Police in the UAE – Sharjah to be specific – are asking people to stop playing the controversial Maryam game.
The game is allegedly being used to steal people’s personal information. Some commentators are even stating that the game is saturated with “actual sorcery, and black magic.”
Educator and social expert, Yaqoub Al-Hammadi has “warned that these types of games lead to isolating the child from the real world, directing and prompting kids to do things that are often violent, while trying to impose values on them that are against their own traditions.”
Maryam revolves around the loss of a child — Maryam — and the players must help her. The game basically asks people personal questions. According to Khaleej Times, questions such as “Where do you live?” or “What’s your Facebook account?”, are among some of the questions that are asked. These questions, to some extent, explain Sharjah Police’s reaction to this game.
In response to all this panic and these accusations, Salman Al-Harbi -owner of the account developer of Maryam- has claimed in defense that “he and a group of Saudis have developed this game just for the purposes of entertainment; it doesn’t save the answers, and thus there’s no abuse of one’s privacy.”