Missing Gamer Found Dead
Missing Gamer Found Dead
November 5, 2008
Toronto TV station CP-24 is reporting that missing gamer Brandon Crisp has been found dead.
From the report:
Police have found the body of missing Barrie-area boy Brandon Crisp... He was found on Fifth Line in the Barrie area...
A massive search was underway for the teen in Shanty Bay on the Oro Medonte Rail Trail, just outside of Barrie, since his disappearance on Thanksgiving Day.
Last week, a second witness confirmed seeing Crisp on the trail the night he disappeared.
CTV spoke with Sgt. Dave Goodbrand of the Barrie Police:
At this point we believe it to be Brandon, and we're still obviously in the early stages of our investigation, It's not confirmed because nothing's confirmed until we have pathology, but we believe it to be Brandon... [Brandon's parents are] obviously distraught by the information.
On the Facebook group Where is Brandon Crisp? some posters are saying that Brandon's body was discovered by hunters, but that is unconfirmed by police at this point. The London Free Press also reports that Brandon was found by hunters.
UPDATE: The Facebook group has been removed by its moderator, apparently over hurtful remarks being posted.
UPDATE 2: Police are now saying that they don't suspect foul play. CTV quotes Ontario Provincial Police Const. George Silvestri:
Our indication is, at this time, no foul play suspected, but of course we have to examine every possibility... There's absolutely no fear for any residents of Oro-Medonte. This is a safe community.
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Posted 11/04/09 at 03:55am
DarkSaber: The american way, amirite?
DarkSaber: The american way, amirite?
Posted 11/03/09 at 11:03pm
JDKJ: Bloomberg wins NYC mayor race in surprisingly close finish. He should thank God for having all that personal wealth to spend on his campaign. And that his opponent didn't.
JDKJ: Bloomberg wins NYC mayor race in surprisingly close finish. He should thank God for having all that personal wealth to spend on his campaign. And that his opponent didn't.
Posted 11/03/09 at 10:57pm
JDKJ: Owens wins NY23CD. He should thank Sarah Palin and the Teabag Party in his acceptance speech.
JDKJ: Owens wins NY23CD. He should thank Sarah Palin and the Teabag Party in his acceptance speech.
Posted 11/03/09 at 10:51pm
GoodRobotUs: If it's consentual, what's the problem? The PTC seem to think it only happens in porn films. Poor things.
GoodRobotUs: If it's consentual, what's the problem? The PTC seem to think it only happens in porn films. Poor things.
Posted 11/03/09 at 10:42pm
BearDogg-X: The Parent Trash Cult has its panties in a wad over next week's threesome on Gossip Girl; makes terroristic threats against CW network affilates: http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/gossip-girl-threesome-has-ptc-peeved-9599
BearDogg-X: The Parent Trash Cult has its panties in a wad over next week's threesome on Gossip Girl; makes terroristic threats against CW network affilates: http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/gossip-girl-threesome-has-ptc-peeved-9599
Posted 11/03/09 at 07:48pm
Torven: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html
Torven: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html
Posted 11/03/09 at 07:47pm
Torven: So, are the specific leaks from the ACTA posted anywhere? From what I am reading, it sounds like it will gut CDA 230 protection
Torven: So, are the specific leaks from the ACTA posted anywhere? From what I am reading, it sounds like it will gut CDA 230 protection
Posted 11/03/09 at 07:45pm
Pominator: http://www.infinityward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=144042
Pominator: http://www.infinityward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=144042
Posted 11/03/09 at 07:45pm
Pominator: Modern warfare 2 to not include party chat:
Pominator: Modern warfare 2 to not include party chat:
Posted 11/03/09 at 07:43pm
Valdearg: @JDKJ: Duly noted. :)
Valdearg: @JDKJ: Duly noted. :)
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:56pm
JDKJ: While you're willing to work on self-improvement, how about referring to me as "JDKJ?" "JD" sounds like the name of a North Carolina redneck.
JDKJ: While you're willing to work on self-improvement, how about referring to me as "JDKJ?" "JD" sounds like the name of a North Carolina redneck.
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:54pm
Valdearg: @JD: *DOH* Apparently, multi-tasking coding and commenting here, as well as maintaining stream of consciousness "blogging" on the side is more difficult than expected. Mistakes like that happen, I suppose.
Valdearg: @JD: *DOH* Apparently, multi-tasking coding and commenting here, as well as maintaining stream of consciousness "blogging" on the side is more difficult than expected. Mistakes like that happen, I suppose.
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:44pm
JDKJ: Here's the thing . . . prefacing eveything you type with "here's the thing" is a habit you may wanna drop as soon as you can.
JDKJ: Here's the thing . . . prefacing eveything you type with "here's the thing" is a habit you may wanna drop as soon as you can.
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:34pm
Valdearg: Here's the thing.. Moderate republicans are center right.. "Blue Dogs" are also center right., because the current crop of "Liberals" can only really be called "Center Left." They are hardly as liberal as other libs on the world stage. (Eurolibs)
Valdearg: Here's the thing.. Moderate republicans are center right.. "Blue Dogs" are also center right., because the current crop of "Liberals" can only really be called "Center Left." They are hardly as liberal as other libs on the world stage. (Eurolibs)
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:32pm
JDKJ: I'd prefer a party with a fully stocked and staffed bar and roving lap dancers. Some platters of pigs-in-blankets would be cool, too.
JDKJ: I'd prefer a party with a fully stocked and staffed bar and roving lap dancers. Some platters of pigs-in-blankets would be cool, too.
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:31pm
Valdearg: Here's the thing, JD. The Single Payer NHS style healthcare would be considered "Too Far Left." This public option crap that is being tossed around is already a moderate "Comprimise". I don't progressives are anywhere NEAR "too far left."
Valdearg: Here's the thing, JD. The Single Payer NHS style healthcare would be considered "Too Far Left." This public option crap that is being tossed around is already a moderate "Comprimise". I don't progressives are anywhere NEAR "too far left."
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:30pm
Andrew Eisen: I’d prefer zero political parties.
Andrew Eisen: I’d prefer zero political parties.
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:29pm
JDKJ: And progessive Democrats run the exact same risk if they insist on hewing too far to the left. Look and learn.
JDKJ: And progessive Democrats run the exact same risk if they insist on hewing too far to the left. Look and learn.
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:26pm
Valdearg: If I had to choose, I'd pick splitting both parties and creating a third, moderate party, but in leiu of that, I'd love to see the conservatives commit political suicide swinging so far to the right that no SANE individual can follow.
Valdearg: If I had to choose, I'd pick splitting both parties and creating a third, moderate party, but in leiu of that, I'd love to see the conservatives commit political suicide swinging so far to the right that no SANE individual can follow.
Posted 11/03/09 at 06:25pm
Valdearg: So, if we aren't going to kick out the moderates, we might as well let the conservatives fracture themselves and guarantee even larger democratic majorities for a longer time.
Valdearg: So, if we aren't going to kick out the moderates, we might as well let the conservatives fracture themselves and guarantee even larger democratic majorities for a longer time.
Copyright © 2007 ECA. All rights reserved.
Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Comments
not exactly surprising, given he was missing for weeks. but maybe now we can clear up the story, and find out what happened.
It is not murder; I am merely advancing the hands of the clock, just a bit.
Now that we can stop blaming games... It sucks this happened, but the cause of death will be very interesting.
---
Nido Web Flash Tutorials
DOH! That's not good.
Maybe it wasn't video games that caused him to run away but maybe he watched a certain cursed tape that caused him to try to figure out how to stop the curse from killing him in seven days.
Very unfortunate. However, due to the abruptness in which this news comes to us, the police have probably been given leads irrellevant to videogames as there was no progress made.
I'm pretty sure these results would have been better if they weren't so intent on proving him a game addict.
As unfortinate as this news is, the only ones to blame now are the Parents and of course the Ontario Provincial Police for blundering the search in favour of checking his Xbox 360 console.
Why does there need to be blame cast? Are you going to run away and need something to blame if you die?
because more than likely at this point the police and parents will try to cast the blame once more onto someone or something else. namely CoD4 and Microsoft.
i got a bet down that they'll even try to sue over it.
I'm going to tell you a story about a man named George Santayanna. George was a great philosopher and poet who lived from 1863 to 1952. Several famous sayings can be traced back to this man. One of his most famous sayings comes from a book he wrote in 1905, called "The Life of Reason"; you might have heard it before. . .
"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
As horrible as this must be on the parents, cold hard facts bend to NOTHING. Everyone here knows that the truth of the matter is this:
If the mom, the dad, AND the police don't accept or admit that their chasing of red herrings has at least somewhat conributed to this kid's possible death..there isn't a SINGLE THING in place to prevent the SAME SITUATION from happening again in the future.
____________________________________________________________________
Jack Thompson: future Good Burger employee of the month
"If the mom, the dad, AND the police don't accept or admit that their chasing of red herrings has at least somewhat conributed to this kid's possible death..there isn't a SINGLE THING in place to prevent the SAME SITUATION from happening again in the future."
QFE.
Seems like there are two potential scenarios here:
1. The kid ran away and succumbed to exposure.
2. He killed himself.
Either way, gaming is off the hook, and a mixture of stupidity and bad parenting is most likely to blame.
That's sad. I'm interested to know the details now though. If it was really anything to do with XBL I will be deeply shocked.
--
http://mallvillestory.blogspot.com
Shoooooooooocking.
Parents have only themselves to blame for this, and that's all I have to say on this from here on out.
What's even less shocking is that certain trolls on Gamepolitics are going to make stupid comments like yours without any sympathy whatsoever.
I have sympathy for the kid, but it's kind of hard to pass that on, you know?
From what I've heard, I have no sympthay for the parents. It sounded like they're more at fault for him leaving than anything else. The kid? Sure, he died. That sucks.
Just because one can blame the parents doesn't mean they're heartless bastards. It just means they place their symapthy in other ways, or have other ideas of things.
back in the day, trolling meant something
Why should there be false sympathy if someone doesn't care?
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/11/05/crisp-body.html?ref=rss
A body was found, it might be his but confirmation has not been made yet.
I knew this was coming, but that's not very comforting. A sad day, to be sure.
In regards to the police, there's only one thing I can think of;
"That's some fine police work, Lou."
Seriously, maybe if they did some actual searching instead of putzing around with the Xbox 360 like it was the friggin' Ark of the Covenant maybe they would have found him in time. I mean what did they expect to find in there?
I guess the next question we should wonder is if it was foul play or not.
Tea and cake or death! Tea and cake or death! Little Red Cook-book! Little Red Cook-book!
You do realize they had been searching.
Right?
Yes, and I was actually near the area this past weekend for a friend's wedding. It's a very rural area, lots of farmland and from what I saw some decent sized forests dotting the landscape.
With that said, I have to question if they placed full effort on combing the area. The boy was missing for, what, 23 days and the entire time he apparently had not left the county.
Tell me, throughout the investigation what did we hear about in terms of their efforts to search, besides that they were "investigating"? Were there large amounts of police searching the area? Did the parents gather friends, family, and neighbors and search for themselves? How about police in the neighboring counties? Checking with border patrol? It may be possible that some of these things were going on but the emphasis was constantly on "we're looking at his Xbox", "we're checking out the people he knows online", etc. etc. as if information they find there would have been the smoking gun. Hell he was gone for almost a month and earlier today we were STILL hearing about how they were investigating his Xbox.
They may have put forth a credible search, but from the information given there was an unhealthy obsession with the Xbox 360 like it would crack open the case wide open. That's what I'm getting at.
I suppose it is entirely possible that he was abducted and then dumped, but I guess we'll find out as more information is released. If he was found to have died from exposure or some such event, though, I'm going to be skeptical with just how much effort the police did in searching the surrounding area.
Tea and cake or death! Tea and cake or death! Little Red Cook-book! Little Red Cook-book!
They didn't even check around the area that he was last reported to be seen in is what it looks like. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is terrible policing.
Seriously, this whole department needs to be disbanded and replaced under new leadership.
They have been doing a lot of searching. They even considered that he made it to Toronto. GP had reported that Man Tracker was helping too
Have you ever gone looking for a missing person in the woods before? It's not as simple as just walking through the scrub with your eyes open.
---
The Mammon Industry
You're absolutely right.
You need a stick as well. Y'know, for poking in bushes with.
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
I'm going to hell for laughing at that.
lol That's awful.
Game on, brothers and sisters.
True, but I don't think the forests around Barrie are exactly expansive wilderness like what you find near the Rockies in the Oregon/Washington area. Also, as far as I know, there wasn't massive search parties being conducted by the family/friends/neighbors.
Tea and cake or death! Tea and cake or death! Little Red Cook-book! Little Red Cook-book!
Well, it's bogland and hilly terrain, so not expansive but still rough in places. And they got a lot more people out as the story got bigger -- they even got the Manhunter guy from Alberta.
As for the concentration on the X-Box aspect, well, the cops needed a new angle to give the media a reason to keep the story alive. So they went from "we're looking into it" to "we think it's the key" to "hey guys: video games!"
---
The Mammon Industry
Manhunter: Fat lot of good he was when it actually matters.
