Damn, it's like never playing any FPS and only stick to RPGs...

6th Venom wrote:

:shock:
Damn, it's like never playing any FPS and only stick to RPGs...

I never said 'never', (if you were referring to my previous post) ^^

well, up until i heard this news, me and my friends were going to go up there and help out, partly because he's a fellow Xbox Live member, but mostly because of the huge sum of money :lol:

but really, its sad... why would you react that much to the XB being takin away? Do they know if he had some kind of Psych. problem?

he had some chest injuries like he fell out of a tree. no foul play like rape/murder.

pbmax wrote:

he had some chest injuries like he fell out of a tree. no foul play like rape/murder.

And no suicide either?

A tragic story. But I also don´t think it has much to do with addiction to the Xbox or something like that. In it´s core it´s a typical conflict between a boy who hits puberty and his dad. IMO the dad didn´t overreact by taking away his Xbox, and I can also understand why the boy was angry and feels the need to drive away on his bike to be alone. It didn´t have to end like this.

@gunman: Surely you can't be serious? There's no real difference between a console or a PC, and as "widows of Warcraft" can attest, PC gaming addictions can be just as real as console gaming ones.

The issue here is the addiction. Hell, even an addiction to water can be fatal, yet no one would claim water was "bad for you."

As with all things, human beings must learn moderation. This kid, apparently, had a hard time with that lesson.

As others have correctly pointed out, it was not the xbox itself nor its removal from the boy's life that "caused" his death. Instead, it was the extreme and unusual reaction by the boy to its loss and then the actions he later took, like leaving the house, that led up to the boy's demise.

My guess is that the kid used gaming as an escape from something else in his life and his parents' removal of that "escape" triggered even stronger feelings of hopelessness and despair, prompting the overreaction. This is all speculation, though.

goliathvt wrote:

@gunman: Surely you can't be serious? There's no real difference between a console or a PC, and as "widows of Warcraft" can attest, PC gaming addictions can be just as real as console gaming ones.

True, Warcraft is indeed an ever-growing addiction for the younger (and older) population on the PC nowadays (luckily, myself NOT included).

goliathvt wrote:

My guess is that the kid used gaming as an escape from something else in his life and his parents' removal of that "escape" triggered even stronger feelings of hopelessness and despair, prompting the overreaction. This is all speculation, though.

Rough childhood? Bullied at school?
Possibly...

This is so sad

-Parents get Xbox live for son
-Son gets seriously addicted to online play
-He stays up 'till 2am, skips school & grades slip
-His dad takes away Xbox
-He threatens to run away from home
-His dad tells him to pack warm clothes (thinking he's bluffing)
-Son disappears for 3 weeks
-Microsoft offers a reward
-His body is found dead

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story? ... 982&page=1

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CT ... b=CP24Home

So sad because I can relate to both sides. He probably just wanted to scare his parents a little by camping out for a night or two. His dad didn't really think he was serious about running away for good. And now he's dead...

I remember hearing about this a week ago, where microsoft doubled the reward for finding him making it 50,000 bucks. Now he's found dead. I feel extremely sorry for the father, he's going to think it's all his fault.

=NoMercy= wrote:

I remember hearing about this a week ago, where microsoft doubled the reward for finding him making it 50,000 bucks. Now he's found dead. I feel extremely sorry for the father, he's going to think it's all his fault.

Not all, but the majority of the blame should probably be on his shoulders.

Just another perfect example of the shitty parenting that's got us where our society is right now.

What gets me is that none of this ever changes. It's always the same stories over and over, and every time, a different side gets sued, and always for the wrong reasons.

Responsibility is looking forward. Blame is looking back. Everyone looks for someone to assign the blame to. No side will ever take responsibility for it's actions, fix things, and just move on.

Quote:

Not all, but the majority of the blame should probably be on his shoulders.

Why? Why should there be any blame on the fathers shoulders? His actions of removing the system would not have killed him. The child's own actions did. If there is any blame to be had it is sadly on the shoulders of the diseased as sad as that may sound.

The sad part of the matter is that the child will never learn from his mistake. Unlike a video game, with life one mistake can cost you your life.

It's a sad & cruel fact.

Phobos wrote:

Not all, but the majority of the blame should probably be on his shoulders.

You are telling me his intentions were to kill the kid? You are telling me the father thought that death was a high possibility over MANY other outcomes? Rediculous.

