There are many anecdotal stories about youth who have become involved with RPGs,
and have become totally obsessed with the game. They become emotionally linked to
their pretend RPG character. They lose the capacity to separate fantasy from
reality. Some stressor makes them snap. They either commit suicide or go on a
murder rampage. These stories make excellent material for an "urban legend".
Such stories are widely discussed throughout North America. Fortunately, RPGs
simply do not work this way. A gamer who commits suicide after having lost
his identity in a RPG is probably as rare as a person who goes into a deep
depression and kills themselves because they went bankrupt playing a game of
Monopoly. Pro-RPG groups have investigated each of the murder-suicides which
are allegedly caused by gaming. No causal link has ever been found.

The claims by conservative Christian groups that gamers commit suicide or engage
in criminal acts do not appear to hold water:

Michael Stackpole calculated expected suicide rates by gamers during the early
years of Dungeons and Dragons. He used B.A.D.D.'s estimate of 4 million gamers
worldwide. Assuming that fantasy role game playing had no effect on youth
suicide rate, one would have expected about 500 gamers would have committed
suicide each year. As of 1987, B.A.D.D. had documented an average of 7 per year.
It would appear that playing D&D could be promoted as a public health measure,
because it would seem to drastically lower the suicide rate among youth.

Suzanne Abyeta & James Forest studied the criminal tendencies of "gamers" and
found that they committed fewer than average numbers of crimes for individuals
of the same age.

The Association of Gifted-Creative Children of California surveyed psychological
autopsies of adolescent suicides and were unable to find any that were linked to
these games. Their National Association has endorsed Dungeons and Dragons for
its educational content.

The American Association of Suicidology, the Center for Disease Control,
and Health & Welfare (Canada) 8 have conducted extensive studies into teen
suicide. They have found that no link to fantasy role-playing games exists.

Dr. S. Kenneth Schonbert studied over 700 adolescent suicides and found none
which had fantasy role-playing games as a factor.

The Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games was organized in
1988 to counter the attacks by B.A.D.D. and other groups. The Committee has
investigated each of the 130 suicide or criminal cases that B.A.D.D. advanced.
21 are missing name, date and/or place and could not be located. Of the over
100 that the Committee has found, they have been unable to find any that were
caused by role-playing games.

William Schnoebelen has listed 11 suicides or murders which he believes were
tied to D&D.

Triad ain't shit! I killed every MFer in that laundromat!

Strange I haven't seen any question raised about where he got the gun or why he had it... I guess the NRA should be glad that they're not being scapegoated for this one.

Well for that matter, and this is my "Cocky American" shining through, this story took place in Ratchaburi, Thailand. I'm sorry but I tend to place it in the same category as the "men in some other country like to pound nails through their dicks" category - that is, if it's some other country I don't know shit about (which is most of them) I write it off as "there's something going on with this I don't get". I mean, how many 12-year olds commit suicide? Perhaps this is another deal where the mother is looking frantically for something to blame (which happens in the USA - see story one) or perhaps there are roving Triad weirdo gangs killing kids to make it look like suicide - other country, so we don't know. Anyone here from Thailand want to comment?

Schnapple

http://members.tripod.com/schnapple99/

Actually, bomber man goes into the catergory of "released on every fecking system ever released" catergory.
anyways. The girls case, I'm pretty damn sure, there is more to it. She had a short fuse, they say. 12 year old. I'm thinkin kids in school are beginning to make fun of her in very very personal ways. The officials will ask around at school, but kids will lie, too scared to tell the truth. will end up just blaming the game.

as for the fat kid. I have no idea how in the hell the mom didn't see this coming a mile away. The retard cried over an item that got stollen in a game.. I swear... she probably would of missed the "signs" even if the kid stood in front of her with a gun pointed at his head and yelled "MOM! I'm gonna kill my self"

Pretty damn good quote inside second article..
"Children should also be taught about good sportsmanship and to be honourable winners and losers" -Winai.

yeah, wasn't bomberman for n64? well, i dunno.
killing yourself cause you can't beat bomberman is like killing yourself cause you can't finish a crossword...its not like bomberman has any emotional content.

as for the EQ junkie... did you notice the part about how he "stopped taking the medication for his seizures and depression"?? anyone consider the possibility that THOSE problems might be the cause??

It states something along the lines of, "the girl committed suicide because of the playstation game, Bombmer man"

Um when the hell was Bombmerman a Playstation Game????

Stories like these just make any attack on the computer game industry loose all there credibillity.

the person you're replying to was talking about the second "nationalmedia.com" article, not the CNN one.

And yeah, I agree with that person, this seems really bizaare. There was definately much more to it than not being about to beat bomberman.

He wasn't '12', he was 21. Big difference. The guy had problems, issues. And he probably was playing games to escape. But after awhile the games didnt do it and he offed himself. You ask me, the 'game' should be praised for being a defice, or "cruch" if you will, of sustaining his life for a longer stretch. That game probably delayed the inevitable.
You can pretty much point at anything in society if your so inclined.

Who at 12 thinks about killing themselves because they can't beat a game. I think video games are another form of survival of the fittest. If you can't win ,do the next best thing, hang yourself like Ren&Stimpy.

After all , the Lord loves a hangin that's why he gave us necks! :p

I agree with the whole 'shifting gears' analogy. I totally agree. My transmission is often stuck in 'hopeless loser' mode, but that's allright ;). Anyways, people have to take everything in moderation and figure out that their is a time and place for everything in life.

