Players surrendered control of their accounts via SharePlay before they were attacked

A 17-year-old griefer who deletes other people’s data on Destiny and Grand Theft Auto V, operating under the guise of his friend’s PSN account, has made an unapologetic confession after being discovered.

The teen, given the alias “Chris”, confirmed on Tuesday that he was the culprit of a spate of harassments against random strangers online, including the 11-year-old boy whose level 31 Destiny character was deliberately deleted.

In an interview with GameInformer, Chris appears to show no remorse for his prank against the 11-year-old, which by luck was recorded on video and triggered outrage when published online.

“Suck it up and move on with life,” Chris said. “What else is there to say?”

“I’m about as convinced as can be that it was him”

Chris also confessed he had attacked at least two other Destiny accounts, as well as a GTAV account, since late October. He operates by convincing other people online that he can help them progress in the game, and then asks to be given remote control of the victim’s PlayStation 4 using the SharePlay functionality. When handed control, Chris will go to the game’s options menus and begin deleting files.

He also does so using another person’s PlayStation 4, and their PSN ID, which has resulted in a storm of hostile messages being sent to an account holder who allegedly has no involvement in the misdeeds.

The 24- year-old owner of the KermitTHEFrog account, whose identity has also been protected, made a plea of innocence claiming that his account was being used by another person when the harassments were committed.

This claim led to much scepticism within the online community, many of which did not appear to trust Kermit’s excuse, nor the claims from his mother that he was innocent.

But Michael Futter, a games journalist who has now interviewed both Kermit and Chris over the phone, says he has no doubts of the 17-year-old’s guilt.

“I’m about as convinced as can be that it was him,” he told GameSpot.

Trail of Shame

Destiny players had issued at least three warnings about the Kermit account, between October and December, that a player was deleting other people’s data using the PlayStation 4 SharePlay feature.

Bungie was notified of the player, but it is unclear if the studio passed on this information to Sony, which ultimately has the authority to block and control online accounts. Neither Sony nor Bungie has yet to officially respond to requests, made on Tuesday, to discuss the matter.

GameSpot also has spoken to Mark, a 47-year-old customer services manager based in LA, who recalls playing with a person using Kermit’s account in January.

“We played a Vault of Glass Hard raid with him, for about two hours, so the conversation can get pretty deep about everything. He just started coming off as really abrasive, and he kept saying his New Year’s Resolution was he wasn’t going to be nice to anyone.

“I’ve run many different raids with many different people, and you could easily tell his attitude was just really crappy.”

“I’ve run many different raids with many different people, and you could easily tell his attitude was just really crappy. He explained he had convinced other people to control their account via SharePlay, and he even bragged he had done this with another game. I think it was GTA.”

Chris initially told GameInformer he had only deleted one Destiny save file, but when confronted with evidence he confessed to multiple incidents. He then, unprovoked, confessed “I’ve done it on GTA before.”

He appeared to suggest he was not fussed by the outrage which his misdeeds have caused.

“People get pissed on the internet and say what they want. It’s unfortunate.”

It remains unclear if Chris was acting entirely alone. One of his previous victims, who GameSpot can confirm is genuine, has already suggested that more people were involved.

Eric Luzon, believed to be the second victim, spoke about the incident in a Facebook post: “The day that he deleted two of my guardians I can tell from the headphones that there was two people in his place and they were laughing like idiots.”