By Jason Collum | AFA Journal Staff Writer

Some enjoy the thrill of playing video games online and outscoring friends or conquering foes across the world and universe. Some get a kick out of discussing an interest in a hobby. Others are bored and looking for something to do. And then there are those who may be lonely and looking for companionship.

There are a host of reasons why online video games – video games that can be played with and against other players via the Internet – and forums have become big hits. According to statistics from 2002, an estimated 50 million people around the world were playing online video games that year, and the number is expected to grow to 114 million by the year 2006.

The growth of online video game playing has created numerous virtual communities where players can gather, play against each other, trade game playing strategies and get to know each other through game forums and chat rooms.

These forums, though, are much like any other kind of chat room – users can be whomever they want to be while in a chat room, and often there’s no way to tell if the other person is telling the truth. And, too often, those who want to can get access to other users’ personal information. That information might be obtained from what the user has voluntarily posted for others to be able to read, but also it can be culled from other sources such as instant messaging information profiles.

The anonymity of the Internet has long been one of its scourges. In too many recorded cases, children and others have been lured to their deaths by predators who posed with false or misleading identities in chat rooms and through E-mail. However, it is this same anonymity that may be the last line of defense for those who might otherwise be lured into harm’s way.

Anonymous “undercover observers” (UO) are a growing trend in many chat rooms and forums, such as those in many video game rooms. UOs often act as cyber police, patrolling chat rooms and forums watching for people acting up, harassing other chatters. And, much like real-world undercover police, these UOs rely upon their anonymity, that element of surprise, to keep their cover and watch their rooms. Sometimes, the stakes are just as high.

One UO for a series of game rooms spoke to AFA Journal. He said so little of what is said in forums and chat rooms is actually true, that for many of those in them, what goes on is best described as “recreational lying.” For those who go into such rooms without knowing this, it can be a very dangerous mistake.

Why game room forums?
Gary*, a UO for several game room forums and chat sites, said the usual members of one of these types of forums are teenage boys and young men. However, he has seen a growing number of women entering these forums.

“A woman comes in and plays and talks primarily because her husband or boyfriend does, and she likes the game,” Gary said. “The thing is with games, if you don’t come in and play, you’ll get no respect and people won’t talk to you. But with most of the women I’ve seen come into the games, many of them are lacking something in their lives, or looking for an escape. They might be lonely, or might not be getting the affection or attention they need at home, and with game rooms they know there will be a lot of guys here.”

That’s what drew Anna* to the forums. She started visiting one of Gary’s game rooms more out of a search for companionship than a love for the game. She created an identity in the server, and it didn’t take long for her to become one of the regulars in the room. Soon, she found herself conversing frequently with a man in the forum, developing more trust in and rapport with the man. It wasn’t long before she was involved in “cyber sex” with the man. There was even talk of her making a trip to visit him in the future.

Then, for a couple of weeks, he was gone. When he returned, he told Anna he had been in the hospital during that time, recovering from stab wounds he received from an inmate in a prison attack. He told Anna he was a security guard at the facility.

For an administrator well versed in the ways people deceive others online, Gary knew there was something more to this story. Anna had been talking with one of Gary’s UO personalities, too, and they had discussed this other man. Through IP address identification, Gary had already witnessed this same man come in the forum using other names and assuming other identities to build rapport with other people, and too often he’d seen this man say things and suggest things that gave cause for concern. Gary began researching newspapers in the man’s state to see if there had been a prison guard stabbed and one killed in such an attack. Finally, he found a reporter who told him there hadn’t been a guard attacked in the time frame the man accounted for, but there was an altercation between cell mates at a prison that left one of them stabbed and badly wounded and the other one dead. The injured man’s personal information very closely matched certain parts of the information the man in the forums had given Anna – with a few crucial details left out, of course. He hadn’t mentioned he was a prisoner.

Gary approached Anna in chat and told her what he had learned. Because of the trust she had built in the man, Gary said she didn’t want to believe it. After denial, embarrassment and fear, Anna retreated from the game forum, and didn’t return for a long time. Later, though, Gary said she did return to thank him for finding out for her how badly she had been deceived.

She was one of the lucky ones: she got another chance. Only God knows what could have happened had she eventually met the man who was not who he claimed to be.

Real Christian, unreal identity
Gary has seen so many lies and so much deceit in chat rooms and forums over the years that it would be easy to feel defeated, knowing he is fighting what many would consider to be a losing battle. If it weren’t for his faith in Christ Jesus, he said it would be very easy to call it quits. However, it is his faith that keeps him going. He sees his acting as a kind of “cyber cop” as a way in which he can serve God, sharing Christ with others through some of his identities, but also watching over and protecting those who might be lured into harm by another. This, too, though, has had its own problems.

“I’ve dealt real harshly with myself about witnessing while I’m under an assumed personality,” Gary said. “But my real personality is reflected in the alternate identity. In most cases I’ll refer people to Web sites like Billy Graham’s if they’ve got deeper spiritual questions. I’ve come to be known [in many of his online personalities] as someone who is a Christian and cares about people. But what if so-and-so found out I am not who the online personality says I am? Would that ruin that personality’s Christian testimony and hurt the other person’s walk? But, I think when people see this work for what it is, they’ll understand God uses us where we are and once we bring people to Him, He will take care of the rest.”

Much like an undercover police officer must get involved with that which he’s fighting, Gary – and others like him – must do the same. While some might see what Gary does as making him guilty of lying or misleading people, Gary said that’s a risk he’s willing to take.

Saving one more Anna or protecting a 14-year-old boy from a pedophile makes the risks worth it. As part of protecting those online Gary has simple advice to everyone who might take part in anything as seemingly innocent as a game room forum.

“Never assume someone in a forum or chat room is who he claims to be,” Gary said. “There are too many ways people can cover up who or what they really are. And if you have problems in the home, the place to solve them is not by talking to others online, where you might be tempted down the road to get into an adulterous affair; the place to solve it is face-to-face with your spouse.”
Trust Gary; he’s seen enough to know what he’s talking about.

*For the purpose of this article, fictitious names have been used to protect the real people’s identities.