Throw Another Video Game Scare Story Onto the Pile

Every six months or so, a story will come along that’s pretty tragic and somehow involves a nerd pastime, like a couple who were found living in a filthy trailer covered in Starlog magazine with a son who spoke only Klingon. These are tragic stories reflecting people with serious mental problems who latched onto something and clung to it because it was all they had. But that’s not a great scare story, so we’re pretty sure the latest sad tale will be blamed on Facebook games.

Essentially, a woman in Kent, UK, was so obsessed with the Facebook game SmallWorlds her dogs starved to death in the dining room and her children were eating beans out of cans with their hands. Now, a logical person would assume that she had suffered a serious emotional blow, and they’d be right: her husband had passed away right before all this started.

Now go ahead, see how many ridiculous mistakes you can spot in this Telegraph piece, starting with the header image. Hell, look at the statement by the judge at the end.

As we’ve seen before, video game scare stories have a pattern, but something tells me this go-round we won’t be hearing hilariously misinformed statements about how you kill sick people in “Dead Rising 2″ or the cover of “Borderlands” encourages suicide, but rather about the evils of Facebook games.

On the bright side, at least that’s sticking Zynga with the problem. Let the twenty-six-year-old billionaires with ethics problems deal with the hysterical parents and nanny-staters for once. I’m gonna strap some chainsaws to oars in relative peace.

[ via Kotaku ]