--------------------------------------------------
I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Why not just go on the basis that the kid was white? :p
Heard what happened, This is Sad.
Its sad enough to hear he's gone, But the aftermath is going to be hell when you have idiots and morons blaming his death over his "addiction" .
Let's hope Jack stays out of this one... he's not going to, is he? Can we get the banhammer ready for when he decides to comment?
---You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.
Seriously, We dont need him in here, im going to start grieving that the poor kid is gone now.
He has in previous articles of this, sadly...and he has been harassing the Barrie police, calling them and "offering his expert advice"...
He is nothing but a f^%#ing ambulence chaser...
He was banned already yesterday, isn´t he? I don´t think he will keep away from this. This is too good for him.
I feel sorry for the kid, and the coming circus around his death.
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
This is too good for him.
And how vile is that? I'm willing to bet that he ACTUALLY experiences GLEE when something like this happens, just because it gives him the ability to be a bigger asshole than ever before.
He may be a joke, but he's also a monster.
The big question will be, is JT going to offer his expert services to the family to help them sue microsoft? Or perhaps start ranting that the police are covering up the gaming connection and try to force them to release details about the xbox live account?
Or will he simply make fun of the guy's friends for not being 'real' and say that if he had been doing more godly things he would be alive. Banned here or not, I'm sure he will say something vile somewhere.
(and looking at the cbc thread there are already people saying that the kid was dead because he did not follow god's rules)
Not that I think you honestly do, but who gives a shit? Everything he might say will be geared towards being a douche. Nothing more.
I give a shit. There are few things quite as entertaining as Thompson when he gets up to full steam.
Don't summon him, you jackass! The less we speak about him, the less we seem to care. Get it?! Don't summon the troll!
Game on, brothers and sisters.
Candyman.....candyman....
I take it the location of his body was found by looking through his XBL account?
You win the internet.
What a sad day. I hoped he would be found alive...
--- Official Protector of Videoland!
Bet his father regrets helping the kid pack his bags now. =/
I don´t think so. He is busy blaming Call of Duty.
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
....Ouch. Burn.
Game on, brothers and sisters.
lol epic. You should have a full-time job for this stuff.
I can see it now... "The Cynical Gamer: Only on Comedy Central!"
_______________________________________________________
Jack Thompson: future Good Burger employee of the month
lol... but I really believe he is saying in his head over and over:
it´s not my fault, videogames did it-- it´s not my fault, videogames did it-- it´s not my fault, videogames did it-- it´s not my fault, videogames did it-- it´s not my fault, videogames did it-- it´s not my fault, videogames did it-- it´s not my fault, videogames did it-- it´s not my fault, videogames did it-- it´s not my fault, videogames did it--it´s not my fault, videogames did it--"it´s not my fault, videogames did it--
It´s scary...
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
As a parent of teens, I can say that it's not always easy to know what the exactly right thing to do is in every situation.
If there's one thing of which we can be sure, it's that his parents will suffer for the rest of their lives over one wrong decision.
So, while we may not like seeing games blamed, that was the media capitalizing on what the disraught parents were theorizing.
Please try to be human about this.
I think you meant please be Humane about this.
no, I meant human.
Having a dead child because you acted immature and packed his stuff to help him run away in the middle of winter instead of stopping him and just letting him play a video game for a few hours is punishment enough, in my book.
Of course if he was in America he would be getting a manslaughter charge for helping the kid run away which lead to his death. (if the cause of death is exposure to the elements).
I want to see a child in that kid's situation, and as punishment, the parent FORCE the kid to keep playing, because if he stops for more than 10 minutes they will take the console away from him. So he better figure out a way to keep playing. The kid would end up so freakin tired of the game that he wouldn't want to play anymore about a while, especially with the thought that, I am being forced to play. That would kill the fun of it quite a bit.
Maybe let him sleep, then have to get right back on the games, but either way, it would be interesting to see the result, see how long the kid plays until he gets sick of it.
---
Nido Web Flash Tutorials AS2 and AS3 Tutorials for anyone interested.
Financial Calculator for anyone interested in seeing the basic run
*takes a moment of silience for a fallen gamer*
I think the best thing now is that they start looking into how he died rather than why he ran away. Whatever the circumstances for him leaving, this is tragic.
Good to see we have so many heartening individuals here.
This is a tragedy. It sucks, it's very sad. I think all the snide, sarcastic, and outright ignorant remarks should be stopped now. Who cares who they blame at the moment? A kid is dead, a gamer is dead, one of your own community and all some of you can say amounts to, "good riddence"
Disgusting.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Krishnamurti
"Good riddance"?
You need to learn how to read. And if you have an issue with us taking issue with the blame-game crap, take it up with the kid's parents. We wouldn't be saying such things without them having opened their mouths to say something so stupid.
So I had a gut response ... I'll admit the Good Riddance was a bit over the top .... just ... yeah
I'm still disgusted by the disregard for like that some people (note: not all) have shown for this kid's life.
You look what's been said - there are some people that have mentioned nothing of the loss and immediately start complaining and moaning about the backlash of video games and COMPLETELY disregard the fact that a 15yo boy is dead ... I mean, come on. Put the agenda aside long enough to actually acknowledge the tragedy that this represents -- there is humanity behind the issue.
Compassion is the name of the game
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Krishnamurti
Some people simply look at the whole "games being blamed for everything-under-the-sun" as being part of a very large issue, which is in turn bigger than one dead kid.
Can't say I disagree.
People die all the time. This gamer is no different. Get over it.
Life is cheap. There'll be another human along any second now.
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
That's true, but I still reserve the right to call you a jackass.
Game on, brothers and sisters.
I stand by my original statement:
Disgusting.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Krishnamurti
Calm down, skippy.
For your own safety, never turn on a TV or listen to the news again. Your head might explode from the grief you will feel.
"They started it!"
That's essentially what you're saying. Think first, then post.
Can you please point to a "good riddance" post? I must have missed it.
It's called reading the comments for the past 23 days.
--- Official Protector of Videoland!
Easier one: it's also called "Not reading." And before you say, "but that's all there was," then I say, 1. Bullshit. 2. Go elsewhere to read then.
There was one that was rather swiftly removed by a mod.
Okay, quick question for you. What is the value of this life over all others? People die everyday. Hell, someone I knew in high school recently had half her face caved in by her abusive husband. I will shed tears for her, I will bleed for her. But I cannot bleed for everyone.
Wall of Text Simulation- Insert coin to continue.
I'm placing cause of death as exposure, I don't worry about Videogames being blammed for his death, Videogames are big enough that they can withstand the allegations that they caused a single death, what I worry about is the family, who if they come to said conclusion will have no remote sense of closure on the whole issue, it sounds cliche, but I don't think I could run with the whole "CoD 4" killed my son, it just doesn't make sense.
Keep him in your thoughts today.
As for the parents, I have nothing to say to them.
That's so awful.
-I apologize-
A sad day it is
at lease he was found most of the time it hard to find ...well the body
Zaruka
This is such a tragedy. I really had prayed he was just at a friend's house and hiding from the police... but as it went on, part of me began to wonder if he was murdered. I'll wait for the results of the autopsy before I make any decision as to what happened here.
Despite the parents' situation, my heart goes out to them.
Amy Levandoski
Oh, shit!
That is NOT good.
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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
*sighs* Meh, our prayers went unheeded. Poor kid....
That's because there isn't actually anyone up there to listen to them.
~You Could Be Mine, But You're Way Out Of Line..~
It's sad that this happened.
I'm dismayed by the comments that just continuously look to place blame on something other than an unfortunate incident stemming from a common household situation.
A real tragedy to some of these turds is when Live goes down for a week. Everyone is so selfish!
I feel for the family, and hope they recover.
Dude...shut up. "Boo hoo, everyone's so selfish!" If something happened and everyone started blaming you, even though you had nothing to do with it, wouldn't you be expecting the other side to continuously blame you for the end results? Hell, wouldn't you want to place blame on something else just to get it and everyone else off your back?
I do agree with your last part, though, and I hope the family can overcome this tragedy in time. Godspeed, fellow gamer.
Game on, brothers and sisters.
Of course people are going to care more about a service they are paying for being unavailable for a week over someone they don't know going missing.
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
txshurricane, I'm with you 100%.
200% on my end.
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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
300% here too.
I guess his CoD 4 addiction led him to believe he was as good as the SAS and that he could survive in the wild.
That or he ran out of quarters for extra lives.
Game Over.
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
GP: The text of this post was removed at the user's request. I did not simply delete it because doing so would auto-delete the replies as well and none of those who replied have requested to have their post removed.
wow, twice as many words promoting yourself than actual content. cool.
Eh, it's just a signature. I've got the same thing going on, doesn't really signify either way.
---
The Mammon Industry
I find your decision to hock your goods and services over the mourning of this dead child, repulsive.
Just because you couldn't define your limits doesn't mean you should impose Christ on people in your '12 steps to freedom'. I should join your club just to infiltrate and disseminate real freedom among your members.
Hmmm, using tragedy to self-promote......now who do we know that does that?
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
What? Not mis-quoting me? I´m dissapointed... eres un chafa...
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
Brad, I think you ought be ashamed showing your face here, after you lied earlier about having 'sources' (I don't know about the rest of the people here, but when I have 'sources' at a media outlet telling me things, they don't give me the wrong information after the factual information has been printed) and basically twisted this whole ordeal for some exposure. Or how about when you edited comments to make another idiotic statement?
Let's face it. You didn't really care about the child, you just cared about making your statement. Well, here's some facts for you asshole; 93% of youths 6-18 play videogames, and a large portion of the adult population does too, and there are very few instances of people becoming as addicted as you like to think people are. Your point wasn't made any stronger by dragging the name of a missing child along with it.
Wow, that really is horrible. While I may disagree to a cetain extent with their willingness to blame the entire thing on video games, I feel completely awful for the parents.
By how long it took, and looking at other factors, by now it was pretty much, yeah. I was almost certain he'd have been dead by now. If he was found alive, I would have been VERY surprised. But...best to wait for police conformation for now.
This is very sad indeed. Hopefully the police get enough information to wrap up their investigation.
My condolences to their family. Right or wrong they must live with this the rest of their lives. Sad all the way around.
"Volume helps to get a point across but sharp teeth are better."
You know, I feel an odd mix of things. Sorrow than a young person is dead before they ever got a chance to live their life, and for the family and friends. Anger at the parents for failing to protect and raise him. Regret that this whole ordeal has a link to games. Apathy at the kid himself. Disgust with his father. Resigning myself that this could be a nomination for a Darwin award.
But over all, somebody's dead. Humans arent in this world for too long, and when they're around for an even shorter time, it's very sad. What will be even more cause to weep will be if he becomes an unwilling martyr for people who would denounce games as something evil and to be feared.
That is exactly how I feel now...except for the "Darwin award" stuff...Ouch...
Anyways, kudos on the post. But there is no handing out wins for today. Brandon Crisp, you will be missed. Rest in peace, fellow gamer.
Game on, brothers and sisters.
Well, Darwin award if the "I played Call of Duty, I'm a survivalist" stuff has any merit. Though, judging from the rest of the stuff surrounding this... it probably doesnt.
I hope they find broken shards of a COD4 DVD broken inside of his heart, then you guys are fucked.
.......What the fuck?! Are you an actual gamer, or just some retarded troll? A 15 year old kid dies, and you come in here spouting that kinda bullshit? What the hell is the matter with you?!
Game on, brothers and sisters.
Made me smile.
--------------------------------------------------
I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Sure, I'd smile too if I were a sociopathic muttonhead with a penchant for trolling. Luckily I actually have a certain amount of consideration for my fellow human beings. Shove off, the both of you.
---
The Mammon Industry
I prefer the term 'misanthrope' personally.
--------------------------------------------------
I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Eh, that's too close to "miscreant" for my taste, which always brings to mind teenage delinquents spraypainting four-letter words onto back alley fences. "Sociopath" has a good hard sound to it. Ssssociopath.
---
The Mammon Industry
It's got more of a sibilant sound than a hard sound...
--------------------------------------------------
I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Ah, yeah, that's the word I was looking for. Sibilance is like slicin' through hot butter.
---
The Mammon Industry
"..."
If this is true, then my heart goes out to the friends and family of the deceased. No one should die at the age of 15. Not when they have their whole life ahead of them. No I don't think we should start pointing fingers as well as anyone else. But we all know that they (including you-know-who)) will start doing so just before or right after the shock wears off. I guessed he was dead..Actually seeing in print, that he was found dead..well..It's still shocking..
I have nothing more to say about it.
- Warren Lewis
Edit: grammar correction
that is the attitude that most imature people have just ingore them and pay recpects to the kid leet if they want to be a hollow scum let them they wont get any praise for the way they act.
Thanks Zaruka
Don't be a twat. The kid is dead. Would you want someone talking that lightly about you like that?
- Warren Lewis
Actually, yes.
Even better would be to die in some highly stupid way that people wouldn't help but laugh at.
--------------------------------------------------
I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Like tipping over a vending machine and getting crushed?
I hate to say it, but you're probably too intelligent for that sort of thing.
