HOLLY HILL, Fla. --
We've all seen the Whac-A-Mole arcade game. Now, police say an Orlando man sabotaged the Holly Hill company that makes that game by planting a software virus. It shut down hundreds of games all over the world.
The plan, police say, was to create a problem that only one man could fix.
There is software or computers in all of the games. What no one knew is that they had been programmed, after a certain number of on and off cycles, to just stop working.
It wasn't a club but a computer virus that shut down the Whac-A-Mole and more than 400 other games built by Bob's Space Racers in Holly Hill. The company traced the problem back to computer programmer Marvin Wimberly.
Faced with a pay cut, police believe Wimberly programmed games to fail, ensuring he would be needed and keep making money.
"If they hadn't of discovered that they had the virus installed in the equipment, they wouldn't have known why their machines were failing," said Cpt. Steve Aldrich, Holly Hill Police Department.
Each game, after turning on and off a certain number of times, sometimes 50, sometimes 500, would fail. Wimberly would be paid to fix it, and police reports say, he would insert a new virus with a new countdown.
It cost the company at least $100,000 and possibly a hit to its reputation.
"The real key is they need a piece of equipment that works from the Fourth of July, on the busiest day of the year, and it's consistent and they can depend on it," Mike Lane, Bob's Space Racers.
Reports say Wimberly actually told two people at the company he'd done it, but it took months of technical work to prove. And, police believe, he even had a website, bobsupgrades.com , as a possible way to make more money fixing the problem he's accused of creating.
It's an unusual charge in this case, offense against intellectual property, but it carries a stiff penalty of up to 15 years in prison.
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