NEW YORK -- Recently, in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game A Tale in the Desert, an uproar erupted after an in-game trader declared that he would not sell to women and then inquired whether one female character was for sale.

After the developers refused to take a stand against the trader, many players were outraged that the game would tolerate such discriminatory and misogynistic behavior. But the trader was actually a non-player character controlled by the developers to intentionally start a controversy in a virtual world they feel is sometimes too polite.

Wow, that's fucked up!