Could you make it as a pirate?

So, do you think you could pull off a life of piracy? I’m not talking about trading mp3s. And I’m not talking about hanging with Johnny Depp. I mean a full-on, AK-47 Gulf of Aden Somali life of misery pirate.

Think you could handle it? Give it a whirl over at the Wired site, where they’re hosting a flash-based game that allows you to play pirate without risking life or limb.

It’s an accompaniment to a lengthy feature about the Somali pirates — analysing their motivations from an economic perspective. The simple point is this:

An ordinary Somali earns about $600 a year, but even the lowliest freebooter can make nearly 17 times that — $10,000 — in a single hijacking. Never mind the risk; it’s less dangerous than living in war-torn Mogadishu.

That’s right — in Somali, crime really does pay.