---
The Mammon Industry
Regrettably. But we can always hope! And you can still mock me when I die regardless of how it happens.
I certainly wouldn't want false sympathy from people who never had any contact with me before I snuffed it.
--------------------------------------------------
I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Fair enough, but I wouldn't want out-and-out hostility either. Basic mockery is enough, no sense in rubbing it in.
---
The Mammon Industry
Why is the sympathy false? I don't have to know him to know it was a tragedy and be sympathetic to the situation.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Krishnamurti
Bummer.
Hopefully both the parents and the police will learn something from this senseless and avoidable tragedy.
"Video games killed Brandon Crisp!"
At least that what anti-video game advocates will probably be saying. Police could conclude that he was stabbed to death, but they'd still blame it on video games...
It'd be cruel if the parents weren't at least charged with child endangerment, but they did, in a way, let it happen. Although letting them walk out the door is a generic responce to "I'm going to run away," it's not the legally sound method... Horrible for the parents, though. I really feel for them. And if it is Brandon (I haven't heard an update), I feel bad for him, too. Hope he didn't die of the cold weather...
They didn't really "let him", they helped him pack and gave him directions to go out into that area. I live pretty far down south and I'm cold, I immagine they weren't having a heat wave during this.
If he did die of exposure, then it should be noted that the difference between keeping on going when you are cold and hungry and turning around and heading home is how the parents reacted when you ran away. A simple "We don't want you to go." may have made the difference.
If foul play was involved, it will be a different story.
**** this is awful
Was worried about this, hoping it wouldn't happen, but knew it would. This has the potential to be really fucking bad for how the general public sees gamers.
I can't say I'm suprised, but this really sucks to find out about.
~~All Knowledge is Worth Having~~
How awful...though I admit the possiblity of Brandon being dead crossed my mind after being missing for more than a week, though I held out hope.
This is a horrible thing to have happened and I for one am done playing the blame game around here.
I'm wonderring why no one is blaming the killer?
ok- true thats its not confirmed yet,
but blaming the parent's... not sure they could of seen this comming for taking the Xbox away.
blaming the xbox is like blaming the candy when kids gets lured into a van with it.
so depending on when/how he died, I think its either the murderer's fault, or the kid's own fault for running away crying about the xbox.... he was what 15? he should of known better.
Damn you!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
That's adorable as fuck.
I want a Lion now, even though I know it's a bad idea.
Damn, poor kid. At least everyone gave it their best to find him and it really was pretty unlikely he'd be alive after this long.
I thought I would stop in to see what you all were saying here about Brandon, may he rest in peace. He is no longer under the control of that game and the people in it. He left his family for the game. He replaced his family with the people in the game. As family members, that does not feel very good. The game became more important to him than even his own life. He could not live with out it. My grief for Brandon and his family is overwhelming.
And you bastards say his death has nothing to do with the game. Same garbage.
You people here have to have blinders on to say that gaming cannot be destructive to some people. Oh, that's right, your all defending your drug of chioce, so you can justify your own game playing.
If Brandon would not have been addicted to that GAME, he never would have left home and he would still be alive today. If this was just another game and entertainment to him, he wouldn't have been fighting with his parents about it.
Just, as if my son had not started playing Everquest, he would still be alive today.
You people are such a bunch of jerks. No wonder people don't like gamers. You are heartless and have no cares about others and what we have lived through because of these games.
Just cause you THINK you can handle your gaming doesn't mean everyone can.
I am so sick of all of you
So why do I come here? Maybe to just see that someone in this place will finally admit that excessive gaming can hurt people.
You are so sick!
I am ranting. I am angry, so I guess you are getting it.
I know nothing I say, will get any of you admit that games are not good for some people.
I needed to let everyone who may read this, that I agree with what Brandon's parents say. They know him more than any of you do.
I hope Jack reads this. He is one of the few decent people here.
Sorry, Dennis. I just wanted the people reading this to know that not all people here thnik that the gaming companies are innocent in this latest death.
lizwool
Can we get a confirmation if that's really... not saying her name
---You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.
Who are we talking about?
EDIT: Oh, wait.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
I 2nd that. It just seems too over the top to even be a grieving mother. I say check out the logged IP and match it to the location area.
If it truly is here, then I hope that she can find peace some day without having to look for any affirmation as to who was at fault for a suicide. The list is too long to narrow down.
Fixing this up because denis is right, some of the comments, even mine are downright wrong but can be fixed to show our side.
Ms. Liz. I don't know the full story about your son, but I do know that you have been blaming video games for his death. Frankly, I'm going to take a gander and say that the blame you put on video games and video gamers, isn't going to really help anyone. I know what its like to loose a loved one, I lost my grandfather in 2007 and to this day, i feel like someone is at fault. But I know for a fact and accept that things happen and blaming others can't change what has happend nor does it help anyone. Its hard to accept things for what they are, but untill you stop blaming the games and see who really at fault, than its not going to make things better for anyone. So please, i know this must painfull to see and it angers you, we need to remeber, that there is a dead kid here and that parents have lost their loved one. Its true that I see fault with both Brandon and His parents. But it still a sad day. Your attack is not helping at all.
A Videogame did not kill your family member. A murderer did. Put things into perspective. Unless he died of withdrawl, you're wrong.
As for Jack being a decent person, I take it you never read the letter he wrote to the friends and family of a gamer who comitted suicide. Mr Thompson was gloating over his death. I can provide you with a full text if you want.
By the way. What did the family do to help this kid's addiction? Letting a child leave the house to go wander about is hardly therapudic for an addict.
When the killer is caught, will you blame him or the game? If its a game's fault, then the killer needs to run free, doesn't he?
No, Liz Wooley's not trying to find her son help and ignoring whatever underlying psychological issues he might have had is what killed him. His being "addicted" to Everquest was a symptom, not a cause. Of course, refusing to take any responsibility for ones own failings and passing the blame on an inanimate object is why she's such a fan of Jack "play a suicide game and get good at it" Thompson.
Agreed. People are using games as scapegoats. It was more the father's fault from the I heard of the story. I would never let my child leave the house, especially to run away. God knows what could happen, and this family had one of the worst things happen as a result. Bad parenting lets kids get addicted, and they use a knee jerk reaction to try to solve the problem instead of looking for the best solution.
You wouldn't let your child drink 24 cans of Mountain Dew a day, because it is not healthy for them. So why would you let them play video games for the amount of hours many of these kids are. (Especially ones that get on right after school, then go to bed late, and rack up a total of 8-10 hours of gaming a day, on a school day, as if 10 hours isn't bad enough on a weekend day. Maybe for the whole weekend, if the weather is really crappy, no family events, and nothing to do at all, but still I would figure something to do as a family if that was the case.) It comes down to parenting, and parents need help figure out how to resolve their situation. If it got so bad that you need to have a professional give you advice, do so. It is your damn child, and you should get knocked upside the head for not seeking the best advice for helping them in situations like this.
I fully support preventative measures, but too many people fail to do so. I took preventative measures to not get addicted to gaming, and right now I haven't touched any of my consoles for 2 weeks, 4 months ago, I hadn't touched them for 8 months. (It seems like a waste of money by not using them because of their cost, but I have other things to do in life.) I only drink once every other month or less, and smoke only during special occasions. (and only cigars, and that is for marriages, babies being born, huge promotion, and not many others)
I would say that EverQuest was the affect, but you can see a professional on what the affect of what.
---
Nido Web Flash Tutorials
Cute, but we're not buying it, sorry.
300 Episodes and counting: http://www.orangeloungeradio.com/
I hope Jack reads this. He is one of the few decent people here.
So you approve of making hardcore gay porn available to children then, as the decent person himself did then?
Oh yes, by all means call everyone who doesn't unconditionally agree with you bastards wearing blinders. This does nothing but give me the right to tell you that you are nothing but a bitter old hag who has to find blame in everyone and everything else but the people who actually caused everything to happen.
I'm going to paraphrase your hero Jack when I say regarding your son and this kid. "A statistic of one doesn't matter" What happened to them is sad, but to take any and all blame away from their own actions is beyond stupid.
But by all means keep on believing that all video games are evil and anyone who plays them are depraved individuals, it just shows what a hateful harpy you've become.
Below is the aformentioned letter by Jack to the friends and family of a gamer who committed suicide a few years back. This is how your "decent" person (do you even know what he did to get disbarred?) feels about dead gamers:
"Your 'gamer friend' will find peace through the Lord, Jesus Christ, but sadly it's too late for that.
There is a void in every heart. You can fill it up with the things of God, or the things not of God. This unfortunate soul chose to fill it up with combat games. The playing of these video games is masturbatory activity, meaning senseless self-stimulation. If you gamers could use a dictionary you would know that that term is not necessarily a sexual one.
The real tragedy here extends beyond the life and death of this one fellow. There are literally millions of young people and young adults whose despair is deepend by turning to the things of this world and then finding them meaningless.
All of you gamers need to put down the controllers and get a life. The utter inanity of the vast majority of postings here shows how vapid "gaming" really is.
You are one of the cheerleaders for this wasting of time and the wasting of lives. Do you feel any remorse for having contributed to this 'culture of death?' Of course not. Hey, let's all play MORE games, and ignore all the really productive things to do with our lives.
Let's pretend to be shocked that a gamer might descend into deeper depression, as his gamer 'buds,' knowing he was killing himself, couldn't figure out how to call 911 themselves for him. That would have involved leaving their computers I guess.
Sad. Sad for all of you."
Ah, professional trolls.
I find you a disgusting individual who looks to take her personal pain out on other people.
If you are so sick of gamers, then go away. We are sick of you and those who came before you. But keep your crack pot theories and blame to yourself, or better yet, look inward.
You will fade, another will take your place, and ultimatly you will be mocked then forgotten in the culture wars as a new generation grows up and realizes how pathedic you were. Over and over.
I also hope that someone gives you the Steve Wilkos treatment.
---You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.
Just out of curiosity, what is the Steve Wilkos treatment?
Game on, brothers and sisters.
Did the videogame pack his bags for him when he was going to leave? Did the videogame end his life? Of course not. He chose to leave because he had an altercation with his parents and met with unfortunate circumstances. I had fights with my parents as a child too (including ones in which I was grounded from video games). Did I run away? Of course not. I realized that no matter how enjoyable, it was a video game and nothing more. Just because he left when his parents tried to discipline him does not mean the game is responsible. More than likely he wanted to teach his parents a lesson and met with foul play. Regrettable, but hardly the fault of video gamers.
He likely would have left had the parents attempted to try and discipline him by restricting any activity which he was engrossed in, whether video games, TV, reading, or any other hobby of his. Gaming just happened to be the activity he enjoyed most. Would you have blamed television networks had he left for having his television privileges revoked? I doubt it.
There have been many comments made in this post in what I feel to be poor taste, but such is life. People are allowed to voice their opinions no matter how distasteful others may find them. However, blaming an entire group for the actions of a few are simply ignorant. And blaming an activity simply because certain people lack self-control is equally ignorant. Believe it or not, there is a thing called personal responsibility. Should you be too young to exercise this, it becomes the responsibility of the parents to monitor their own children.
Ms. Lizwool,
You have suffered a terrible loss, the kind of loss that I, as a father myself, care not to contemplate. In this you have my deepest sympathies.
However, in your grief, you have latched on to a scapegoat, a straw man, an inanimate target for your grief, and this has blinded you to fact and reality. Please, get some help. Talk to a therapist who specializes on dealing with the loss of a child. Your anger is misdirected and not healthy for you.
We don't know why Brandon is dead, we may never know since it isn't our business and it is possible the authorities may never release that information. Blaming games is silly. Games didn't kill Brandon. It might have been exposure, it might have been a stranger, it might have been foul play. We don't know and it is pointless for us to speculate. Teenagers can be very hard to deal with and often have tenuous relationships with their parents. Things are said in the heat of the moment and get out of hand. There is entirely too little information in this case for any of us to be jumping to conclusions. And your accuastions are nothing more than pure speculation.
I am not sick. I am a gamer, a gaming advocate and a father. My children game and I exercise my parental control over their gaming in the same way I do all their activites. I argue with my children like any parent. We have good times and bad times. I'm sorry Ms. Lizwool, but it is you who are sick. Sick with grief and hurting. And I wish I could help, but I can't.
Grey
With all due respect ma'am you don't know us.
While there are indeed people who made comments here that were, in my opinion, a tad beyond the pale that doesn't mean we all feel that way. The vast majority of us here have long advocated that all things must come in moderation and parents MUST be involved on every level of their child's development. It is impossible for a game to kill someone because a game is just an inanimate object. It has no will of its own and cannot act out on its own.
The sad truth is that Brandon ran away from home and was enabled to do so by his father. A father who packed his son's bag for him, yet this little fact is conveniently ignored in order to get more ratings or sell more papers. We've lost one of our own and the tragedy is compounded by those who would attempt to use his death to foster a political agenda.
You obviously believe that Everquest killed your son. Nothing anyone here can say will ever be able to convince you otherwise. You see though there are usually reasons that people become that involved in something. Usually it's because of lonliness or some other problem that they keep to themselves. They play games because the worlds they can explore there are so much better than what we see everyday. As stated before there are always those who take it too far, but you can hardly blame the whole for the actions of a few.
