Dead Chinese Gamer Wasn't A WoW Player

Despite earlier reports to the contrary, GamePolitics has the news that the dead Chinese gamer whose parents were suing Blizzard was not a World of Warcraft player. From the post: "World of Warcraft (WoW) was not released in China until May 2005... the actual lawsuit claimed he committed suicide after playing the real time strategy game Warcraft III... Without WoW, it would have been much harder to pin the blame on Warcraft because it's a strategy game, not role playing. But with WoW, and the recent focus on the alleged addictive qualities of MMORPGs, the lawsuit gets much more attention..."

Comments

Release dates

[secolactico]

From the post: "World of Warcraft (WoW) was not released in China until May 2005"

So? Lots of players from several countries (including Asian coutries) play on the US servers. Several from Europe did too.

WoW does not do geolocation to filter connections.

Likewise, almost all "chinese farmers" in WoW play in the US servers. That's where their customers are.

Re:Release dates

[Larch]

From the article: "the actual lawsuit claimed he committed suicide after playing the real time strategy game Warcraft III"

So if the article is correct the lawsuit was always about Warcraft III and not WoW. It doesn't really have anything to do with release dates or being able to access US Servers.

Nip it in the bud already

[spyrochaete]

Video games are "addictive" because people are not "addicted" to the real world. They are displeased with their surroundings so they escape into a more palatable place. The cure to video game addiction is to make the real world a better place. Why haven't video game addicts sued their respective governments for driving them to games?

Re:Nip it in the bud already

[LWATCDR]

Isn't it a kind of scary concept that a government should try and make EVERYONE happy with their life. Suppose that like Tom Servo, "I want to decide who lives and who dies.". Should I be made happy?
Not very thing is the government's fault or responsibility.

Re:Nip it in the bud already

[LearningHard]

You know, this is a good point I've never given much thought to. What must things be like in Korea, Japan, and China (especially Korea and China) to drive the people that live there to become so obsessive over video games. Sure you hear the occasional story about this sort of thing happening elsewhere but the vast majority take place in Korea and China with a lesser occurance in Japan. Just think about it.

Ahh, natural selection at it's finest.

[adminsr]

Once upon a time, there was a guy named Darwin. Though his ideas have been contorted into the Theory of Evolution, his principles were brilliant. This is clearly an example of natural selection. This one deserves a Darwin Award for sure. http://www.darwinawards.com/

China

[king-manic]

When I was in china in may, I coudl nto find 1 legitimate copy of WOW. I couldnt' find 1 cafe that had a real copy of WOW on it. So if it turns out that not only was he not on WOW and was playing an illegal copy of war3, what possibel responsibility could blizzard have?

Re:China

[Iriel]

Unless Blizzard has GMs/players specifically coaxing people into staying on the game, I fail to see how they're responsible even if WoW was already out for three years. A gamer has a choice to start playing and whether to keep playing or to stop. Yes, the social aspect can be addictive, and there is such a thing as video game addiction, but the same is true for alcohol, television and even porn. With very limited exceptions in exceedingly rare cases can you logically blame the addiction on the substance itself.

Causation

[GigsVT]

An interesting fact is that 100% of the people that died while playing video games had consumed substances containing dihydrogen monoxide in the last 6 hours.

Seriously though, with so many millions of people playing games upwards of 20-30 hours a week, it's expected that some people that would have died randomly anyway (heart defect, whatever) would wind up dying in front of the screen.

No one much bats an eye when some teenage athelete dies on the field, it happens all the time. Pushing yourself is more likely to cause latent disorders to surface.

Ehhh...

[Guppy06]

"Without WoW, it would have been much harder to pin the blame on Warcraft because it's a strategy game, not role playing."

It was a heck of a lot more RPG than WarCraft II or StarCraft, what with the whole "heroes" mechanic and all.

Where in this game?

[Xarius]

A thirteen year-old Chinese boy jumped to his death last year from a 24 story building, allegedly after playing too much World of Warcraft. -- Joystiq.

I was just wondering exactly what portion of World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, or any Blizzard game contains a 24 storey building. And what part of this fictional game area involves you jumping to your death from it?

Re:Ban Video Games

[Supurcell]

Video games have had a positive impact on me. Playing many computer RPGs has increased my problem solving abilities as well as my lexicon. They kept me away from drugs and alcohol, which have much more harmful side effects. They have introduced me to many new friends from around the world.

Playing video games is no more harmful than reading a book.

Forsooth, such a post would be made by someone with the sig: Booth was a patriot.

Jumps-too-conclusion dept.?

[paintswithcolour]

For me this perhaps reflects more on the danger of journalism drawing conclusions where the evidence is not there. Rereading the orginal cited source, from Xinhua, make it clear that the parents are suing 'The makers of World of Warcraft', nothing states a direct relation to the game itself. Perhaps this is merely a slip...would suing 'Blizzard, The Makers of World of Warcraft' prevent the same conclusion hopping?

Furthurmore the orginal Red Herring article goes on to discuss the 'gaming backlash' and governmental involvement in cutting out aspects of gaming, specifically those on-line. Now I've hear critique of Chinia and their attitude to this before, this lawsuit was in a number of sources related to this, which could now become a little more irrelevant. It seems, therefore, that western journalism has contorted facts to make another point about China's meddiling in an electronic society. Reminds me of the recent story that the BBC were getting too involved and placing too much pressure about the issue of censorship.

take that Tetris!

[Imazalil]

So are we just now finally retributing the Soviets for Tetris? How many hours were wasted by that infectious little game, now is the time for our revenge! Lets ship some computers to Cuba with free copies of WoW or W3, Blizzard will singlehandedly destroy the last traces of Communism on the planet! :)

Im.