If he had a hammer

I know nothing about video games and don't think I will ever learn. But someone can please help me understand how people take a game so seriously.

Here we have a 20-year-old guy who got on a plane in New Jersey and flew to Florida, where he stopped at a nearby Ace Hardware (the place with the helpful hardware folks) to buy a hammer and a flashlight.

OK no crime then. It is perfectly legal to fly to Florida, although rarely advisable, and any citizen can purchase a hammer and a flashlight.

The problem is that this guy, Edward Kang, went to the home of a dude with whom he was playing an online video game called ArcheAge, entered through an unlocked door (seriously?) and lay in wait for the guy to go to the bathroom, at which point he assumed an "anticipated strike position" while wearing all black, gloves and a mask.  Then he ALLEGEDLY beat the victim with the hammer. Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said during a press conference that this wholesome, fun game allows players to fight and kill each other's characters, so Kang tried to make that happen for the real.

Kang

Apparently Kang forgot that the game should stay on the screen, not in the house. There exists a great deal of confusion in some minds as to what is real and what is on a screen. The authorities say Kang told them the victim "is a bad person online."

Sheriff Leeper called the whole fiasco "a weird one" and summed it up nicely: "Some things make you say, hmm. Some things you just can't make up. There are some things that make you say, 'What in the world was he thinking?' And there are some things that make you say, 'You're not going to believe this.' Well, this case makes you say all four of those."

Both the assailant and the victim were treated and released from a local hospital with the victim suffering severe head wounds. and Kang suffering from so much delusion that he asked how much jail time he might be facing for breaking and entering and assault.

"I would say, Mr. Kang, it's going to be a long time before you play video games again," Leeper said during the press conference.

Not Maxwell's Silver Hammer, but, rather, Kang's red one.