Maybe you'll consider what I and others have said and maybe you won't, ulitmately the choice is yours.
(long time lurker first time poster)
I'm a gamer, I've been following this story here since day one, I've hoped that the kid would be found alive since day one, but I don't think for a second that games were the sole cause of this tragedy, does that make me a bad person?
I know you'll probably ignore this post, but I'll post a fact or two as to why I believe this, just for fun.
1. The kid never logged onto his xbox account after he disappeared, if he left because of his so-called "addiction", why wouldn't he go to a friend's house so he could "feed his addiction" so to speak, with more of these "evil" games?
2. The father HELPED THE KID PACK! He didn't even try to keep the kid from running away! The blame lies more with the father than anything else. In other words: the two words you seem so oblivious to: "bad parenting"
3. It's true that the game being taken away might have been the last straw for this poor kid, but if he was truly "addicted" to the point where he couldn't physically stop playing the game, as you and your pal JT say, he would have gone to a friend's house, not the middle of the woods.
In conclusion, you, Lizwool (not exactly sure what your full name is, apologies for that), are just as bad as everyone's favorite disbarred lawyer, trying to blame all of society's ills on video games, completely ignoring the possibility of personal responsibility, and trying to suppress the first amendment while you're at it.
What do I get from your post?
That you are sick, obscene, bigoted, dishonorable, unethical, immoral, piece of guttertrash who, like John Bruce "Jack" Thompson, uses the tragedies of others to push your lies, deceit, misinformation of an agenda on others.
Consider your perverted, obscent, guttertrash face spit upon and that obscene, perverted, immoral religious text that you shove in people's faces that is interpreted to represent the world according to the abusive, immoral, obscene, perverted lizwool to have been set ablaze in a purifying fire to free it of your immorality and obscenity.
You are free to speak your bigotry, lies, and deceit all you want. Rest assured, I will speak how you use the tragedies of others, like Brandon, to push your immorality on others.
You truly are obscene, perverted, immoral, and incompetant as a Parent, proven by your OWN words as actions. Nothing you say from this point will ever change that view.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Nightwng2000 has also updated his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/nightwing2000 Nightwng2000 is now admin to the group "Parents For Education, Not Legislation" on MySpace as http://groups.myspace.com/pfenl
Wow! Now that's a post! You get a nice pic....as soon as I get home from work.....
Are you actually saying that the person who killed your son should walk because your son played a video game? Think of OTHER people's children, ma'am.
Oh wait, you probably don't even know who the hell Jack Thompson is, as you shouldn't, since he's never been relevent at all.
Liz's son, Shawn, committed suicide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Shawn_Woolley
(As is pointed out in the discussion part of the article, the article appears to be a bias piece written by Liz, in violation of Wikipedia's neutrality codes. It certainly reads like it were ripped from the likes of Conservapedia.)
And this is her organization website:
http://www.olganon.org/
I visted their forums some time ago. It read like the typical bigotted power site. The only solution is religious salvation. If you're not of their religious beliefs, you're an evil person. So on, and so forth.
As to John Bruce and Liz, Liz has previously stated that she and John Bruce had dealings but from the sounds of it at the time, there was a parting of the ways. Though she seems to have been mentally infected with his immorality and seems to want to make nice with him now.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Nightwng2000 has also updated his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/nightwing2000 Nightwng2000 is now admin to the group "Parents For Education, Not Legislation" on MySpace as http://groups.myspace.com/pfenl
IIRC, she claimed on GP's LJ archives that they parted ways because she called Sony herself and he wanted her to have no contact with them.
Geaux Saints, Geaux Tigers, Geaux Hornets, Jack Thompson can geaux chase a chupacabra.
''He is no longer under the control of that game and the people in it. He left his family for the game. He replaced his family with the people in the game. ''
dont mean to be rude.. but you really have no first hand knowledge of what went on in brandon's situation so you cant really make claims like that. You dont know any more than me or anybody else.
"Maybe to just see that someone in this place will finally admit that excessive gaming can hurt people."
I will 100% admit that excessive gaming can hurt people. As soon as you say 'excessive', you are qualifying the habit as one that is taken part in to the point where it is too much. Its a loaded statement, so why do you expect a response to something you've answered already?
The point is not everybody that games, game 'excessively' (in fact that vast majority of people). They maintain a healthy balance between everything in their life (work , relationships, friends etc). I dont understand your statement when you say :
'' Just cause you THINK you can handle your gaming doesn't mean everyone can ''
Again.. you know NOTHING about my life so how can you factually make a statement as to what happens in it? Im not saying that defensively, i just genuinely dont understand how you apparently know that i have a gaming problem thats detrimental to my life, that i cant handle. In actual fact, I currently game for a just a handful of hours, and only on one day a month. I have a lot on right now in terms of my final year at university, and immediately i have prioritised, putting my work first. I dont find it in any way difficult.
The ironic thing is You actually aknowledge that not all people react the same, and just because one person can handle their gaming, doesnt mean everyone can. Surely you have just pointed out that the changing variable between situations is the person themselves. Some people cannot game, drink, smoke, watch tv, read books / magazines/ eat or whatever the hobby may be, with an acceptable level of control. Thats down to the person, not the substance/hobby/object. I dont mean to attack you or your beliefs, but i simply cannot say nothing, when you argue in the same breath that all gamers are addicts, who only 'think' they can handle their 'addiction', and also say that people are different and some people can handle things others cannot. Its paradoxical.
I know That excessive gaming can hurt people but you need to mantain Moderation in everything, even in exercise, games and even the computer
and moderation.
----------------------------------------------------
"What for you bury me in the cold cold ground?" - Tasmanian devil
You do know that his dad helped Brandon leave, right?
--- Official Protector of Videoland!
Liz, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, and I realize this news may be rekindling difficult emotions in you.
To be fair, however, we don't even know the cause of death at this point.
Beyond that, blanket condemnations on either side of the issue are pretty unproductive, don't you think?
I'll notify you guys in a seperate post about the cause of death.
I think it's hypothermia. but that's my guess
I'm assuming that the police will release that info once the autopsy is complete.
I'd probably have a different theory, but will wait to see.
I hope Jack reads this. He is one of the few decent people here.
You should write this at first in your rant. I should stoped reading your mental diarreah right there...
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
I know nothing I say, will get any of you admit that games are not good for some people.
we don't admit to lies and speculation, and it's clear that you won't admit it to be impossible that Brandon Crisp could be addicted to Call of Duty 4 a year longer then it's been out.
岩「…Where do masochists go when they die?」
Ma'am with all due respect, you have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
Like any parent who would go through a situation such as this you are grasping at straws to find anything else to blame other than your child or, dare I say it, yourself. And vultures such as Jack Thompson are right there to swoop in over the dead bodies and take advantage of the situation for his own financial gain. Did you know your "decent person" Jack Thompson was rambling on about his same old bullshit on CNN about the Virginia Tech shooting before the bodies were cold or even before the name of the shooter was known. If that is not a vulture I don't know what is.
Furthermore show just how the game removed his free will and forced him to leave him. Oh thats right, it didn't. Brandon CHOSE to leave home and his father supported the idea. The game never made that decision for him, as its incapable of. You are nothing more than an enabler of this cancerous culture that wants to blame everything else for its ills. And video games are nothing more than the latest chain that previously included moving pictures, comic books, and rock music.
So I will say it again. The games had nothing to do with his death. If you can show evidence on how his free will could possibly be negated I'd be glad to hear it. But until then I will blame people for the actions they choose to take.
So I am calling you out, show how the gaming companies are responsible for his death. Show where they forced him to leave home.
-Ultimately what will do in mankind is a person's fear of their own freedom-
after reading your hate speech (yeah, I call it that) I have never been so outraged. I expected this from JT, but not from another massacre chaser like you! From the way you've been behaving you've should've NEVER had a child in the first place if your just going to ignore common sense and start bashing everyone that disagrees with you!
Let's see what you've just said:
"And you bastards say his death has nothing to do with the game. Same garbage."
Hypocrisy at its worst
"You people here have to have blinders on to say that gaming cannot be destructive to some people. Oh, that's right, your all defending your drug of chioce, so you can justify your own game playing."
If anything, YOU'RE the one with the blinders on. Massacre chasing will always be a much worse drug than gaming!So why do I come here? Maybe to just see that someone in this place will finally admit that excessive gaming can hurt people.
"So why do I come here? Maybe to just see that someone in this place will finally admit that excessive gaming can hurt people"
No, just people with the common decency to ACTUALLY CARE about a dead child (unlike you with your son, don't pretend you do)
What would your son think about you now if he sees you trolling around like an extremist that you are?
think about it.
Miss Wooley, I have a question for you.
Have you ever considered what the real cause of his suicide was? What was going on in his life? What was going on in his interactions with you, with his co-workers/co-students/peers? What was it that made him feel the only place he was in power, the only place he could succeed, was in a virtual world? Was it, just maybe, some way you made him feel like less of a success (I know my parents often tried to)? Was it some way that HE felt like less of a success, or that he was less in power? Oh no, don't let the facts get in the way of your crusade.
You, madame, are just as bad as Brad from exgamer.net, except I got to watch him lie first-hand. You use something like this, a tragic death that wasn't caused by 'gaming' but by bad parenting, and use it to further your unsupported views.
"You people have to have blinders on, etc etc etc generalized bullshit". Let me explain something to you: you will find someone addicted to everything. That doesn't make it bad for everyone, it doesn't make it bad for the majority of people, it just means that the people who are easily addicted probably shouldn't do it.
If Brandon's dad hadn't packed his bag for him, he probably wouldn't have left home with as much ease. Of course, you ignore the fact that, if he was indeed 'addicted' to the game, he would've gone immediately to a friend's house or somewhere else where he could feed his 'addiction'. He wouldn't have gone hiking into the mountains.
If your son hadn't started playing Everquest, he'd probably still have ended his life. Don't blame the game just because you don't want to look for the truth yourself.
People don't like gamers? Wow, I must've missed that while I was flying my Cessna earlier. I'm pretty sure that gamers are just as liked as any other group of people, probably more liked than some. Of course, I'm just a sociologist, spending my time watching how groups interact, what do I know right?
We THINK we can handle them? Really? I don't see hundreds of people around the world dying because of games every year. Interesting. Maybe Lexis Nexus is broken, or mine just isn't working, but I seem to miss out on those 'addiction' statistics. Nevermind the fact that there is no actual operating definition of ADDICTION. When do you define someone as an addict? Is the person who goes to Church every week an 'addict'? How about me, when I have a pint every night while I read, am I an addict, or do I just enjoy a warm Guinness while I read? Are we to go by some unscientific definition of addiction provided by Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization with such a low success rate they won't publish it? (Penn and Teller found the rate to be about 5%, which is equal to the rate of success for people who tried to stop on their own). Let's look at the facts; a large portion of Americans are 'gamers', and there's not an outbreak of 'game addiction', unless you ask 'Dr' Phil, who has no more right to call himself a doctor than Jack does to call himself an attorney.
Liz, I suggest you take your nonsense and keep it to your own little group. The rest of the world doesn't tolerate unsubstantiated anecdotes as being representative of a larger problem, so keep it to the few who you can find to agree with you.
Reading all that, it was very well put. But I couldnt get over the 'warm Guinness' part. You, sir, are a sick man. Or you're in Europe. In which case, warm brew is the norm, so...
Really I just wanted to say 'I like mine cold'. Though I could take the "higher route" as our friends Jack and Liz do and say 'You are a sick, sick bastard of a man and what you do to beer is a crime against God and nature."
American beer does, in fact, need to be cold to be consumed, otherwise it will taste like piss. However, Guinness tastes just as well cold or warm, and drinking it warm means I have more free space in my fridge. Am I European? Hell no. I just don't mind a warm pint of stout.
I just cant do it. My mouth just... rejects it. I've tired, but it just doesnt work. However, I am pleased that the discussion is turning to beer. Beer is rather uplifting in such a sad topic as this.
After reading everything up to this point, all I can say is... UMMM Stout!
Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
Try just having a Guinness after leaving it out of the fridge for a half an hour or so. Ease yourself into it. Room temperature Guinness is delicious. Now, I wouldn't suggest it for American made beer, because our beer is terrible (for the most part). But you can enjoy a nice stout beer, or maybe a good lager, even if it's warm.
I respectfully disagree. While Guinness is my favorite, sometimes a good Bud Light is just what you need for, say, a cheeseburger. Drinking bread while eating bread puts me off. However, not-as-cold Guinness is something I might try. They serve it warm in Ireland, I think? Maybe a more authentic experience. You know, it's a little depressing, this. We get to yammer on about beer while a kid is dead and vultures turn the whole thing to an argument for their crusade.
I think I'm going to have a drink tonight in honor of the fallen. I didnt know him, and he may have done some stupid things, but nonetheless, a life has been lost. A Canadian beer or whiskey should do fine.
They serve it warm in most of the rest of the world, including Nigeria, the biggest importer of Guinness in the world. Seriously. I have a Nigerian friend, and one night at a bar he began singing a song, and the lyrics said something about 'if your woman leaves you, at least your Guinness never will'.
