Vietnamese kid kills a girl due to video games.....

[Scrubiii]

That is fucking tragic. Luring a little girl into the woods and beating her to death for her earrings? Screw the gaming bit. This is just a tragedy.
EDIT: Seriously, screw that little fuck.
EDIT 2: How about we not talk about some silly possible backlash for the industry? A little girl was just beaten to death.

I agree with this guy. I remember hearing something similar to this before, and personally I find it fucked up when people read about murders (or terrible parents who leave their kids die) like this and the first thing they think is how it will make gaming look.

No one's first thought is about how it will make gaming look, I'm sure everyone who commented on this story considers this a tragedy, but I think people are well within their rights to be angry about what the media does with it. The implication in this article is that gamers are murderous addicts who will beat children to death for money. Personally, I think the way the media uses stories like these as a weapon against the gaming community is far more disrespectful than the gamers who try to dispel the notion that they are one missed MMO payment away from a psychotic rampage.

That said, allow me to defend myself against said notion.
1. If all the kid wanted was the girl's earrings, why beat her to death and not just steal the earrings?
2. If he was as addicted as the article claims, why did he cut up the earrings, thus reducing their value, and then hide them instead of sell them for the money he was apparently so desperate for.
I'm no expert, but to me, this sounds more like a serial killer looking for a scapegoat than a genuine gaming addict.

 

[intheweeds]

Um. Where does it say he killed her to sell the earrings in order for money to play his game? It said that he told them HOW he did it, but not actually WHY. It just also seems like he mentioned that he played the game at an Internet café...

This is the part of the article that speaks to that:

"He said he killed Anh Nhu because he did not have money to play online games at an internet cafe near his home in Yen Hoa, it is claimed."

 

[Sickly_Gazelle]

The girl's death is truly tragic.

I'm no expert on criminal psychology, but it doesn't make sense to me that the kid would keep the earrings any longer than he had to before selling them.

 

[k-ossuburb]

I love how all the comments at the bottom are calling out Alex Watts (the dipshit that wrote this tripe) on his bullshit.

To be honest, don't listen to Sky News, they're the Fox News of the U.K.. It's nothing but sensationalism and fear-mongering. The best you can trust here are the BBC and sometimes they're not the most reliable source either, but they're a damn sight better than Sky.

 

[Forum_Name]

My thought is that there are addicts in every single walks of life, I mean lets face it guys, everything is addicting.
Football is addicting.
Excersise is addicting.
Alchahol is addicting.
Etc, etc.
So why are we excusing that things can't be addicting? Sure, you can get addicted to video games but I think this needs a bit more then just being hooked on a game.
Maybe the kid has serious psychological problems?
Maybe he's retarded?
Who knows?
That's why I always hate it when people point at video games and say that they're the devil, why not INVESTIGATE! Why the hell did he do it?
I would probably guess that he has a shit life and that he has anger management issues, not due to his video gaming, but rather to well, psychological problems.

LoL, Water is addicting, and the withdrawal symptoms are a *****.

Seriously though, people shouldn't confuse compulsion with physical addiction.

 

[Thetwistedendgame]

There are no words for such an outragous thing. I do have some spare words about games being dangerous. Games don't make people crazy. Crazy people are just lured to agressive videogames. they don't MAKE people agressive, though they might push someone of the edge. It's not like any normal kid who starts to play Mortal Kombat starts attacking people for no reason. Now someone who already LIKES violence but can't do it in real life for... Obvious reasons might play the game because they find it fun. And a recent(Typo?) research proved that violent games make you less shocked by violence. That doesn't mean you get violent. That, and there are age restrictions for a darned reason.

 

[intheweeds]

That is fucking tragic. Luring a little girl into the woods and beating her to death for her earrings? Screw the gaming bit. This is just a tragedy.
EDIT: Seriously, screw that little fuck.
EDIT 2: How about we not talk about some silly possible backlash for the industry? A little girl was just beaten to death.

I agree with this guy. I remember hearing something similar to this before, and personally I find it fucked up when people read about murders (or terrible parents who leave their kids die) like this and the first thing they think is how it will make gaming look.

No one's first thought is about how it will make gaming look, I'm sure everyone who commented on this story considers this a tragedy, but I think people are well within their rights to be angry about what the media does with it. The implication in this article is that gamers are murderous addicts who will beat children to death for money. Personally, I think the way the media uses stories like these as a weapon against the gaming community is far more disrespectful than the gamers who try to dispel the notion that they are one missed MMO payment away from a psychotic rampage.

That said, allow me to defend myself against said notion.
1. If all the kid wanted was the girl's earrings, why beat her to death and not just steal the earrings?
2. If he was as addicted as the article claims, why did he cut up the earrings, thus reducing their value, and then hide them instead of sell them for the money he was apparently so desperate for.
I'm no expert, but to me, this sounds more like a serial killer looking for a scapegoat than a genuine gaming addict.

