This was fun. I liked the environment, based around prestige in this environment, and how fun to have an occupation where you spend all your time trying to exploit game cracks.
I did think that the butterfly security thing was more than a little contrived. If the security is meant to actually be effective security, then why manifest as an in-game presence that is allowed to be defeated? Just sever a connection, introduce lag to the player, strip players of vital stats or experience, disable their accounts.
I didn't like this story at all, one of the most irritating Escapepod stories ever. Almost everything happens just in a game. There is no real threat and it feels just like a transcript of a gaming session. Could there be anything more boring than read other people's game transcripts? Also, unbelievably bad software design.
It's true that the stakes were not as high as if they had actually been on a quest against a dragon with no simulation layer would be. But there were stakes--they were taking risks with their livelihoods, and in the end they did end up losing their jobs in that that kind of player was not allowed anymore, though the cashout they got made up for it for them personally. What they did had real-world consequences in that everyone else who did that job is suddenly not able to make a living anymore because of the exploitation of the system.
Anyway, FWIW, I feel that there were real-world stakes based on the outcome of the entirely fake game.