It hasn't even been 12 hours since I wrote how refreshing it was to see videogames discussed by real journalists. Yeah, that was a nice change. And as if to prove my point, videogame news sites all over the web this morning are reporting on a Kansas teenager who allegedly lost sense of reality and strangled his kid sister who interrupted him while he was playing BioShock. The story goes that he thought it was one of the game's "Little Sister" characters who possess the valuable nutrient your character in the game so desperately needs.
Naturally, the story was fake.
Yet, witout apparently Googling the story or checking CNN or any other real news site, let alone the police blotter from the Kansas community in question, gaming news sites took the bait and ran with it. Within minutes sensationalized immature headlines were thrown up in attempt to attract readers and leapfrog one another in the Gametab top 10 links column. Fortunately, some of those stories have since been removed and/or updated.
And this is why when I say I'm a writer in the videogames industry, I go through great pains to make sure it's very, very clear that I'm not one of the so-called journalists. Pathetic.
Note: Apparently a writer for Destructoid.com did actually call a Kansas news channel for comfirmation and was first to learn that it was indeed fake. So there is hope...
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