Fox News Vacilates on the Dangers of Online Game Meetings

Fox News has put forth yet another article on the social dangers of meeting people over online games.

The piece starts out as a witch hunt naming off incidences where chance encounters during online gaming have resulted in dangerous or even deadly situations. The “experts” try to cobble together a case that relationships formed during online gaming are more likely to be dangerous because in other online venues where players meet, people tend to be on the look out for suspicious behavior.

However, well into the article the author reluctantly puts up the pitch forks and admits that although there are a few examples of deviants and mentally unstable players out there, chances are they aren’t your online friends.

Even when virtual player relationships do result in crimes or violence, the FBI says investigators wouldn’t necessarily take a special approach to such cases.

“If something like that came into us, I don’t know that we would treat it any differently than any other kind of Internet crime,” said New York FBI Special Agent Barbara Daly.

Yankee Group’s Goodman agrees, saying that cyber game-related tragedies are no different from or more common than those that originate from any other online meeting.

“Games and gamers are a microcosm of society. There’s good people and bad people who are playing them,” he said. “The same things we see manifesting themselves on MySpace and Facebook we see manifesting themselves in online games as well.”

via Fox News