DayZ (and every game like it)
People love DayZ. It’s no secret. The game is so popular there’s a solid chance that some of you are reading this as you burn time waiting for your friends to sign on so you can make another trek to Chernarus. Or maybe you just finished a DayZ session and decided to take a break and visit Bloody Disgusting. I don’t know you spend your Fridays.
What I do know is games like DayZ and the growing number of developers who are working on churning out similarly themed games of their own with the hope of emulating even a fraction of its success (games like Survive the Nights, H1Z1, Miscreated) are changing people. Their big open worlds and promises of infinite possibilities, post-apocalyptic comradery and total freedom from rules are basically training grounds for serial killers and sociopaths at this point.
You know how online anonymity can sometimes turn people into jerks? In DayZ, that truth is multiplied exponentially. Let’s say there’s a kid named Alex. He’s an average enough kid, only when he visits this miraculous bundle of tubes we call the Internet, the complimentary Guy Fawkes all Internet dwellers get to wear turns Alex into a bit of a prick. Alex has opinions and he’s going to share them, he hasn’t given any thought as to whether or not you’re interested in listening to them.
Let’s say Alex decides to try a game like DayZ. I haven’t been able to locate the exact point where the transformation takes place, but like a sped up Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde transformation, Alex goes from a mildly annoying Internet d-bag to a fully realized psychopath worthy of study — preferably from a safe distance. For reasons I don’t yet understand, this doesn’t bother most people. This includes a friend of mine, CJ, who runs the horror blog Rely On Horror (you may remember the name from a DayZ live-stream he and I did a few months back). CJ loves the game, he plays it often and even managed to talk me into spending almost two nigh-unbearable in its barren world. Without CJ as a guide, I wouldn’t have lasted 30 minutes.
