GamePolitics has been following the story of Jacob Pribyl since Tuesday. Pribyl is a 20 year-old MMORPG player form Minnesota who went missing last week from his parents home. A typically obsessed MMO player, his parents believed the game had something to do with his disappearance. Florida lawyer JT Pompnstuff was quickly brought in to help solve the mystery of the missing man-child, and on Wednesday sent GamePolitics the following message:

We found the Pribyl boy. He is in Illinois holed up with crazed gamers. We found him because of my going public and good police work. Tell your sycophantic, panting audience that.

In the end everything turned out all right. The MMORPG player had called his parents on Tuesday night to assure them he was okay. He was visiting a female gamer he had met online, and as many male gamers will agree, a chance at sweet lovin' always wins out over common sense.

What intrigues me the most about this story is the odd team up of SOE, GamePolitics, and J-Money, who I am sure was in no way influenced by the lure of free publicity. Sure, the Florida lawyer seems to hate us crazed gamers, but maybe deep down under that gruff and manly exterior he cares for us, and just wants to make sure we are safe and sound.

Could this incident lead to a more industry / rabid lawyer collaborations? In a perfect world, JT and the games industry use this experience as a launching pad for a super team of mystery solving adventurers. I imagine it would be something like this...

SOE, GamePolitics, Jack Thompson in Search for Missing Gamer [GamePolitics]