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Boy Addicted to Call of Duty 4 Found Dead

Posted by Nadia Oxford

Phillipe, a five-year-old otter who resides in Achewood often tortures himself by asking his friend, LieBot, about sad occurrences in the world.

"LieBot," he says, "what's the saddest thing?"

LieBot is always obliging with an answer, usually something to do with a simple man crying over a cracked chicken egg and promising this egg that one day it will be a real chicken capable of a loving friendship. I felt as helpless as Phillipe when I read about the death of 15-year-old Brandon Crisp, a boy who ran away from home when his parents made him stop playing Call of Duty 4. It's especially bad news for his parents, who called his bluff and helped him back when he threatened to run away. Ouch ouch ouch.

Crisp's disappearance brought to light a lot of discussion about video game addiction, some of it enlightening and a lot of it negative. There's been a small surge of "Look what games do to our kids" chest-thumping by alarmists who (as usual) ignore the core problem: addiction. Addiction has few prejudices. If Crisp hadn't become addicted to Call of Duty 4, he could have just as easily fallen into alcohol, drugs or monkey-sniffing.

I do feel badly for his parents because they noticed a problem and tried to tackle it with good old fashioned discipline. Taking away the source of the issue makes sense, but fighting addiction is not like straight-up behaviour correction. I'm not a psychologist or even smart, but I believe the generation gap also played a part in the conflict. Chances are there are a lot of adults out there who just see video games as an extension of the idiot box: turn it off and the kid will find something else to do. But games are different. They give you a sense of accomplishment that can fill inner gaps you never knew you had. Approval, of course, is addictive. I never knew I cared about Xbox Live Achievements until I realised "Hey, I like this little army of icons I have on my profile! They make me feel good (and they tell me to burn things at night)!"

Aside from hoping Crisp's family finds some peace someday, I hope others will take away a lesson from this episode other than, "Holy shit, look what happened in Canada, get that demon box out of our house."

Related Links:

One Crazy Summer of Arcade
Ender's Game: Where Are All the Fictional Games?


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Comments

Roto13 said:

I blame Xbox Live.

November 6, 2008 6:14 PM

Demaar said:

Awww shit. When I last heard about this story he was merely missing.

I know good ol' fashioned reverse psychology can work sometimes, but maybe when he didn't seem discouraged from running away they should have stopped him? I sure as shit hope I don't make any such mistakes when and if I become a parent....

November 6, 2008 9:37 PM

Racer x said:

He would have likely done something like this no matter what the trigger was. Poor parenting is to blame.

Hindsight is always 20-20.

November 21, 2008 3:15 PM

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about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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