: "Seeing rogue characters killed by dragons will be a very visual deterrent to other cheating players who now risk losing their character permanently.

"We take a very hard line on cheaters in our game and have taken the unique move to name and shame those who have been breaking one of our most important rules.

"We have wanted to do this for some time and we hope that by bringing the actions of those who cheat to the attention of the wider community, we can make a massive step towards eliminating botting from the game."