Vultures, my boy? There will always be those willing to drag the dead through the mud for their agenda, be it Liz, that Yahweh woman (BTW, its spelled YHWH), or Jack Thompson. The sad, sad truth I'm afraid.
Let us have a pint of stout and a bit of Scotch, and fill for him the parting glass.
Of all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company;
And all the harm I've ever done, alas was done to none but me;
And all I've done for want of wit, to memory now I can't recall,
So fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
Of all the comrades e'er I had, they're sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts e'er I had , they wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should go and you should not,
I'll gently rise and softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all.
Excellent post! Very well said! I applaud you good sir.
"Volume helps to get a point across but sharp teeth are better."
Jack Thompson, decent? After he was found guilty on 27 charges of misconduct and disbarred?
Well, giving that you seem to have the same sleective dyslexia as him, and, well ,based on the accounts of someone hwo has been thruhg your little "program", you kept him starved and when he tried to clal him family so he coudl go home you disconnected the phone. So I gues by your standards, yes, THompson is a pretty stand up person.
And thanks for ignoring the posts that were offering best wishes to the family, and for calling us all bastards. Insults and asusming all gamers are male REALLY earns you points. It worked great for Thomspon.... oh, wait...
Also, what people in the game? No one is "in" the game. People play it from all over the world, but the game's AI isn't snetient, meaning no one is in the game, just playing it.
And I'm sorry for being harsh, and I am truly sorry for your the loss of your son, and again for the loss of the young man named in this article, but people like you need to take a dose of goddamend reality and grow the fuck up.
The fact is that your son playign Everquest was not the cause, it was a symptom, and you did NOTHING, NOTHING to find what he had nor did you even try to help hi mas far as I saw.
SO yes, you woudl see THompson as a decent human being, woudln't you?
Again, sorry for beign os harsh, even if you likely won't read this.
How can you call jack a decent person when he was disbarred for multiple offenses. Here's something taken from his disbarrment ruling:
(1) respondent made false statements of material fact
to courts and repeatedly violated a court order; (2) respondent communicated the
subject of representation directly with clients of opposing counsel; (3) respondent
engaged in prohibited ex parte communications; (4) respondent publicized and sent
hundreds of pages of vitriolic and disparaging missives, letters, faxes, and press
releases, to the affected individuals; (5) respondent targeted an individual who was
not involved with respondent in any way, merely due to "the position [the
individual] holds in state and national politics;"
(7)
respondent sent courts inappropriate and offensive sexual materials
(9) respondent harassed the former
client of an attorney in an effort to get the client to use its influence to persuade the
attorney to withdraw a defamation suit filed by the attorney against respondent; and
(10) respondent retaliated against attorneys who filed Bar complaints against him
for his unethical conduct by asserting to their clients, government officials,
politicians, the media, female lawyers in their law firm, employees, personal
friends, acquaintances, and their wives, that the attorneys were criminal
pornographers who objectify women.
----------------------------------------------------
"What for you bury me in the cold cold ground?" - Tasmanian devil
coming from you and what you've said before? stop spewing your crap.
your completely ignoring any other factors beyond the games. and you say we have blinders on and that we are bastards? look again in the mirror elizabeth, you hypocrite.
"He is no longer under the control of that game and the people in it."
The people IN the game? If you mean the people he may have spoken with on Xbox live, then you are sorely mistaken as to the game being to blame. For starters, he ran away from home when the game was taken away, it would have taken enormous co-incidence for some internet predator to arrange to meet him the day after that happened. Secondly, if he was lured from home by a predator, you can no more blame the xbox than you can a football if a child is lured away from a match, or the swings if a child is lured from the playground.
"He left his family for the game."
And went out into the woods where there is no game? Yeah, that makes sense.
"And you bastards say his death has nothing to do with the game."
His death had nothing to do with the game.
"You people here have to have blinders on to say that gaming cannot be destructive to some people. Oh, that's right, your all defending your drug of chioce, so you can justify your own game playing."
Of course it can be destructive to some people. Chocolate is destructive to others. Sex to other people. Some people find gambling, alcohol or drugs destructive, yet, most people can deal with these things in a normal manner. Don't blame inanimate objects for an individual's inability to deal with them.
"If Brandon would not have been addicted to that GAME, he never would have left home and he would still be alive today. If this was just another game and entertainment to him, he wouldn't have been fighting with his parents about it."
So what you are saying is "If he were a normal child"?
"Just, as if my son had not started playing Everquest, he would still be alive today."
Some wishful speculation on your part. Maybe if you had intervened like a parent should your son would still be alive.
"No wonder people don't like gamers."
Who said no-one likes us? This is just a childish insult.
"You are heartless and have no cares about others and what we have lived through because of these games."
I have every sympathy for the loss suffered by you and this family. However, I do not believe and will not accept the blame laid on games for their deaths. Their deaths were caused by whatever problems they had, problems which included addiction as a symptom but were not recognised in time in this case and in your son's.
"Just cause you THINK you can handle your gaming doesn't mean everyone can."
Newsflash Liz, I CAN handle my gaming. Seeing as I have a son nearly a year old, I HAVE to handle my gaming. While it's nice every now and again to kick back and have a big gaming session, I understand my responsibilities and take them VERY seriously. I have the time to write this because my son is asleep right now, but if I hear him wake on the baby monitor, I will be at his side in a second, regardless of what game I am playing, or anything else I am doing.
As I said above, ANYTHING can be detrimental to the wrong kind of person. That is a fault with the person however.
"I am so sick of all of you"
Likewise lady. We don't exactly appreciate being insulted and vilified by people like you who are closed minded and don't even understand the issues at hand.
"So why do I come here? Maybe to just see that someone in this place will finally admit that excessive gaming can hurt people."
Excessive ANYTHING can hurt people. If you eat too much you will become obese and suffer from a variety of health problems. Where is the outrage over food Liz?
"I am ranting. I am angry, so I guess you are getting it."
I understand your anger and frustration at your loss, but I am sad to say that it is misguided. Hopefully venting your anger will help you calm down and look at what we are saying in a more rational manner.
"I know nothing I say, will get any of you admit that games are not good for some people."
Games are not good for some people. However, your fault is in failing to realise that it is not a problem with the games, but with those people.
"Sorry, Dennis. I just wanted the people reading this to know that not all people here thnik that the gaming companies are innocent in this latest death."
I'm sorry to tell you Liz, but the gaming companies are completely innocent. Just like a chocolate manufacturer or fast food restaurant is innocent if someone eats to much and dies of health problems. Just like the manufacturer of a steak-knife is innocent if one of their products is used by a murderer to kill someone. Just like a car manufacturer is innocent if a person causes an accident through speeding.
It sounds like I'm being very hard on you in my responses, but it is for 2 reasons. First of all, there is no merit in blaming games, using them as a scapegoat has the negative effect of vilifying the innocent people who make them, and detracting attention from the underlying problems. Sure, a kid can play too much of a game, but what is making him do so?
Secondly, I want to you to see why blaming the games is wrong for your own sake. Bearing this hatred for games and launching yourself on this misguided crusade will do no-one any good, and in the worst case may be harmful to your own mental wellbeing. I hope that some day you can accept what happened to your son, however painful that may be, and find peace.
This serves as a wakeup call to everyone including parents that they should parent more better Videogames should be a reward for after homework is done and keep the Violent Videogames away from your Children(If you brought them for yourself) This abuse that Ive gotten from everyone (Not Just JT but Liz wooley and the Rest of GP members for 3 yrs reading what is going on GP) is Unacceptable grief and torture that I have to worry about the possibilty of gamer genocide by killer Non-gamers
Violent videos games didn't get him killed. Now leave this site and get some common sense.
--- Official Protector of Videoland!
I'm sorry for what i did, I did'nt wanted to troll at all
Who are you? Slow down and punctuate. If a parent needs a wakeup call to be involved in the entertainment their kids are exposed to then they are bad parents and asleep at the wheel. This isn't a wake up call. This is a tragedy that may or may not have a connection to gaming.
And what "unacceptable grief and torture" have you suffered? Our Fine Friend has called me names and questioned my sanity, but really. Drama much? This is the internet, you should look up Jonathan Gabriel's theory on internet interactions.
I'm just saying that Parents need to be more involved in thier children's lives, after what happened. I didn't mean to troll
And I suffered the same amount of torture as you guys by King Douchebag(a name i thought up for the MMoM). but Pandirisk and two post's about the catholic church being condemmed by gamepolitics Members, just plain got on my nerves. I'm sorry for that
I agree, it's time for parents to wake up and start... y'know... PARENTING, instead of relying on media and the government to do so.
Pandralisk was banned a long time ago. He was an atheist nut (this coming from an atheist) who blamed religion for everything and we barely tolerated him as is. He never spoke for gp and I don't remember anyone being upset when we booted him for abusing the comments system (walls of text, excessive flaming, off topic crap, that kind of stuff).
So yeah we apologize for that shmuck.
----------------------------------------------------
"What for you bury me in the cold cold ground?" - Tasmanian devil
no need to worry
If the fight between the parents and the kid were because the kid wanted to enter in a ballet school and the father didn´t wanted to allow him wear thights, then we would have to blame ballet?
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
Err just to point out that it wasn't violent games that supposedly caused this it was game addiction. My parents took away the game controllers and only let me play an hour a day on weekends when I was young and I think parents should consider something like that if they're worried their kids might get addicted.
Welcome to the site. Although I'm confused about your genocide comment. Are you saying gamers will go on a genocide or be the victims of one? I don't see either scenario as being very likely.
----------------------------------------------------
"What for you bury me in the cold cold ground?" - Tasmanian devil
I just made the statement because i was Stressed after everyone got out of control
RIP kiddo. :(
http://www.darkesword.com/
25 Gun salute for Brandon Crisp, may he rest in Peace
Well this is rather unfourtunate. My heart goes out to the family of Brandon, but unfourtunatly its far from over. As we have blantly seen from Lizwool, people are going to blame games for the demise of this boy. They call us sad and sick? Let me be blunt. Gmaes did NOT kill this kid. The game did not physically tell this kid to argue with his parents, run away from home, and strike him when he was alone. A game can't do that. Liz if you want to keep blaming games for the deaths of your son and others, do us a favor and think about what your doing. Is that what your child would want, to see their grown parents waving their fingers at some specter that isn't there? I wouldn't.
DarthCadeous501- Pink Halo 3 Ninja, Mongoose Suicidee, and Current Iron Man Hater
I blame video games entirely for the cause of death.
I mean, seriously!
If this kid had never played a video game, his mom wouldn't have had to take them away, and he never would have left home and ended up dead. It's so obvious that video games were a direct cause of death in this instance.
I would like to take this time to start a lobby for banning ALL video games EVERYWHERE!
Such senseless death should never occur and it never will again once we do away with video games on the whole.
Oh ya;
The Bible is the law of life.
Darwinism is an abomination.
Children have no individiual thoughts other that what they are programmed with.
God bless you all.
please let this be sarcasm or a bad troll... please, please
I take it you are making fun of JT by being too obvious in your impersonation of the man himself.
My verdict: YOU ARE FUNNY.
ROFLCOPTER
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
Not really funny...
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
There's a time for jokes like this, kosa, but I'm afraid this isn't one of them.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
This post just begs the question, in my mind: why do non-gamers come to this site to post this kind of drivel? It's like going onto a gay-rights forum to bash gay marriage. It only guarantees an unproductive result.
An unfortunate turn of events. Though, honestly, after this much time, it was really expected.
I don't have a map of any of the area. But I know on the Facebook page, people were talking about a concern that he was lost in the "downtown" area, a rather nasty, but familiar place for teens to get lost in. I'm assuming that since hunters found his body, that it was in a wooded, forest area and not "downtown"?
With low temperatures, I suspect it will be difficult to obtain a timeframe of how long he's been dead. I also suspect the police will offer more details as to the condition of the area itself. Was this an area he was holed up in? Did it appear accidental (articles are saying it APPEARED no foul play)? Did he appear to have been moved there? Were there signs of others there? Etc.
If there is such a thing as a soul, I'm sure he can rest peacefully now. Though, sad to bring it up, usually in situations like this, the last thoughts were probably in turmoil. Regret. Sadness. Possibily seeking forgiveness as well as offering it. Fear. Perhaps even still some anger.
I've already had my say elsewhere regarding the Parents. No need to reash it here and now.
Good luck Brandon. I really hope you were/are at peace.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Nightwng2000 has also updated his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/nightwing2000 Nightwng2000 is now admin to the group "Parents For Education, Not Legislation" on MySpace as http://groups.myspace.com/pfenl
when will we use Kotakus way of handling Controvisial comments
http://kotaku.com/pages/disemvowel
Besides It makes things funny
I hate their way. I like to read the controversial comments. I usually get pissed when I can't figure out exactly what was said that pissed everybody off.
If he died of hypothermia, there is a chance the parents could be charged with involuntary murder or at least child endangerment- they allowed/encouraged him to leave the house. I would imagine that they would be worried about such developments.
And they will keep blaming videogames in behalf to evade any criminal responsability, if they are really guilty.
