Saudi Arabia Bans 47 Games In Response To Two Child Suicides (ign.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IGN: Saudi Arabia is apparently banning 47 games in response to a pair of children committing suicide after allegedly being encouraged to do so while playing an online game. Per the Associated Press, the Saudi General Commission for Audio-Visual Media said yesterday that a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy have taken their own lives after playing a social media game known as Blue Whale. Also called the Blue Whale Challenge, the disturbing social media phenomenon is a form of extreme cyberbullying. It's not clear how the Saudi government believes this connects to more mainstream video games, but it nonetheless appears to have banned 47 popular indie and AAA games in response.The Saudi General Commission for Audio-Visual Media's website actually says the list of banned games was last updated on July 2, but the Associated Press' report claims the bans were just announced Monday.

Comments

Nobody did

[rsilvergun]

read the Wikipedia article. The "game" is just a moral panic in Russia. Remember Judas Priest Albums? The Satanic Panic and all that.

Somebody in Saudi Arabia wanted to crack down on video games, probably because they're helping to secularize their society and there's lots of very wealthy and powerful men who don't want that. That's all this is.