120°

When MMO Drama Causes Real Life Violence

And you thought the drama in your guild was bad? In Russia a man was beaten to death by members of a rival MMO clan.

In China, a 41 year old man stalked and stabbed a 21 year old boy to death when the boy sold a borrowed sword for real life money.

Is there something special about MMOs that drives people to these violent acts? Or is it simple human nature?

The writer posits that while sensationalistic and interesting, the stories provide no direct casual link between the MMO gameplay and the act of violence. As MMOs get more popular, it is simple mathematics that a certain percentage of players will be unstable long before they make their first character.

But perhaps there are things MMO developers can do to at least minimize the danger of MMO drama spilling over into RL violence.

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_Q_5318d ago

Come on people teh lewt isn't real.

-chaz-5318d ago (Edited 5318d ago )

In China at least, MMO loot is a viable income source so a rare sword that was sold for $1000 could have fed that man's family for months. (not that I condone violence)

dredgewalker5318d ago

Its disturbing but true and these people who are so into these games lose their sense of reality. Its these kind of gamers who should really "get a life" cause if they cant separate gaming life from real life then they shouldnt be permitted to play. This kind of news gives us healthy gamers a bad name.

Scenarist5318d ago

Man i remember a dude scammed me for a good scrolled cape. 1 of his friends gave me his real name so i used the internet :) narrowed down
to the school he went to and neighborhood he lived in .... ... so i sent him an ingame message with some of the info and told him i was close to 30 years old (NOT) and was very capable of traveling and blah blah blah

so he tells me he sold it for 160m in game and he gave me 160 ... immediately after the trade i told him the cape was worth 240m and he paid me the differnce too and then some

240m at that time in game was worth almost $100usd

Muckbeast5318d ago

Score!

Nice work my man. Very nice work indeed.

Kakihara5318d ago

You could probably find more instances of murders between people who met in supermarkets or on buses or at screenings of Disney movies. If enough people to meet each other chances are some of them are gonna wind up killing each other.

Muckbeast5318d ago

Sounds like that was the point the writer was making as well.

The specific incidents are still interesting to read about though.

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hardcoregamer.com