I spoke about Elizibeth Woolley in a post above this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.289786-Vietnamese-kid-kills-a-girl-due-to-video-games?page=2#11491867

Reading your post gives me a little more insight. The media loves to go to Elizibeth Woolley because she fully believes video games cause people to go crazy, but at the same time wants to help us and so including her makes your report seem more balanced! She makes us all seem more like the media wants us to be while at the same time, the media gets to pretend its hearing all sides. Damn I hate this woman... and the mainstream media.

 

[Giest4life]

One of the posters on the original story about sums the story up:

There has to be more to this story than what is here. If he killed the girl so he could sell her earrings for internet time, then why didn't he go to a pawn shop, sell them, and then immediately go straight back to the internet cafe? Instead he hides them somewhere, doesn't bother selling them, doesn't need to sell them to finance his addiction? Surely if he was a genuine addict, he wouldn't have just hidden them somewhere to use or sell later? He would want the money NOW, so he could play NOW. Just doesn't add up - sounds like a pathetic excuse since there are no true signs of addiction in that behaviour.

In short, this story is bs.

 

[mcnally86]

That is fucking tragic. Luring a little girl into the woods and beating her to death for her earrings? Screw the gaming bit. This is just a tragedy.
EDIT: Seriously, screw that little fuck.
EDIT 2: How about we not talk about some silly possible backlash for the industry? A little girl was just beaten to death.

He used a rock. That's a shade of horrific I didn't think could come from a 15 year old. I agree I don't think people should be worrying about the "industry." Local a man drank 15 Monsters and strangled himself, bottom line he had a mental defect that caused this outside influences didn't help but it was mostly him. And they still sell emery drinks to kids.

 

[Active Schizophrenic]

how long is it going to take on that games are a form of media like everything else you can be "addicted" to television, movies, books AND games but I have know idea why people focus on the video games when more people get addicted to television. also i dont think this horrible murder will start and addiction debate it will start a "video games mess with people minds turning the into murders and rapists etc." debate.

 

[DarksideFlame]

Oh man, I feel so sorry for the girls parents having lost their sweet little girl because of a psycho
My sincere support to the parents to have suffer through such a tragedy

Now let's move on to the rant shall we?

Yet I don't think the reporter is any better and earns my utter disgust for claiming that it's always videogames fault if something as terrible like this happens.
If this game that the psycho played was so ultra violent why didn't they react knowing he spent hours playing it at an internet cafè.

Maybe he lied so they did not know about it?
But it would be odd if the parents didn't start to suspect that something was wrong since he spent so much money on whatever he pretended to be doing while being at the internet cafè

I would probably be considered an "addict" and I played 18+ games back when I was 12-13 and I haven't and never will even plan on murdering a 7-year old girl for and I am fairly certain most people won't describe me as a murdering psychopath

I am so fucking sick of videogames being treated like scapegoats and being responsible for corrupting children and teenagers, meaning they are being treated the same way as books, TV, and movies when they were the new and exciting. Haven't people learned how wrong past generations were about these matters?

(Though TV actually can be corrupting since some people think Fox News are always telling the truth even though they defended their right to lie when presenting news)

 

[Xenotechie]

FOX news inbound in 3...2...1...
OT:Seriously,I hate video games being universal scapegoats.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

I don't understand. If the addict killed the girl for the earrings and then cut and hid them, rendering them worthless. A true addict would have cleaned off those earrings, sold them and went back to the obsession.

Of course, I'm not discounting the death of the girl. Yes, it is a tragedy for her to have died at the hands of a psychopath.

I wonder how many more people will use video games as a scapegoat...

 

[M920CAIN]

I quote: "He said he killed Anh Nhu because he did not have money to play online games at an internet cafe near his home in Yen Hoa, it is claimed."
He didn't kill her because of games. He killed her because of MONEY. There's a big difference.

 

[razor343]

I'd say that perhaps by some cosmic chance, 1% of all gamers can be/are truly addicted to gaming. With no other factors. The next...2%? 3%? Are all causes of bad parenting, which parents refuse to accept. Other factors include an addictive personality, which likewise has NOTHING to do with games, it just means the person was susceptible to addiction and just so happened to become addicted to games.

Who's with me?

 

[Kevlar Eater]

I quote: "He said he killed Anh Nhu because he did not have money to play online games at an internet cafe near his home in Yen Hoa, it is claimed."
He didn't kill her because of games. He killed her because of MONEY. There's a big difference.

That doesn't explain why he destroyed and hid the earrings instead of selling them.

 

[ryo02]

and Im sure the parents will be all to happy to blame games so long as it isnt them to blame or their sons own fault.

 

[LuckyClover95]

That's really sad, but the guy must have been fucked up already to do that, video game addiction just triggered that.