Description: There are rumors of a cult developing within a MMO game that no longer has a large enough player base. People believe there to be a recruiter and people have reported strange content appearing in certain areas of the game.

Background: The informant learned about this from browsing Reddit.

Transcript:

BD: This one I don’t remember in extreme detail, but there was a rumor that there was a cult in worlds.com. It was an old mmo from I think 90s era where it had just like a bunch of “worlds” you could go to and eventually lost the majority of its player base. But the servers were kept up (and I think still might be up?) despite having no players. The reason why cult started to float around was for a few reasons; one that there was a user that would float around and try to recruit you (this is the one that was debunked) ((also tbh I think this started bc the guys avatar looks like a goat iirc)). Another being that there were worlds floating around that had questionable content.

Me: Questionable as in illegal?

BD: Not illegal, but weird. It was naked photos of people in a room with their names under photos I believe. Actually it might have had some personal info on them too. But not 100%.

My thoughts:

Surprisingly, video games are considered by some as some of the most effective ways of secret messaging. For example, someone can shoot massages in the form of bullet holes. Looking at the circumstances, it’s interesting to think about a cult being created inside of an abandoned server. There is a level of creepiness in being in a server with so few people when they are meant to be filled to the brim. This rumor, while debunked, is not unthinkable especially since the server is still operational despite having no players. Of course, the reports of questionable content furthers the narrative. Seeing strange things on the internet often leads to extreme speculations because of the crazy things that happen on the web.