Are online games a risk for the PC??

[FCx]

Maybe this question sounds a bit exaggerated, but I'll explain why.

(click to show/hide)

The last year I decided to istall Skulltag (MM8BDM and the others doom mods) in a PC with Windows XP (I won't reveal who is the owner). Few week after installing the game, that machine started suffering slowness issues and a possible trojan infection (that machine had the same problems before the installation but now it was more notorious). The final result: that PC was formatted, and that game was banned (the only game it has now is Counter Strike for LAN matches without any fanmade anti-cheat system or connection to internet)

I know that Skulltag in offline mode is safe, but what about the online one?? (not only Skulltag, online games in general)

[Orange juice :l]

It seems VERY unlikely. The only possibilities are that a game's distributor bundles malware with the game, you download what you think is the game from the wrong site (piracy, mistyped url, phishing) and they put up malware, you download a mod from a user that turns out to be malware, or someone somehow reverse engineers a server to send out malware through the game into your operating system. Heck, giving WADSeeker the ability to go to any URL given by the server host and download and extract zip files seems insanely dangerous.

...Of course, there's always the possibility of someone giving you a malicious website to go to in-game.  

[CarThief]

Well i suppose there's always the risk of downloading infected WAD's, but those issues are extremely uncommon and any half-decent virus scanner should work around that risk.
I do recall at the very least Wadseeker removes files that proved to be useless after download (aka none of the needed files found within).

Does remind me of a minor issue that happened to me, ever since i installed Steam the computer randomly but not too frequently started having missing boot files resulting in being unable to start up, safe for putting in a CD and fixing it like it suggests, if anyone knows a way to get rid of that issue. Dont think it was intentional on Steam's part though, perhaps just bad timing, heh, or the damn thing's getting too old...