Massively multiplayer online games - or MMOGs, as they're called - can foster more vulnerability than there might be on other virtual meeting spaces such as dating and social networking sites, where participants are inclined to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior from the start.

"When you're in a social situation like that - playing a game, having fun - you're comfortable with the people you're playing with," said cyber-stalking victim Jayne Hitchcock, president of Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA). "People are just not very careful. They lose all sense of reality and themselves."

Such conditions can lead participants to be more trusting of each other and less cautious. Players tend to be focused not on meeting each other, finding a love connection or promoting themselves, but on getting through the game, working as a team and concocting strategies to win. The pressure to make a good impression and project a certain persona is off.

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Since teammates typically don't compete using their own identities but instead take on characters called avatars, they frequently feel safer and less exposed than they might if they were putting up personal profiles on sites like MySpace, Facebook and Match.com.

"You're hiding behind a cloak of anonymity and false pretenses," said University of Baltimore criminologist Jeffrey Ian Ross. "They force you to pick an alter ego."

Ross said that because defenses are down, people can be more susceptible to the advances of predators or those who are mentally unstable.

But it isn't just the social-lubricant aspect of the hobby that is cause for concern.

The common goal of annihilating the foe can bring out a belligerence that sometimes spills over into real-world interactions, especially within those who become addicted to what they're playing, said Robert McCrie, a professor in the law and police science department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

"You observe people playing these games - it draws out a kind of aggressiveness and competitiveness in their behavior," he said. "There is a concern for people who become obsessively involved with cyber gaming."

While there are some who believe that real-life dangers lurk in the virtual gaming world, others say that just the opposite is true because the games are complex, requiring smarts and quick, sharp thinking.

"The majority of people who play these games don't fall victim to this sort of thing," said Ross. "They're either savvy, or they're very rule-bound."

Furthermore, most of those who participate are primarily interested in devising ways to advance, defeat the enemy and win, not prey on unsuspecting fellow gamers.

"The goal is not specifically to meet friends but to play a game," said Michael Goodman, a director at digital entertainment research firm Yankee Group. "I would argue that it is a little more difficult to mislead. You know coming in that the person is not who that character is. You know the person on the other side is not an elf."

Researchers are taking a closer look at a variety of relationships formed on multiplayer game sites, and with good reason.

About 25 to 30 million people worldwide now play MMO games, according to Yankee Group. As many as 7 to 9 million of them are in the United States. And as with other types of popular cyber-meeting spots, the incidents of friendship, dating and even marriages that result are on the rise.

Research gathered by Stanford University Ph.D. Nick Yee, an online gaming expert, found that in 2006 about 29 percent of female players ages 12 and up and 8 percent of males in the same age range reported dating someone they met in the virtual world of multiplayer Internet games. That's compared to 18 percent of women and 6 percent of men dating fellow gamers in 2003.

Yee used survey data collected from "EverQuest," "Dark Age of Camelot" and "Ultima Online." The findings are particularly significant because only one-third of players are single to begin with.

Sony Online Entertainment said last year that at least 20 couples have married after meeting as players of its "EverQuest" fantasy game series.

At least 20 weddings have happened between pairs who met playing another favorite called "Anarchy Online," according to its Norway-based creator, Funcom NV.

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