Scandal! 10 true scare stories about videogames

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Every so often, the alarmists actually have a point

Let’s pretend, for a second, that everything bad anyone ever said about videogames was true. Why, we’d all be suicidal pixel-junkies, protected from our desperate self-hatred only by our own slovenliness! The world would be safe from our sociopathic, car-jacking, handgun-happy death wishes merely because we were too busy installing an IV drip to provide us with the powdered-cheese sustenance necessary to gain another level in World of Warcraft! It would be a dire state indeed.

But while the vast majority of dire claims against videogames can quickly be dismissed as ridiculous (particularly those advanced by teenage hooligans trying to cop a plea), every once in a while a brouhaha flares up that actually might have roots in some of gaming’s less-savoury back-alleys. So join us as we explore ten stories of real life made a little more dangerous by gaming’s dark side. It’s off the record, on the QT, and plenty hush-hush…