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
I'm assuming that theory ATM
I don't see the mother being charged, but I could see the father being charged with something, but that is for the local officals to decide. I think the death of his child will be beyond torture for him and his wife, and another additional will just add to it. If I was a court, I would require psychological treatment to help them through the moarning process, because this is going to strain their marriage and mental health. Maybe even have the psychologist help them come to terms with what really caused the situation too.
---
Nido Web Flash Tutorials
The Crisp Family has gone through enough(Not speaking for them but, it's time to drop the subject) it's time to let it go for now we covered them for since october
Agreed, whats tomorrow's headline? Did Obama, McCain and all of them steal a $200 million jewel when Americans weren't looking?
---
Nido Web Flash Tutorials
What´s the meaning of "foul play"? Sorry, I don´t know the term...
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
Foul play would be murder or the like.
usually murder.
Thanks. Well, anyways, is too soon to say that it wasn´t murder if they don´t make an autopsy first.
Our indication is, at this time, no foul play suspected, but of course we have to examine every possibility... There's absolutely no fear for any residents of Oro-Medonte. This is a safe community.
Why I don´t believe him?
The cynical side of videogames (spanish only): http://thelostlevel.blogspot.com/ My DeviantArt Page (aka DeviantCensorship): http://www.darkknightstrikes.deviantart.com/
"Foul play" usually means the victim was murdered by a family member and they tried to cover it up or make it look like someone else did it.
Game on, brothers and sisters.
As opposed to Fowl Play where the victim is murdered by a chicken
Oh, my God. roflmao That was so stupid! XD
Game on, brothers and sisters.
My condolences to the family. At least he was found.
My condolences to the family.
I would write something flowery and evocative of humanity transcending the digital world to reach an emotional middleground, but I have a feeling certain bodies would take that as a confession of guilt from the gaming community, so...it stays shelved.
Flip side of the coin, tossing a semi-relevant issue into the fray here; one of the initial articles posted about Brandon a fondness for outdoor survival shows. Not saying they are at fault, but he might have overestimated his ability to survive in the environment. This arguement sounds vaugely familiar, and if someone has posited earlier, my apologies for repeating it.
To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful. Edward R. Murrow
I feel sorry for the parents, as after so much time has passed this is usually the result...
My condolences go out to them, and I hope they can move on with their lives at some point. I don't know how they must feel right now except being in turmoil.
There's absolutely no fear for any residents of Oro-Medonte. This is a safe community.
I personally think that last part is utter bullshite. No place is truly safe; anywhere you go, a psychotic granny could pop out from behind a Winnebago and tear your eyeballs out with a rusty curling iron....just as an example.
Game on, brothers and sisters.
your right on the No place is safe thing.
I hadn't looked in on the Facebook page for about a week now. I was disgusted by all the psychic/medium nonsense and all the desire to not work with the online community that was as familiar with him as anyone might have been. Any idea what was happening?
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Nightwng2000 has also updated his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/nightwing2000 Nightwng2000 is now admin to the group "Parents For Education, Not Legislation" on MySpace as http://groups.myspace.com/pfenl
So the worst has indeed come to pass...I was truly hoping the kid would come out of this okay. I can't begin to imagine what his loved ones are going through. What a comedy (term used loosely) of errors this whole mess has been.
As for you, Liz Wooley, I highly suggest you get back in here and respond to some of the more thoughtful and coherent answers to your vitriolic post. Otherwise, you will only prove yourself to be just as big a coward as you are a zealot. Then again, considering the types of people you hold in esteem, perhaps I shouldn't get my hopes up.
"There is no sin except stupidity." - Oscar Wilde
she's not comming back, She went off the deep end after what she did. It shows you ignorance and immaturity in her, Just like the other wacko that mustn't be named
You mean JACK THOMPSON?
yes, I already know he was a Wacko to begin with
What? No foul play? Wha.... How.... I'm really in shock at this kid's stupidity. First he runs away from home because he can't play games, and then he manages to die in rural Ontario? We got a Darwin award winner here people.
As awful as it is to suggest "no foul play" could indicate a suicide too.
Poor Brandon, whatever happened to him must have been terrible, no matter what the cause. I can't imagine how his family must feel right now.
Whilst it's always a bad idea to base an assessment of someone's pre-tragedy personality on a post-tragedy statement (and double that when it's over the internet), I think I've got a shrewd idea as to why Ms Wooley's son committed suicide.
I've known a few people who've grown up in oppressive environments and fortunately managed to escape them before they were completely overwhelmed and escaped the only way they could (to death) but in each and every case, a harping shrew of a parent (usually exessively religious but that's just extremely common rather than a prerequisite) was either the catalyst or at least a major contributing factor of almost every psychological problem.
If it wasn't for the escape offered by Everquest, he probably would have killed himself much sooner.
....but as far as Liz Wooley goes: Liz Wooley, you can go to hell. In fact, you and Jack Thompson will be teaming with the 9/11 hijackers in a hockey game against the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers whenever the lake of fire becomes frozen solid.
Your post about this is downright offensive to anyone who has ever lost a loved one, whether foul play was involved or not.
Liz, your actions today speak volumes about the kind of person you truly are to use this tragedy to justify your own misguided personal vendetta. But then again, mentally molesting grieving families to promote your personal vendetta is your own sick idea of entertainment anyway, isn't it, Liz? We all already know it's also Jack's. You're nothing but a vulture, only difference is that both you and Jack prey on both the living and the dead.
Since you brought your deceased son into your personal vendetta, I'm only going to ask this one thing about him: If he were still alive, how would he have explained to his children down the line that their grandmother wasn't really this evil person that she unintentionally made herself out to be?
Seriously, Liz, seek professional help. It's painfully obvious that you desperately need it.
If you want to talk about being "heartless" snd "having blinders on", then go look in the mirror to see a heartless person with blinders on, you female dog.
While I may be sorry that you lost your son, I have no sympathy for you now. Everquest had nothing to do with your son's death, just as Call of Duty 4 had nothing to do with Brandon Crisp's death. Deal with it.
Geaux Saints, Geaux Tigers, Geaux Hornets, Jack Thompson can geaux chase a chupacabra.
The thing that sickens me the most about situations like this and about the fearmongers out there is that in their haste to blame and condemn, they hurt the people who need the help the most. They hurt kids who are really sick, who have serious mental illness and need help. By saying "He just needs less video games" they help to ignore a deeper problem at work. Addicts are addicted because they are self medicating, not always because the object of their addiction is so enticing.
I wish people would look at the real problems, and try to think up real solutions because right now they're doing exactly what they accuse the video games(and once rock music, and once pulp comics, and once dancing and sex and drugs) of doing.
They're hurting kids.
-I apologize-
@gamadaya:
Sorry, but don't you think that comment is a little insensitive? And by a little, I mean very.
It's unfortunate that you feel that way, Lizwool. And I must say, I'm truly offended by you're statements about those who play videogames. I'm truly sorry for what happened to your son and Brandon Crisp, but that does not mean I have to agree with your warped opinions regarding videogames. And I should not be made to feel like some sort of vermin for voicing that disagreement,
I think the worst thing we can do is going on blaming the Videogames or the Parents...
That can be done only by the police who are investigating on the matter.
also the body may be him or not be him, it is too early to decide yet.
Looking through the comments here, I am generally and genuinely disgusted by the people here. I work at a hospital and have seen my share of crap, but this just takes the Goddamned cake.
You don't know if the parents were bad parents. Helping a rebellious kid run away has been something parents have done for ages, and even happened to the father in this case, but because this decision lead to a horrible consequence you people are ready to lynch the family because they were trying to find their son through any means possible.
You don't know if the police searched thoroughly or not - seriously, all of you are writing from your high speed broadbands in your insulated houses with heating while you stuff your face while people were searching for this boy and now you think you have the right to condemn them because they were trying to find the boy through any means possible.
And now you are saying callous, heartless things just because people have DARED to portray your hobby in a somewhat negative light. You're as bad as Jack Thompson. No, you're worse, because you claim to be better. Remember when the gamer commited suicide and JT was there mocking us? That's what you people remind me of now. Never mind the fact that the family must be in severe emotional turmoil over this news, or the fact that the searchers who were genuinely concerned about this boy have to recieve this news after days of fruitless searching. That doesn't matter to you, because you're so concerned with your agenda of being pro-gaming. You could've kept your mouths shut instead of acting like internet badasses and saying you're glad/don't care that the kid's dead, but no, so long as you get your point across no matter what! Just like Jack Thompson, aren't we?
You've proven that everything that the general populace says of us is right on the money. Good job being part of the problem.
Wow, you know I've been reading a lot of these comments and most of these are meant as serious, thought out, opinions. Not many people here are trying to be cruel or hurtful. Too bad you don't like what they have to say but they have every right to say it, just like JT has every right to attack something that he probably genuinely thinks is evil.
I dunno. Maybe you're right, but in my opinion, if we are empathic and sympathetic in the face of a tragedy we are that much humanized in the eyes of the general populace. We shouldn't look like people only concerned with ourselves because that only makes our task that much harder, in my opinion.
Right now, working as an intern, people somehow think my work is tainted or somehow tarnished because I play video games, but I make sure to educate them instead of screaming, yelling, and playing the blame game. Acting like some people here have will only make our battles tougher.
Dude, I never went as far as to criticize the police about their so-called shoddy work, or the search parties who spent days looking for the kid. I just buckled up like several of the readers here, and hoped this kid would come out of this ordeal safely. Nevermind what transpired between him and his parents - that could be cleared up after he was found.
Who the hell are you to generalize EVERYBODY here because of a couple of bad eggs? Several of us here were genuinely sympathetic to this family's plight, and yet you chose to be deaf to our comments, instead tossing us in with the jackasses.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
I'm not generalizing. I'm talking about the people who were guilty of what I said. I spologize if I wasn't clear on that, but some of the people here honestly disgust me.
"I am generally and genuinely disgusted by the people here."
You were saying?
Speaking of calling us out for being internet badasses, what make you any different?
"The kid could just be a dumbshit." [November 5, 2008 at 11:22 am]
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Er, yeah, by that I meant he might have been hiding out just because he can.
It wasn't me.
I had really hoped that the kid would turn up. Alive I mean. Yeah, there are some very insensitive comments about the subject. In an online forum, such things are common. You can't blame the entire community for a couple of buttheads. People are going to blame videogames, becuase its the thing now. Videogames were blamed when a couple of kids got in a wreck in Canada, and cops found a copy of Need for Speed in the kid's car. I understand where some of these people are comming from as they have seen this before and know whats going to happen next. I don't agree that this is the best time to be comming to this concolusion, but I do understand.
Your crack about us 'writing from our high speed broadbands in our insulated houses with heating while we stuff our face(s)) while people were searching for this boy' was highly insensitive. One, most of us are not in the area where Brandon Crisp was living, and I'm sure if we all were, we would be out there helping to find him.. But, we don't. I, myself live in North Carolina. A little hard for me to help with the search from where I am. You may recall, That Brandon Crisp lived in Canada. By the way, Not all of us have broadband. Some of us have Dial-up. Some of us have DSL. and Some of us have Broadband. Some of us live in apartments, and not all of us are stuffing out faces as we are repling to this. I take it that since you are critizing us, that means you were not 'writing from your high speed broadbands in your insulated houses with heating while you stuff your face,' and that you were out there and and helping the police, and the family find their son. If you wern't, then you need to get off your own high horse and STFU!!!!
Just like Jack Thompson, you just generalized ALL of us for the actions of a few. And please tell me just who the general populace are? Jack Thompson? The Parents Television Counsel? David Walsh and his NIMH? Dave Grossman? They arn't the 'General Populace.' They are individuals and other special interest groups. The 'general populace' are normal people like you and me. The avarage citizen. The avarage citizen does not think anything of us, nor do they understand anything about this other what we, or the other individuals, and special interest groups tell them, not to mention the media, who don't understand anything either, but want all those ratings and controverseys that come along with it.
Is this the right time or place for what I said, Ashton? No, It isn't. It isn't the time or place for the post you have made, either. You get on us for pointing fingers. Yet, you are pointing fingers too. Looks a little hypricritical of you to be doing that.
So, in your own words, Good job FOR being part of the problem.
- Warren Lewis
QFMFT.
The general tone of people in this thread is disgusting. Let me put this plainy: SOMEONE'S CHILD IS DEAD. How about we give them some time to grieve and actually have them blame his actual death on games before we start tearing them down? I will admit, I also put out the idea that perhaps there was parenting at fault in his disappearance. I still think it is a possibility and eventually, may very well start exploring that again. But to see so many people in here ripping into these people who have just lost their son is appaling. You all hate those who demonize gamers and portray us as a bunch of emotionless drones? Well, you're proving them all right now. No one here who is gleefully jumping up to attack the parents is any better than Jack Thompson or any other ambulance chaser. Mocking a tradgedy because those affecting by it disagree with your hobby makes one a terrible human being.
