This story starts, as so many great ones do, with a classified ad: "I will take bullets for you," it read.
And he did.
Contact made, cash transfer confirmed, Londoner Toby Smith met me on a bluff overlooking the border between Iran and Turkmenistan on an early December afternoon armed with an M416 assault rifle. One minute and 15 seconds later he was dead. He died the second time three minutes and 37 seconds after our meeting. His third death didn't come for another five minutes or so.
...
While the deaths, the many deaths, weren't real, the money I paid Smith to protect me was. The 15-year-old high school student is one of several gamers who have begun to hire out their services as virtual bodyguards, digital guns-for-hire in popular military first-person shooter video games.
Earlier this month I tracked down and hired two of these in-game bodyguards, both teens who excel at Battlefield 3 and advertise their services online, charging other gamers 5 quid, or about $8, for half an hour of in-game protection.
The services the two provided went far beyond just protecting me as I tried to kill other online players. They offered tips, revived and healed me when I was injured and brought me to their favorite in-game sniping spots, like hunting guides.
hyeah:
