IGNN–The Imaginary Game News Network

BUFFALO, NY–Four teens wandered outside into blizzard conditions after a power interruption prematurely ended a marathon session of Madden NFL 10 in which the four friends had been attempting to recreate an entire NFL season in one day. Witnesses reported the foursome wandering aimlessly, coatless, shivering and tearful.

“I would have tried to help them,” said Mary St. Behr, who saw the youths stagger by as she was taking her dog out for a pottie break. “but I was afraid that they were high on drugs and might try to rob me or eat my cockapoo, Gerald.”

Later that night, the lost gamers reportedly huddled inside a convenience store for nearly an hour, where they were overheard lamenting their fate and cursing their parents for not having the intelligence and foresight to install a backup power generator. Some witnesses reported hearing sniffles and a cough.

Police, called to the scene by the frightened store clerk, arrived late but were able to track the youths’ footprints in the snow.

“They seemed to be going in circles,” patrolman Lewis Clarkey described, “but eventually they veered off toward the lake. That’s when we began to worry and called for backup. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 22 years of service, it’s that teens and lakes don’t mix.”

Suspecting that the despondent boys had decided on a suicide pact, officer Clarkey and his colleagues began searching the shores of Lake Erie, but except for more footprints, they never found any additional clues.

Since then, the parents of the missing teens have raised an outcry, which has been echoed by city and state officials, who are alleging that the video game industry is complicit in the disappearance of the youths. A spokesperson for the state’s attorney general suggested that the addictive nature of video games was the key factor in the boys’ decision to end their lives.

“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” countered Allen Mendolten of Crabfree, Basher & Grimes, the legal firm representing the retailer, Toys B We, where the boys purchased the game. “There is no evidence of suicide, foul play or anything except a bad sense of direction and questionable taste in appropriate outerwear.”

And yet it seems that a witch hunt has begun in this city by the lake. Several parenting groups are calling for an end to all gaming, banning the Madden series outright and staging a fundraiser to assist the families of the missing boys as they try to cope with the loss of their family members.

“If one of my teenage boys went missing,” stated Helen Bidgelow of the group Save Our Sons From Interactive Danger (SOSFID), “I admit that I’d get more sleep and the house would smell better, but damn it, I would miss them, too. Just because they’re as lazy as logs and as foul as goose shit doesn’t mean I don’t love them.”

Other parents eschewed the colorful comparisons while echoing the same sentiment. It appears now likely that the matter is headed to the courts, that is unless something is learned about the fate of the missing gamers.  Nell Chase

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