Obviously not everyone is taking this stance but it seems to be the overwhelming theme here. Those who are trying to tear down these people can attack me all you want with your bullshit "We have just as much right to defend ourselves..." and "So we're bad people because we disagree with you?" flawed arguments that you use to rationalize your hatred and I don't care because YOU ARE WRONG. If you actually think that way, the gaming community as a whole is far weaker and has much less high ground to occupy because of you.
Once again: SOMEONE'S CHILD IS DEAD.
I am going to take a differnt stance here.
I disagree with the whole 'XYZ is hurting, so let them hurt people!' concept. This applies both to gamers being jerks because they are hurt, AND ot hte parents who are being jerks beacuse they are hurting.
Being in pain is not, and should never be, a free ticket to inflict pain on others. One of the reasons the parents are getting so much flack is the perception that they are hiding behind this defense. "We are allowed to say insulting things to a whole group of people, my child is missing!'
Compare this to the older 'my kid is missing, it must have been one of those dirty black/hispanic/jewish people!' that is no longer considered acceptable. If you try THAT you will get grilled by various defamation leauges. Unfortunatly gamers are not nearly as well organized so they defend themselves against explitive like this poorly.
UPDATE: The Facebook group has been removed by its moderator, apparently over hurtful remarks being posted.
People who post these kinds of comments on a dead kid's Facebook/Myspace/Blogger/etc. for the 'lulz' should just die. Flat out, jump in front of a moving train, die.
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I'm an attention whore. So visit my DevaintArt and feed my ego. Feed the whore. http://keaton2008.deviantart.com/
F***ing signed. I barely made it past the first comment/replies on Kotaku's report of the story because some nitwit thought he was funny.
300 Episodes and counting: http://www.orangeloungeradio.com/
You signed it, I seconded it.
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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
I'm waiting to see how they still try to blame this on gaming. Trust me, someone will.
"Police are now saying that they don't suspect foul play."
As PHX surmised earlier, one likely cause of death may be hypothermia. Possible given the cold, damp climate. Here's to hoping the police update their findings soon.
My sincere condolences to the kid's families. I'm tempted to say something nasty to lizwool (if you are who you claim to be) for the angry, baseless rants made earlier, but in light of this tragedy, it wouldn't be right. This is not a place to bring these sort of hostilities, and politely I ask the other readers to please do the same. Show these game-blaming crazies that we are NOT everything they assume us to be.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Come on People what is wrong with you. Do you not know the meaning of addiction.
The term "addiction" is used in many contexts to describe an obsession, compulsion, or excessive physical dependence or psychological dependence, such as: drug addiction, alcoholism, crime, compulsive overeating, problem gambling, computer addiction, etc
You people really have your heads burried in the sand. You are just as bad as the Cocaine Addicts defending their habbit. Brandon had an addiction with gaming. That is factual. His Parents were trying to help him, not hurt him or punish him. His father did not pack his bag, or tell him to leave. Brandon ran away. His father looked in his napsack before he left but thought he would come back home after he blew off some steam.
It was thought of from the very begining of the search that Brandon might have commit suicide due to the fact that something so important(obsessive) in his life was being taken away from him for good. As a young boy he had no means to access this obsession other than at home. Like it or not, gaming is highly addictive. Just like gambling and drugs. It ruins peoples lives, their marriages, family and well being. I trully laugh at the gambling sites out there that link their sites to a helpsite for gambling addiction. I have seen hundreds of people sit at gambling tables with diapers on so they don't have to leave their seat to go to the washroom. If you continue to ignore the truth about gaming addiction then I am afraid that our youth are in very serious trouble.
I'd prefer to make my conclusions AFTER a proper and thorough investigation, thank you.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
I've never seen cocaine addicts defend their habit only marijuana and heroin users but I digress.
Video games are not a drug, they only way you get addicted is if you have an addictive personality.
My Dad used to be addicted to online chess.
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"What for you bury me in the cold cold ground?" - Tasmanian devil
With all due respect, jumping to conclusions as to this addiction killing him is not going to help the investigation any.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
If you continue to ignore the truth about gaming addiction then I am afraid that our youth are in very serious trouble.
and yet you seem to ignore the fact that the kid's dad said he was addicted to Call of Duty 4 for 18 months despite it being released last November.
岩「…Where do masochists go when they die?」
Well, to her credit, there's also CoD4's Open Beta phase on the Xbox 360 that came out months before the full game's launch. I doubt the numbers will add up though.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
I'm glad to hear from someone in Brandon's community, and thank you for taking the time to post.
Actually, there have been media reports that Brandon's parents helped pack the bag, but that's not a major point. He left, they never expected it to turn out this way. Who could have?
What is frustrating to the gamer community is that games were blamed from day one. I don't blame the parents, who were completely distraught. They get a pass on anything they said from me. But the media was so quick to run with this. We've seen games attacked over and over again, so gamers are sensitive to the issue.
But 99.9% of us are also sensitive to Brandon's tragic end and to what his family and community are suffering.
As to game addiction, I'm no expert. But, a couple of things here. Brandon was apparently never treated for that. Don't know if he was treated for any underlying issues such as depression, ect. But people who excessively escape into games - or jogging or TV or sex or drugs or alcohol or etc. - generally have underlying issues.
That said, the term "game addiction" is loosely thrown around. We've only got the info from Brandon's parents, which is anecdotal, not a professional diagnosis. Moreover, "addiction" implies that other aspects of one's life are breaking down. Wasn't Brandon a pretty good student? I recall reading that his parents said he had begun stealing money, but I'm having a hard time relating that behavior to game addiction.
As to the disappearance, I suspected suicide very early on. I know that I am not alone in that view. Given the location, though, I am now wondering if Brandon became immobilized somehow. I assume that we will find out soon when the autopsy is released.
Really, though, I fear Brandon's case will turn out to be a no-win situation for the gaming community. For three weeks, much noise was made in the media about a supposed Xbox predator taking Brandon. It's pretty clear now that nothing like that happened. And now it seems like this "game addiction" will be blamed for him running off. The thingis, kids have been fighting with their parents since forever over any number of things: music, curfew, clothes, haircuts, respect, grades, friends, etc. But this fight was over video games, so I suspect that games will be forever blamed for Brandon's sad case.
At any rate, thanks again for interacting with us. Don't be put off by the few trolls. I'm disgusted and embarrassed by a few of the comments that were made in this thread myself. I've deleted some of the worst ones (although in one case I left the comment up because other GP readers did such a great job of dealing with it and I wanted the world to see that).
Yeah, we over react. I'll admit. We don't expect that people from outside the gaming community come to these sites as well, and sometimes when people act like they are from outside, it is actually a troll just trying to get a reaction from the people.
Games are continually attacked, and by people who have never played video games. People who have never experienced the gaming world at all, and they draw assumptions that are just not true. It is like having someone who grew up in a monastery and never see anything in the outside world or any type of technology at all really, then they are exposed to it and say it is all evil. At the same time the people in the normal world would say he is weird, stupid, and say most of what he says is invalid because of not living in the same conditions.
We really shouldn't judge each other like that at all, but when we are being attacked (IE: gamers) or offended (IE: you), everything ends up going sour. It pushes away logical debate and constructive communications. I think we can all agree that game addition is real, but to the extent that the addition goes it on high debate, even in scientific communities. I believe that if someone is addicted to games, it is never about the games. When I went through a phase, it was because of depression. There was someone I was about to propose to, and she cheated on me. All I really wanted was an escape from all of that, and I had no other escape. Even today I am not fully over it, but I turned all of that into productivity. I escape into my work, which isn't good either, but for now it works.
The whole situation with Brandon is already a no win situation. If he was harmed in any way from the start, it was a no win really. No one wanted anything bad to happen to Brandon. Most of us were hoping he was hiding out at a friend's house, even a friend from further away. No one wants to see a child pass away. It is one of the worst things that happen in this world, and any parent would give their life to save their childs. I think all of us would do a great deal if there was a way for us to make things different, some of us would even put our lives on the line to change this situation.
Almost everyone here knew from the start that things didn't add up right with the theory that he met someone online. If the games were abruptly taken away, then he would most likely have no contact information of anyone, and from the story, it sounded like he had no way of contacting anyone from when the games were taken away to when he left.
I think we all feared and expected the worst, and were hoping for the best.
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Nido Web Flash Tutorials AS2 and AS3 Tutorials for anyone interested.
Financial Calculator for anyone interested in seeing the basic run
You scapegoat-mongering fools really have killed alot of goodwill that otherwise should have gone the way of the family and their community. People like you make it harder and harder to even care about your tragedy. Clearly you people are more interested in finding someone to sue for big $$ (good luck with that, BTW) than actually mourning.
Okay, this is getting wierd. Yahweh and lizwool have posted peculiarly similar posts regarding this matter. Am I the only one who thinks something's fishy about their retorts?
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Guess i'm not the only one thinking the same thing. Ya, I can't put my finger on it but something about the posts feel odd.
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I am a signature virus, please copy and paste me into your signature to help me propagate.
Well I have seen an Cocaine addict defend their habbit. My 25 year old daughter who thinks their is nothing wrong with it. So I do speak from experience. No I am not Lizzy or anyone else on this site. My Husband was one the proffesional search and Rescue members looking for Brandon. And must I say that it was not an easy task. And Yes I am angry as the rest for the police not searching earlier. But they thought they were dealing with a run away. A 15 year old run away and as law have it can leave on their own accord. The search and rescue members did the best to of their ability to search. It is very difficult to search with no clues, and so much time passed. It had snowed and there were piles of leaves that had fallen that week. So any clue was hidden. And I also know of two other young boys who commited suicide over the game Dungeon and Dragons. They were children of very close friends.
<i>And I also know of two other young boys who commited suicide over the game Dungeon and Dragons. They were children of very close friends.</i>
This right here indicates you are either (a) lieing or (b) depressingly ignorant of why these two kids probably actually commitied suicide.
There have been zero confirmed cases of anyone commint suiced because of D&D. There have been people who play D&D who commit suicide but there are also people who watch reality TV and kill themselves too. A good chunk of the time D&D (or other similiar activities) keeps these kids alive longer, giving parents and friends a chance to fix the underlying cause of their depression before it hits critical. This kid's case might actually be a typical example of how NOT to address the issue.. see a symptom that is actually helping keep the person stable, take away their coping mechanism, and poof, nothing to keep them together. The game keeps them alive when other influences are trying to kill them.
If we are going to blame D&D for suicide, I can blame evangelical chrsitianity for far more people taking their own lives with much more dirrect connections.
Also, Not all people that drink alcohol are alcoholics, not all people that smoke marijuana are addicted, and not all people that gamble are addicted to gambling. And Not all gamers are addicted to gamming. My Husband games, but gets totally bored after a while, Myself, well I was once addicted to super mario brothers. Couldn't get enough of the game. Would stay in on a friday night to play when all my other friends were going out having a great time at the bar. Now I totally stay away from gaming because I know that I could get addicted.
'' Now I totally stay away from gaming because I know that I could get addicted.''
well unfortunately thats a very fearful way to live your life.
I mean you can get addicted to shopping, food, drinking, tv, books, sex, music, sport, exercise, working etc.
Do you totally stay away from all these things? I mean you pretty much have to stay indoors in an empty room, and never leave the house if you want to totally avoid anything you can get addicted to.
Yeah but then you could argue for a sensory deprivation addiction.
So you choose going to a bar with people instead of a game?
That isnt' speaking to addiciton, that is speaking to preference. It sounds like you felt you were enjoying the 'wrong' thing more then the 'right' thing and thus the 'wrong' thing must be addictive and bad because how could you possibly want to spend time doing it unless it was bad for you?
Personally, I stay home friday nights and play games because I like them. Going out to bars with people sounds horrible.
Oh And by the way, I originally came to this site a week ago looking for clues that might offer some insight to Brandon's diapperance. I thought there might be people here that were actually sensitive to the situation, but found that most of you are more interested in defending gaming, whether or not it contributed to Brandon's death. And yes I believe now that Brandon has taken his own life. It is not confirmed, but this is what I believe.
Ma'm, when your hobby and community is accused of things it is not responsible for, and has been unfairly used as a scapegoat by politicians, nitwitted pundits, the religious right, and sensationalist media as a cause for all the world's social ill, you can't help but be especially sensitive to finger-pointing.
As I've said earlier, we will have to wait and see as to what the cause of death for Brandon is. There is nothing worse right now than to draw baseless conclusions. And honestly, what the hell does D&D have to do with this case?
Please send my thanks to your husband for the good work he does.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
I'll believe nothing they say until their IP is checked out to see if they're actually from that area or at least near it.
Your looking for a scapegoat... and the biggest one you had fell flat. The father could of taken any number of things away from him and you could get the same outcome. Kids are kids, being a father of an 11 year I know that sometimes hard to balance letting him get away with things and knowing when to take things away. If my son decided to run away I wouldnt let him out the door, i'd take control of the situation and lock him in his room to cool off, then come to a COMPRIMISE with him regarding his game playing. Thats the biggest thing thats missing from this story, not one did his parents decide to comprimise... even at the point where he was walking out the door not once did they try to sit down and come to a solution to the problem. They figured they'd stick to their guns and look where it got them. If Brandon took his own life it wasnt over his videogames it was most likely out of fear of coming home after everything that had happened. I remember being 15 and being in trouble.. the last thing I'd want to do is find out what my consiquenses would be for running away. He was 15, scared, and his parents didnt seem to do the one key thing that would of fixed this.. talk to him... instead they pushed him out the door expecting hi to come home with his tails between his legs... well im sorry to say, that didnt happen.