I think that's not Phobos point, it's more "the father will feel the blame on his shoulder for the rest of his life".
You can't blame anyone on things like that, it's sad, but it's not anyone fault except the kid's one.

Here's another case. Mom takes internet away from 15 year old daughter. Daughter poisons mom. At least that's the way it was reported on the local radio. Looking at the video it appears more was probably going on than that.

http://www.wgal.com/news/17898233/detail.html

Is it known yet the cause of his death? I dont understand how could he just die like that.

This is what they call a typical 'spin'.

Ofcourse, the Xbox had nothing to do with the reason of his death. Perhaps it was one of the reasons why the boy left, but there had to have been many more issues between the parents and him before things led to this. Just a one time penalty of taking away an Xbox doesn't lead to a boy running away from his parents, there are much more fundamental issues going on here than an Xbox.

These things happen, have happened and will happen in the future. It used to be a bicycle, car, toys, whatever.. now it's an Xbox. Seems too quickly that we forgot about teenagers escaping the house after being grounded and running away because of that. Always, in such situations, there is more than meets the eye.

It frustrates me how the press and everyone involved is so happily accepting the Xbox as a major 'issue' when it's a mere detail in this tragedy.

BloodRayne wrote:

This is what they call a typical 'spin'.

Ofcourse, the Xbox had nothing to do with the reason of his death. Perhaps it was one of the reasons why the boy left, but there had to have been many more issues between the parents and him before things led to this. Just a one time penalty of taking away an Xbox doesn't lead to a boy running away from his parents, there are much more fundamental issues going on here than an Xbox.

These things happen, have happened and will happen in the future. It used to be a bicycle, car, toys, whatever.. now it's an Xbox. Seems too quickly that we forgot about teenagers escaping the house after being grounded and running away because of that. Always, in such situations, there is more than meets the eye.

It frustrates me how the press and everyone involved is so happily accepting the Xbox as a major 'issue' when it's a mere detail in this tragedy.

Well, in all fairness, an xbox with its live suscription is much more involving and engrossing and just plain AWWESSOME COOL MAN! than a bike or a TV set or a bunch of throwaway music CDs, and its much harder to put down. in the future when a portable holo-projecting real virtual universe device is the hip xmas gift, the you-just-cant-put-it-down factor will be even higher.

aardwolf wrote:

Well, in all fairness, an xbox with its live suscription is much more involving and engrossing and just plain AWWESSOME COOL MAN! than a bike or a TV set or a bunch of throwaway music CDs, and its much harder to put down. in the future when a portable holo-projecting real virtual universe device is the hip xmas gift, the you-just-cant-put-it-down factor will be even higher.

People said the exact same thing about television.

It's not the object or, better.. the availability of the object that's the problem here. It's the way parents interact with their children. The gift of communication is becoming a sparse rarity in this day and age, especially between parents and children. Grossly overgeneralised, for the sake of sanity in this discussion, I might state that with the press, internet and media becoming the main source of education in terms of 'social' upbringing, parents are becoming more and more lazy. (e.g: How to grow up emotionally is not taught in schools and lately some parents aren't really doing a good job of it either... children watch MTV, dr Phill and Oprah Winfrey and think that what they learn on television, and is propagated by their current social setting --friends and relatives-- is true for them).

This is becoming such a huge factor that many parents gather neither the guts nor balls to act out against it any more. The children seem to grow up with a pseudo 'sane' set of social rules (which are of course when it comes to MTV, Gillmore Girls, E.R., dr. Phill and Oprah Winfrey totally insane and twisted) and their friends seem to grow up in the same haze. Ofcourse, telling children that what's on TV might not always be true seems so cliché that nobody does it any more; especially not in the case of the pseudo 'reality' drama's like E.R. and Gillmore Girls.. talking about poison for the mind.

And so, detachment is all around us. Parents have no idea what goes on in the heads of their children, they think they relate but they can't. Children don't want to relate because that's just not cool for them and en up in total isolation, leading to sad situations such as this one.

I'm not saying it's the fault of the press, media or even the parents. But it is the parents' responsibility to connect and relate to their children and safeguard them and recognize in a timely manner when they are unable to do so. In this case, it's pretty clear the parents were unable to relate to their child. And instead of acting on that knowledge many parents become lazy, they think they can't relate anyway so why even try? 'Just make a set of ground rules and have the kids follow that, right?' --- Wrong.

