When MMO Drama Causes Real Life Violence

Games are a great form of escapism for people. We get to leave our everyday lives behind and become fantastical creatures and heroes in fantasy worlds. When it comes to massively multiplayer games we get to join a whole new world with its own rules and society. We step through the wardrobe, go down the rabbit hole or more accurately log in and emerge as something else. These are places, where, in contrast to the real world, we can make a difference, we can be truly important. We can form alliances and fight battles without real life consequences. Or at least that’s the theory. Sometimes the emotional investment people put it into their online lives is so great that their anger can spill over into reality. The problems that their in game avatars face become so important to them that they can provide a trigger for action in the offline world. In this article we take a look at when MMO drama causes real life violence.

Back in January of 2008, Russia Today reported that a 33 year old man named Albert was beaten to death in the streets of Ufa by members of a rival clan from an MMO game. Gamers in their thirties, the Platanium clan apparently sparked the argument when they killed a rival member of the mostly student Coo-clocks clan online a few days before New Year. The two clans engaged in a bitter war in the game which led to them agreeing to settle the dispute by meeting in the real world. One man was charged with murder after the attack, but Albert’s sister Albina reported that the rival clan continued to send death threats to her family.