#16 Im sorry but I have to strongly disagree..

I live in the area around Hudson, WI and it is one of the most gorgeous places in the country. There are plently of things to do here outdoors UNLESS you are addicted to video games and cannot realize that natural woods look, sound, and **feel** alot better than Lesser Faydark.

I think it's all about being able to shift gears. This dude had one gear "game mode" that was it. Most normal peeps have the ability to "shift" into different modes of behavior depending on the conditions they are set in. There is: "work mode", "dating mode", "family mode", "drinking beer with the buddies mode"....ETC.
Most kids learn their behavior from their parents. He was obviously taught to be helpless like his mother, that's why she is trying to blame it on everyone else now, she was never able to take responsibility for her own actions.... now her poor son has followed her ways to his own peril. Sorry, dude no resurrection in this life, no putting extra quarters in the machine, no more reboots, this is real life, you should have tried to shift a little harder, but alas, it would be hard with a mom like yours. Oh BTW, let me guess... she's divorced and it was all his fault, and this is why he didn't have a male role model to look up towards.
I read "Dallas Egbert the III" he was the kid prodigy who committed suicide, at I believe, Michigan State University in 1979/80. He had a mother that was very demanding of him and he always felt, no matter how well he did, it wasn't good enough. He ended up leaving college and opened a computer store (at age 16 or so) but, later that year he off'd himself. His mom blamed it on D&D.

-Later [SPZ]SPANKER

#13, I just wanted to agree with you on the lazy parenting part, I get somewhat bothered every time a parent cant blame themselves and instead point to either a video game console, cartoons, tv, PC game, etc...

I was once an EQ junkie myself, played for over a year and i don't doubt the 20+ hrs average play time per week stat, as I'm sure I've put in my fair share. When it gets to the point where I find myself actually altering my attitude towards real life people and jobs, sleep, etc one would think that you could actually control yourself and either slow down or stop completely what you're doing that is making you slowly degrade from decent kid to uber-geek.

I think the problem lies in the arms of the parent(s), sure he turned into an 'adult', he should make his own decisions, but when this kid is in obvious need of professional help, with addictions and possibly some kind of disorder or disease, he shouldnt be out of the parents sight until they know full well he's ready to be on his own.

As for the parent suing Sony Entertainment: thats a crock, you probably bought the computer that was capable of playing EverCrack in the first place, why dont you sue yourself? If you knew your son was addicted to that game more than he should have been, or you've noticed a downward spiral in his general enthusiasm for life, maybe you should oh i dunno, check up on him? just a thought.

I play first person shooters day in and day out, blood, guts, gore, and everything. In no way does this make me actually want to go out, use a Desert Eagle at work and yell "Terrorists win!"

Media: quit using this game and any other just because they happen to take themselves out and they happen to be playing it at the current time, take a look at exactly how many people play online games, first person shooters, MMORPG'S, and one case out of a million everyone makes a huge deal about it.

Just my 2 cents, take it for what you want

i was told by a school shrink that youth suicides often are at their highest during spring
i don't recall the reason for this
i have a feeling it has something to do with "spring romances" or something similar

It may sound harsh, but when people this emotionally unstable eliminate themselves, it may be best for ... well, everyone. As long as it's before they get more angry and charge into a McDonalds with an assault rifle one day.

Well, I don't know if I'd really place a lot of blame on the mother for the suicide. My family has a vacation home on the St Croix river in Hudson, WI, and if I lived there permanently--where the idea of fun activities includes bowling and go-cart riding--I'd be quite depressed also.

It sounds like it was a recipe for disaster. The brother tried to get him interested in social activities with no luck. A social worker was assigned to him, also with no luck.

If someone wants to go off and kill themselves, there's really not much anyone can do to stop them. It is unfortunate, but it happens.

1 more down, a few billion of you talking monkeys left to go.

tHeGrAyZ

Hear, hear!

There was a glimmer of hope early last year when the county social services agency assigned Shawn a caseworker, after his mother booted him out to try and force him to get a job.

First step in helping anyone with a problem: remove their support system and throw 'em out on their @ss. Extra bonus points if it's a family member.

"He was an adult," his mother says. "What could I do to stop him?"

Does she want the long list, or the short list? I'll give her the short list: Use your f!cking head! Just because someone passes the legal age of adulthood doesn't mean you are absolved of your responsibilities as a parent. Whining about "oooh, he was too addicted, how could I have broken through? oooh, he won't listen to me, ooooh!" is just someone's way of running from blame.

Liz Woolley just started setting up an organization called Online Gamers Anonymous and a Web site to help people like Shawn -- with plans to use any money she might get from a lawsuit to help fund the organization.

OK, a noble cause. There certainly are people out there whose habits (gaming or otherwise) can grow to destructive proportions, it can't hurt to provide somewhere for them to go. But do you really want a woman who says things like this to be in charge of it?

"It's like any other addiction," Elizabeth Woolley said last week. "Either you die, go insane or you quit. My son died."

A stunningly professional definition of an addiction. I'm speechless.

"Shawn, that's just a computer," she told him. "It's make-believe."

No sh!t, are you serious? Tell me how many other points you've totally missed in your lifetime.

It's too bad that this woman lost her son, and it was an ugly way for him to go. But for this woman to point her finger at anyone but herself is ridiculous... it's called parenting, do it half@ssed and this is what you get.