Imagine my surprise when I received emails from various players asking for my help. While I am fairly prolific I don't see myself as a gaming savior. However with that said, those emails gave me that icky feeling you get when you see something that doesn't make sense. Silkroad Online is one of the most popular free to play games in existence. What is the deal?

The following isn't the best grammar or writing, but you can see the desperation this player is exhibiting:

Hello I saw on the news about Silk Road Gold game Maybe visit SRO (silkroadonline) forums to see what problems have this game http://www.silkroadonline.net visit forums on General Discussion I was playing this game about 3 years and i pay for this game more much 3000 € I was hacked but joymax didnt helped me Now i cant play this game because all the time have problems Look at their forums and u will understand Now i was hacked again 1 week ago again Joymax dont want to help me. We need help We need every person who can helping us Please visit their forums look all about problems and please speak again with joymax

Thanks Best regard

George Sepkas

Since Joymax took over the hosting and customer support for Silk Road Gold, players have had problems with hacking resulting in stolen accounts, stolen items and losses of thousands of real world dollars by players such as the following:

Posted by Madchemist on the Joymax Forums

There have been several issues with the new JoyMax.com/portal web site since the opening.

#1 Account Security, due to the new site there was no protection for ones account and only required a login name and email. None of this information is encrypted and left an open door for hackers to redirect that information to them. -Some accounts were striped clean of every item. -Some accounts had there info changed such as emial, name, secret answer and password.

Joymax's Reply -

Hello. This is Silk Road Gold.

Recently there are a growing number of users who get stolen their account. To prevent the loss of accounts, we strongly recommend that you should keep the list below in your mind. -Do not purchase Silk through the use of Paypal accounts or credit cards that you DO NOT OWN. -Do not have someone else purchase silk in your place. -Never reveal your account login information to anyone else. -Change your password at least once a month. -Install and undate an anti virus program.