So just what made you think that the people here would cling to a scapegoat like you hoped?
-Ultimately what will do in mankind is a person's fear of their own freedom-
Well yes, this is a site related to games, politics, public perception, etc,.. and here we have a story that, in the context of the site, is about parents and media scapegoating games. Notice GP doesn't post every single child disappearnce that happens? The kid is not really the story.
My cousin had schizophrenia. For years he abused drugs, self medicating in an attempt to cope with this illness. My family ignored his underlying conditions for the majority of this time, even when they were told that mental illness was the problem. I was a teenager while all this was going on. When I got older my family realized how bad my cousin was. They got him treatment for his drug additions, but for years more they ignored his mental illness. I, and several other people tried to change this, but were unsucessful. Only in the last year did they accept that he was schizophrenic. By the time he went to see a psychiatrist for treatment he had been schizophrenic for over 15 years and a drug addict for most of that time. He died of an overdose while in a treatment clinic three months ago. The drugs may have been the physical, chemical cause of my cousin's death but it was the schizophrenia that killed him.
That is just one example of the reasons for addiction. Games, like anything when taken to an extreme, can be addictive in people prone to impulse control problems. But they are not a cause of illness, rather they are the symptom of an underlying problem. Without treatment or acknowledgement of whatever the root cause is addiction is a problem that cannot be surmounted.
Brandon Crisp may have been addicted to gaming. We'll never really know. It doesn't matter either, except that it will be a terrible thing if games are blamed instead of looking into whatever underlying causes made this boy so unhappy that he behaved this way. I feel terrible for the people who have to suffer through this loss, provided they were not in any way involved in whatever happened to the boy. My greatest sympathy however is reserved for Brandon himself who was obviously a deeply unhappy person.
To Liz Wooly:
We don't have to justify ourselves or our hobbies to you. Plenty of us play games in an appropriate fashion, knowing how to balance them in our lives. Plenty of us have sucessful jobs, friendships and marraiges. I'm sorry your son had a problem, but whatever it was his gaming habits were a sympton of something deeper. Addictions always are. Your loss does not give you the justification to behave in an appalling manner. I know this will fall on deaf ears; your praise of Jack Thompson as a decent person reveals far more of you then it does to condemn us. Frankly your loss is a horse that you have beat to death for years. You arn't the only person to ever loose a loved one to tragic circumstances. Most people who suffer tragedies don't go out and try to hurt others; they deal with their grief and get help if they need it. I would reccommend you see a grief counselor but I see others have already suggested it and I doubt you would realize that it is a suggestion made out of compassion for your pain, not scorn for you.
Some of the posters who have been harsh about Brandon,
If the boy went out into the wilderness by himself with no idea how to survive and no clue where he was going it wasn't bright. But doing not so bright things is almost the definition of being a teenager and I don't think it adds anything constructive to the discussion to talk about how stupid a choice this might have been. We don't know what he ws thinking at the time or where he planned to go. Let's try not to judge the dead to no purpose.
Tarosan = Banned
Grow up, my friend.
wow.. what an idiotic and horrible comment.
I hope you do get banned.
Its because of the minority like you, that many people have the incorrect impression that gamers are immature, cruel people.
P.S If this is banable offense then do so, I'm pretty much done here
Well here's hoping, comments like this don't help anyone and make us all look bad.
I saw this. I say let him soak his head and cool down. There are better people here than Liz and Jack.
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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
For those guests who may not be familiar with the term, Tarosan is what is termed as a Troll
They're as much an annoyance and embarassment to us as they are to anyone sane. Ignoring them is the only thing that approaches a defence as they are merely petulant children (or people retarded to the same level) who are only seeking attention of any dscription to validate their empty existance.
See also: Jack Thompson, Paris Hilton
The only problems are that Paris hasn't done shit (That I know of) and someone needs to reply to Miami Jack, otherwise he'll get worse. Liz Wooley is the best alternative example of a Troll that I can find.
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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
Yeah I have to admit that she's ahead in the troll race in this thread.
Got that right, brother.
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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
I feel for the family but to be perfectly honest it was the father who HELPED the kid pack his bag and sent him on his way. Instead of sitting down with him and coming to a comprimise with him he instigated his owns sons death. He may not of planned on it happening but the truth hurts and unfortunatly his father was WAY in the wrong on this one.
He may have been wrong but in an argument neither party really acts rationally, things get said and done which arn't meant and certainly no one would think that it would end the way it has. He stated that he believed Brandon would just come home and I don't think there's any reason to not believe that. Seriously when you had an argument with your parents (or kids if you have them) how often would the parent say straight away, hey let's just talk about this. I don't think this was an immediate thing either (ie Xbox one day, none the next) all the reports indicate that the late hours of gaming had been going on for a while and his parents had confronted him over it before ( also I think there was mention that this wasn't the first time the Xbox had been confiscated but I may be mistaken.
I'm sure that the dad feels somewhat guilty over what happend, I would if it had been me, but it's not his fault, assuming the initial reports of no foul play are correct, it's not really anyones fault. Things could have been handled better yes, but that doesn't make him responsible.
To Liz,
Please stop for a moment. First of all, let me say that yes, your son's death was tragic. So was this case. HOWEVER, you're missing a few points here. Addiction is rarely a cause, and is more often a symptom of a deeper problem. These deeper problems are best solved with PROFESSIONAL help. Amature efforts like what was done in this case (cold turkey removal of the escape mechanism provided by the game) are just as likely to make the problem worse instead of better. The kid needed professional help, as did your son. The parents had the best of intentions, yes, but to be very blunt: they messed up. Now they're blaming the symptom (game addiction) instead of the cause (unknown). That makes as much sense as blaming a murder on a weapon, instead of the person wielding the weapon.
The vast, VAST majority of gamers don't have a problem with addiction. We're more or less mentally healthy and find a good balance between the various facets of our time, including our lesiure time. You may ask why I'm being defensive? It's because people are quick to lash out at a scapegoat that for most provides harmless amusement and social interaction.
The entire debacle has been tragic, but the best thing that can come of it is education for parents and friends to make sure that such things don't happen again: SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP in situations like these, or you might just make the problem worse. Don't treat the symptom, treat the cause.
The parents aren't really the cause of any of this 'games are evil' bollocks, they said something in the heat of the moment and inspired by pain. Is there a person alive who has NOT said stupid or ill-considered things at moments like that?
it's the MEDIA we're really pissed off about, how they ignored facts (or more importantly the lack thereof), logic & investigation because it's more work than writing the headline "OMG! GAMEZ KILL TEH CHILDRENZ!!!!" and grabbing another few ratings points from people who really need to think more.
I think the game was targeted because, even if incorrect, it gave a focus which would have been better than not knowing anything at the time
Oh very much so and even though "Teenager Missing, authorities seek help" would have been better, if they HAD to focus on the game as part of the story they COULD have mentioned the community outpouring of sympathy, the offers of help, an appeal for help to anyone who may have known him online or even a mention of the selfish massacre chasing ex lawyer trying to stick his nose into things and grind his own long-ago-blunted-by-failure axe.
There were plenty of ways to go but the media in general seem to have decided to go negative and go easy and as far as I'm concerned that's about as unethical as it gets in journalism.
God rest his soul. And stop blaming video games. Wonder what the cause of death will be?
Also im addicted too video games to some extent. Does that mean im gonna kill myself? No. Does it mean ill run away from home? No. Liz im sorry for your loss but Jack Thompsons not a desent man. In fact i dont know if he is a man at all.;) But i wil say that i do have withdraw at first when i stop playing video games but i play the game of life or somthing else. If only he had the game of life. i pray for the family and Brandon i dont blame the parents for the video games nonsense. They are confused and probably no they are completly Devastated.
While I was rather busy yesterday and was not able to follow the comments here like I wanted to, What I have read so far has really taken the cake. There are some rather insensitive comments, but also some sincere onces. I understand the defensiveness that gamers have over their hobby. When it is attacked from all sides, it doesn't take much to get us into defense mode.
I read Liz Wolly and Exgamer's comments and both really disgust me. They both accused us of using this boy's death to forward our agenda, when they were both guilty of the same.
I really feel bad for the loss of this kid and feel sorry for his family. I don't know the full story over what happened to him leading up to him running away or what caused his death. Those things will probably be revealed later.
What I do know is that video games were not the cause of death. They probably weren't the reason he run away, but a part of the whole reason.There was definitely more to this than the media or the parents have let on.
I am also disgusted at the level of focus the media placed on this so called "game addiction". This had very little to nothing to do with him running away. I also think that as gamers and readers here, we took what the police were doing with the console a little out of context. They were most likely trying to find people who spoke to him shortly before running away and maybe some kind of chat log.
This story ended badly for the kid and his family. I feel sorry for that. Happy endings don't always happen, no matter how much we wish.
I also feel sorry that this will be another story that will be used to fuel the attacks of ignorant people against the games industry. The only thing we can do is act a little more civilized similar future incidents happen.
EDIT: I would also like to add this. Game addiction cannot be compared to a chemical addiction such as alcohol, tobacco or drugs. Those types of addictions create chemical dependencies in their hosts. The chemicals in the substance alter the chemicals in the body and create a dependency on the external chemical to fulfill the bodies need to keep the new chemical balance up. When you take away the external chemical, the body can't remember how to correct itself for the missing chemical and bad things happen. With chemical addictions just about anyone can become addicted to them, some easier than other but still just about everyone.
But with a game "addiction" or gambling "addiction" or porn "addiction" there is not chemical alteration in the body. So rather than altering a chemical make up, these "addictions" fill an emotional need in the host. That emotional need could be success, assertiveness, intimate, whatever. The host develops an emotional connection to the object of the addiction. But this is not a chemical addiction. These can be treated by addressing the reasons behind the emotional needs not just allowing the body or mind to correct themselves. If you take away an object of an emotional need without addressing that need, that person will either seek something else to fill that need or fall apart. But not everyone can get one of these "addictions". It takes certain personalities or other problems to gain one of these.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1325674091
I don't think I could agree more with all the points you've made.
While I was rather busy yesterday and was not able to follow the comments here like I wanted to, What I have read so far has really taken the cake. There are some rather insensitive comments, but also some sincere onces. I understand the defensiveness that gamers have over their hobby. When it is attacked from all sides, it doesn't take much to get us into defense mode.
I read Liz Wolly and Exgamer's comments and both really disgust me. They both accused us of using this boy's death to forward our agenda, when they were both guilty of the same.
I really feel bad for the loss of this kid and feel sorry for his family. I don't know the full story over what happened to him leading up to him running away or what caused his death. Those things will probably be revealed later.
What I do know is that video games were not the cause of death. They probably weren't the reason he run away, but a part of the whole reason.There was definitely more to this than the media or the parents have let on.
I am also disgusted at the level of focus the media placed on this so called "game addiction". This had very little to nothing to do with him running away. I also think that as gamers and readers here, we took what the police were doing with the console a little out of context. They were most likely trying to find people who spoke to him shortly before running away and maybe some kind of chat log.
This story ended badly for the kid and his family. I feel sorry for that. Happy endings don't always happen, no matter how much we wish.
I also feel sorry that this will be another story that will be used to fuel the attacks of ignorant people against the games industry. The only thing we can do is act a little more civilized similar future incidents happen.
EDIT: I would also like to add this. Game addiction cannot be compared to a chemical addiction such as alcohol, tobacco or drugs. Those types of addictions create chemical dependencies in their hosts. The chemicals in the substance alter the chemicals in the body and create a dependency on the external chemical to fulfill the bodies need to keep the new chemical balance up. When you take away the external chemical, the body can't remember how to correct itself for the missing chemical and bad things happen. With chemical addictions just about anyone can become addicted to them, some easier than other but still just about everyone.
But with a game "addiction" or gambling "addiction" or porn "addiction" there is not chemical alteration in the body. So rather than altering a chemical make up, these "addictions" fill an emotional need in the host. That emotional need could be success, assertiveness, intimate, whatever. The host develops an emotional connection to the object of the addiction. But this is not a chemical addiction. These can be treated by addressing the reasons behind the emotional needs not just allowing the body or mind to correct themselves. If you take away an object of an emotional need without addressing that need, that person will either seek something else to fill that need or fall apart. But not everyone can get one of these "addictions". It takes certain personalities or other problems to gain one of these.
WIN.
EDIT: [E. Zachary Knight has won OVER 9000 Internets!]
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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
What 9000?!
9000??!! 9000!!!!!!!!! He's over 9000!!!!!!
A cookie for all who get the reference
"Volume helps to get a point across but sharp teeth are better."
Where's my cookie? Also, well said EZK. :D
*takes a cookie*
I got a thread in the Off-Topic area of the Forums relating to this. Go see.
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"Game on, brothers and sisters." -Leet Gamer Jargon
*applause* Well said, sir.
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The Mammon Industry
Nicly worded EZK.