Video game players deal with losing in a lot of different ways. Some simply accept it, hit respawn, and move on, while others take their anger to some serious extremes.

Just recently, one Call of Duty player took his loss to an unbelievable extreme when he called the cops on another player's behalf. Not just that, this player's seemingly innocent hoax (or at least what he deemed to be innocent) resulted in a real life SWAT team assembling outside his opponent's house.

While the name of the offending player is never revealed, said player apparently contacted the Long Beach police (via Skype) and, while posing as his opponent, 17-year-old Rafael Castillo, claimed that he had killed his mother and brother and would kill many more. He also provided "his" address, which was likely obtained through some clever IP address tracing.

The police, of course, took this emergency call at face value, and dispatched several emergency units, including a SWAT team, to the real Rafael Castillo's home. Thankfully, everything was resolved peacefully, as the Long Beach police eventually discovered Castillo's mother and brother were safe within their home.

While this isn't the first time one gamer has called the cops on another - the common term for this practice is "swatting - the story is still worth highlighting for several reasons. First, it's an absolutely ludicrous example of the great lengths gamers will go to one-up another, even if it means violating a few laws in the process. Sure, a painful loss in Call of Duty, Battlefield, Titanfall, or any number of multiplayer games isn't easy to swallow, but there's a clear distinction between healthy trash talk and damaging pranks. The good news is that, in this particular instance, no one got hurt, but the situation could have been much worse.

What's more, this 911 hoax adds further fuel to claims that video games lead to disruptive or violent behavior. Or maybe it proves a recent study that suggested aggression from video games was linked to incompetence not content? Either way, someone who calls the police on another player is clearly not thinking straight.

Obviously, the onus is on the authorities to suss out whether these calls are legitimate, but the fact of the matter is a single person caused all this trouble simply because they lost a game of Call of Duty. We've certainly moved a long way from playground insults haven't we?

What do you think the punishment for the hoaxster should be? What's the furthest you've gone when angry at a video game or another player?

Source: NY Post