If you’ve ever wondered why CCP seems unusually committed to reprimanding and banning folks who make real world threats (“I’m going to find out where you live in real life and come kill your pets!”), here’s why:
Mexican World of Warcraft player Bronco Carson reported to local police on Saturday that 3 men broke into his home and beat his arms with clubs and smashed his computer. It was supposedly in retaliation for Carson stalking and repeatedly killing one of the attackers wife’s character during computer video game play.
Carson admitted to police that he had been “making it hard for her to get far in the game.” He said that after repeated online threats from the woman, she sent her husband and friends over to his house to “take care of him.” Carson later said that he had made the mistake of telling her where he lived and “if her husband was man enough to just come meet me to settle this.”
2 weeks leading up to the assault he said he had been harassed by a few characters constantly during game play. “I knew that I might be messed with in the game but I didn’t really expect her husband to come looking for me. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
Carson suffered 2 broken fingers and a fractured wrist during the assault. They also destroyed his computer and entertainment center before leaving. No arrests have been made in connection with the assault.
OK, kiddies, what have we learned?
1) Even if you like to play aggressively, spread the love around. Focusing your gankage on one person is (a) being a dick and (b) earns you bad karma, which can come home to roost in unexpected ways.
2) Yeah, it’s only a game. Until you start stalking another man’s wife and insulting his manhood when he tries to defend her. Then it can get personal. Not to mention violent.
3) If you’re going to be an online dickhead who hides behind the safety and anonymity of the internet so that your asshole behavior doesn’t have real world consequences, then (for fuck’s sake!) don’t forget the “hiding” part. Giving your online victims your address and taunting them to come over and fight you? Survey says: STUPID!
4) It’s only a game. Until it gets serious. Which unhappy day may come for the other guy before it comes for you.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing against gameplay that pisses people off and I’m not defending the real-world gank that Mr. Carson suffered. (Quite the contrary, those boys need some jail time.) But I do think it’s worth pointing out that to a very real extent, Mr. Carson appears to have been a victim of his own extreme griefing and smacktalking.
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