When people cross the broad line between virtual and reality

I remember a time that there were a few games that I got into and reality blurred. Besides the usual sustenance, there wasn’t much of anything that I wanted except to immerse myself in an imaginary world where I was someone. Fortunately for me, my eyes never blurred on the line that breaks what was virtual from what was reality as much as I wanted it.

There are those out there that get caught up with their duties with their guild, their clan, or whatever group you’re a part of at the time. Be it, a MMORPG, or a MUD, or something else, it doesn’t matter. But you have to differentiate between something that can die multiple times, and a person that can only die once.

In reading the news of clan warring that resulted in someone’s death, it stirred a great sadness up from my past. I realize how many people were like myself that used games to escape from the cruelty of life itself. A sort of escapism type of defense mechanism. But the difference between myself and them is that I drew the land in the sand and knew not to step over it whereas they did.

Truthfully, these people are probably missing something truly important in their lives to let the games consume them as such. Perhaps it just brings out a part of their personality that they could not show in reality. Unfortunately, while these cases are less than common, it’s disturbing that they don’t realize the fact that unlike online PK, there is only one life, there is no restarting, and the consequences are a lot more severe.

Photo Credit: (kazamatsuri)