A defense sentencing memorandum claimed that Mateias had been spurred by a "juvenile desire to win the game." That's not really how the online role-playing title works (there's no definitive victory over fellow players, and they don't lose when they're offline), but you get the idea -- it was reportedly a hotheaded decision.

The plea led to officials dropping charges against him in a Pennsylvania case. However, the prison term is more than his defense was hoping for -- they'd wanted him to go free given that he had already spent half a year behind bars following his extradition to the US. Clearly, the sentence serves as a message -- no in-game feud warrants a cyberattack.