Armed Police Surround Bungie Exec's Home After Hoax Call

Armed officers and a police helicopter surrounded the house of a Bungie executive at 3am due to a prank emergency call, local police said on Thursday.

Forces moved to raid the house, based in the Sammamish district of Washington state, in response to a call from a person pretending to have broken into the property and was holding its residents hostage.

Nathan Elledge, chief of police at the Sammamish Police Department, told KomoNews that the caller "said he had an assault rifle and had placed explosives in the yard and he was holding a family hostage".

"He wanted $20,000 to release the family," Elledge added.

It took about an hour for the armed forces to realise they were responding to a hoax, and that the family inside the house were sleeping.

The individual responsible for the dangerous prank, known as Swatting, appeared to use technology which fooled police into thinking that the call had come from inside the house.

Swatting has become an escalating problem within the games industry. In April, armed police raided the house of a New York-based gamer because he beat another player online during a game of Call of Duty.

Bungie said on Thursday that the unnamed executive is "okay", but the company declined to elaborate further. The person who made the call, if caught, faces up to a year in jail, along with a $5,000 fine.

"This is not a game. This is a very serious response that could've had serious consequences and we're just fortunate that didn't happen this time," Elledge said.

"It puts officers' lives at risk when you respond to something this serious. It puts the citizens' lives at risk."