This child was underage and his parents were responsible for his safety. They failed because they could not relate to the reasons why this kid felt he needed to run away because of something like an Xbox, no matter how addictive gaming can be. A good parent can handle such an addiction.

Still, no one of us knows what truly happened. For all we know the kid had a chemical imbalance which made him a mental case or there were other psychological issues.

Saying it's the parents' fault is unfair, saying that regardless of that it is their responsibility to safeguard the child is not. :wink:

@BloodRayne
That's more of what I meant. Not so much blame as much as responsibility. Of course I don't want the father to feel guilty that it's his fault for the rest of his life, because yes, kids do that, and it is sad that cases like this are irreversible, where you can't learn from your mistakes. I just wish people weren't so naive to begin with and would handle things .. differently.

But now it sounds like I'm wishing for other people's maturity. What kind of a bombshell that would be...

Darwin Award!

While I'm sorry for the loss I wonder what's been wrong with a 15 year old being so closely attached to a gaming console.

BNA! wrote:

While I'm sorry for the loss I wonder what's been wrong with a 15 year old being so closely attached to a gaming console.

I don't think it's the removal of the gaming console that is the real issue here but a safe haven dream world broken in two. Maybe the little chap was bullied in school, who knows?

Douglas Quaid wrote:

I don't think it's the removal of the gaming console that is the real issue here but a safe haven dream world broken in two.

Well, that would be the answer to my question.

@BloodRayne

i agree with the potential for media hype, but i didn't get that from reading various news reports.

the reason why i posted this was because it really struck me as a sad event. i was once a teenage video game addict myself and now i'm a father too. so i could relate to both sides.

any reportsa on cause of death?

BNA! wrote:

While I'm sorry for the loss I wonder what's been wrong with a 15 year old being so closely attached to a gaming console.

Totally, when I was 15 I didn't even have a gaming console...

... I had a PC!

That only bring us to one conclusion, don't give your kid (esp. a young one) those kind of things (xbox, ps.. whatever) it can only screw up it's life from the very start.

Besides, I'm 21 now (tho I'm sure nobody gives a damn about it), and all this time I still haven't laid my hands on any of those consoles, just PC.

Damn, it's like never playing any FPS and only stick to RPGs...

6th Venom wrote:

:shock:
Damn, it's like never playing any FPS and only stick to RPGs...

I never said 'never', (if you were referring to my previous post) ^^

well, up until i heard this news, me and my friends were going to go up there and help out, partly because he's a fellow Xbox Live member, but mostly because of the huge sum of money :lol:

but really, its sad... why would you react that much to the XB being takin away? Do they know if he had some kind of Psych. problem?

he had some chest injuries like he fell out of a tree. no foul play like rape/murder.

pbmax wrote:

he had some chest injuries like he fell out of a tree. no foul play like rape/murder.

And no suicide either?

A tragic story. But I also don´t think it has much to do with addiction to the Xbox or something like that. In it´s core it´s a typical conflict between a boy who hits puberty and his dad. IMO the dad didn´t overreact by taking away his Xbox, and I can also understand why the boy was angry and feels the need to drive away on his bike to be alone. It didn´t have to end like this.

@gunman: Surely you can't be serious? There's no real difference between a console or a PC, and as "widows of Warcraft" can attest, PC gaming addictions can be just as real as console gaming ones.

The issue here is the addiction. Hell, even an addiction to water can be fatal, yet no one would claim water was "bad for you."

As with all things, human beings must learn moderation. This kid, apparently, had a hard time with that lesson.

As others have correctly pointed out, it was not the xbox itself nor its removal from the boy's life that "caused" his death. Instead, it was the extreme and unusual reaction by the boy to its loss and then the actions he later took, like leaving the house, that led up to the boy's demise.

My guess is that the kid used gaming as an escape from something else in his life and his parents' removal of that "escape" triggered even stronger feelings of hopelessness and despair, prompting the overreaction. This is all speculation, though.

goliathvt wrote:

@gunman: Surely you can't be serious? There's no real difference between a console or a PC, and as "widows of Warcraft" can attest, PC gaming addictions can be just as real as console gaming ones.

True, Warcraft is indeed an ever-growing addiction for the younger (and older) population on the PC nowadays (luckily, myself NOT included).

goliathvt wrote:

My guess is that the kid used gaming as an escape from something else in his life and his parents' removal of that "escape" triggered even stronger feelings of hopelessness and despair, prompting the overreaction. This is all speculation, though.

Rough childhood? Bullied at school?
Possibly...