Drue Sokol, Photo Editor
On the afternoon of Wednesday, Nov. 9, Hive Manager Jeremy Mravlja was notified by one of the Hive’s student employees that almost all video games had gone missing from the student hang-out spot.
After receiving this information, Mravlja contacted student employees who had worked shifts earlier in the week and found that the last confirmed sighting of the game case was at closing on Monday night, at which point the employee claimed that they had locked up the case for the evening. According to Mravlja, Wilson Commons Student Activities has no way of narrowing the time of the theft to a window any smaller than sometime between Monday night and Wednesday at 5 p.m.
In total, 17 games valued at approximately $400 were stolen. The games included popular titles such as Mario Kart Wii, Mario Party 8 and Halo 3.
Mravlja said it’s unlikely that the games were stolen overnight, as the case is locked up with a normal padlock and a more heavy-duty chain when the Hive is closed. Additionally, when Security investigated the scene they found no evidence that the game cabinet had been broken into.
This leaves Mravlja able only to guess at what might have happened to the games. He speculated that an employee may have left the cabinet unlocked after their shift, that a “sneaky” student could have slipped the case into their backpack on their way out of the Hive or perhaps even that a Hive employee is the culprit — nothing can be ruled out at present time.
“It’s a big enough window where a whole variety of people could have taken it, unfortunately,” he said. “It’s just rather depressing.”
The Hive may consider implementing a more stringent security protocol to prevent similar thefts from occurring in the future, Mravlja said. He stated that in the short term he will be emphasizing to Hive employees that the video game case must remain secured in its cabinet by at least the padlock at any time when it’s not in use. In addition, he said that the Hive might look into starting a nightly checklist so employees can ensure that all Hive property is present before closing time.
Retroactively, Mravlja doesn’t feel any repercussions are in order for the employees who were working at the time of the theft, mainly because there’s no way to know exactly who those employees are.
“If we could pinpoint that it happened during this time on this person’s shift, of course we’d try to find out if they were paying the most attention,” he said.
The Hive does intend to repurchase these and other video games over the coming weeks to build its collection back up — Mravlja said he will probably begin this process at some point this week.
“I guess that’s the benefit of this — we can buy some newer [games] that have just come out and try to keep the catalogue up to date,” he said. “It’s one of those things that the students enjoy [doing], so we’re going to keep the collection intact.”
Fleming is a member of
the class of 2013.
