Well, I have been discussing this sort of topic recently with a few other fans. Now currently the plan is to get a lot of the basic mechanics working and then build onto that. My idea to start with was to come to a foreign land/country and start out with nothing but the clothes on your back. start out with survival sort of mechanics and start crafting goods and sell them to local stores or work jobs and then work your way up to having your own industry's like factory's with conveyor systems. wiring up all your machines and building your own warehouses/ buildings and shops. Intention is to be able to hire workers that actually turn up to the job on shifts they are given and given you get enough research you can eventually have robotics arms etc automating your factory's instead of workers as a way of making labor cheaper. But as for crime, I am going to implement jobs like working security having to fight criminals off from robbing the banks or stores. Since i have been working hard to get good shooting mechanics which are still to be implemented I am now planning to start adding criminal ways of doing things like fraud, robbing stores your self and maybe just maybe adding in drug dealing/ weapon dealing and any other ideas that may pop up later through development. However because i have not started work on the criminal jobs etc they may not be implemented until I have most of the other mechanics implemented like the building/ crafting mechanics that I have been working on and other things like the hunting mechanics. As for a time frame for when the criminal jobs will be added to be honest I ain't entirely sure but they are coming. In turn i will also have to work on the Police AI also which may take a bit of time because I am still working on traffic and pedestrian AI. I am now currently working on this game by myself so as you can imagine I have a lot to do how ever I have been working on a lot of the mechanics for the past year but still need tweaking and implementing into the game. I am also doing this in my spare time but recently been spending every night doing it give or take sometimes I like sit back like anyone else and play some games or spend time with my kids. :) I am releasing a new update hopefully later this week making the delivery jobs more playable and fixed some bugs. I am also still fixing a few issues i have with the dialogue system but will be in the upcoming update, along with a new van which you can buy from the garage which I also implemented. After this update I will be extending the map and maybe implementing boats as another way of travelling or delivering goods and no doubts some more bug fixes if people find any. I also want to implement some bears, wolves and dear into the wild for the player to hunt for food. I will write another Devlog along with the next update with more details on what to expect over the next few months. Expect more frequent updates now tho! things are moving along much faster now and any suggestions like yours are very welcome and will be considered as the intention of this game is to play the way you want. Short answer to your question.....Yes you will be able to play as a criminal when and where as you choose.