Swedish News service The Local reports that a 15-year-old gamer from western Sweden went into convulsions on Sunday after a 24-hour WoW binge.

According to the report the boy and some friends were playing the new Wrath of the Lich King expansion. The 15-year-old's father described the scene:

They played all day and all night. Maybe they got a few hours of sleep. They ate a little food and breakfast at their computers. [When the boy went into convulsions] we were terrified and called rescue services...

Doctors said that sleep deprivation and lack of food likely contributed to the collapse of the boy, who is expected to recover fully.

Not unexpectedly, the mainstream press is linking the episode to game addiction. Britain's The Times quotes child psychiatrist Dr. Richard Graham: 

Some of my clients will discuss playing games for 14 to 16 hours a day at times without breaks and for those the consequences are potentially very severe. The problem with World of Warcraft is the degree it can impact and create a socially withdrawn figure who may be connecting with people in the game and is largely dropping out of education, social opportunities.

 

One young man described vividly to me a sense that having achieved very high success in the game, when he switched off he felt downgraded.

If you file-share games in the U.K. or U.S., you might get sued for big money.

But the French are taking a more laid-back approach. Those caught file-sharing in France, willl get two warnings before losing their Internet service for a year.

UPI reports:

The French Senate has approved a three strikes law for Internet users who download copyrighted entertainment without paying for it. The legislation must also be approved by the lower house of parliament... The goal is to force people now engaged in electronic piracy of movies, music and video games to use legal sources like iTunes. 

 

The "graduated response" would start with an e-mail warning. Those who persist would get a letter by snail mail. Internet service providers would cut off access for a year to those who continue to pirate copyrighted material after the second warning. 

GP: Those French... so civilized.

UPDATE: Edge Online reports that our original source, Kotaku, has got this wrong. From EO:

Olivier Maeterlinck, Managing Director of the Belgian Entertainment Association, explains: “What's happening is that video rental stores are declining in popularity, and because of this those stores began to buy retail copies of games and put them up for rent. I can’t think of any country that would allow this. Rental outlets need publisher permission to rent out games, and need to buy them wholesale, just like with films.”

“The point is that stores can still put out rental copies. They just have to get permission to do so. In most countries a rental point must get permission for renting out. We are no longer any different to this system, but that doesn’t mean we are ‘banning’ game rentals.”

Edge contacted a spokesperson from Belgium’s biggest specialist game retail chain, GameMania, for clarification on the issue: “It will still be legal, yes, but the problem is that it is no longer feasible. We cannot establish rental deals with any of the major publishers, and so we will be terminating our game rental business.” 

The Associated Press reports that two Dutch teens have been convicted of stealing virtual game items from a third boy. All three played Runescape, a popular online RPG. At issue is ownership of two virtual items, an amulet and a mask.

While the ruling was the subject of some mirth in the U.S. gaming press, Antal Princen, a Dutch reader of GamePolitics, wrote in to say that there was much more to the story. The AP simply mentions that the victim was coerced, but Antal says there was some nasty real-world violence involved:

[The media reports] omitted a few important details: The duo not only stole the virtual goods, but actually beat the other kid up and threatened him with a knife. They extorted an amulet and mask. In Runescape they're worth a lot of money and in real life people buy them for real money, which is one of the reasons the judge said it was theft.

 

The boys were convicted for "violent theft". They lured the victim to their house, caught him in a chokehold and kicked and hit him. They used a kitchen knife to threaten the victim. Both thieves showed no regret and didn't acknowledge they did something wrong, which is never good if you find yourself in a Dutch court... The lawyers will appeal.

Indeed, Antal directed us to Dutch website Parool.nl, where we were able to translate the story sufficiently to confirm Antal's account. That being the case, the issue of whether one can steal virtual goods seems to take a back seat to the sheer thuggery of the would-be amulet robbers.

GP: Dank u wel to Antal Princen for the report!

The Daily Mail reports that a 13-year-old French boy is under arrest in Lyon, charged with committing arson against several cars.

A Lyon police spokesman told the newspaper:

He said he played the game for a few hours, then wanted to go out and what it felt like to burn out some cars. This kind of entertainment is clearly having a negative effect on some young people.

There's an obvious accuracy problem in the story, however. See if you can spot it:

The 13-year-old schoolboy used petrol to set light to three vehicles after playing on the violent GTA 4: Liberty City game on his home PC.
 

If you said, "Wait, the PC version of GTA IV doesn't even ship until November 21st in Europe," go to the head of the class.

GP: Thanks to reader NovaBlack for tipping us to this story in Shoutbox.

Yesterday GamePolitics reported on the European's Parliament's call to reduce gender stereotyping. While not exclusively focused on video games, the EP did give games and digital media a specific rap on the knuckles.

Over at Ars Technica, Ben Kuchera also covered the story, but seemed to regard the EP's conclusions as somewhat overstated:

Sexist and degrading imagery is common in all forms of media, but this report is coming a little late for video games. As the acceptance of gaming as a hobby grows, so does the width of games made available, including games that treat women with respect instead of seeing how large their breasts can be rendered and what the minimum amount of clothing is necessary to cover them.

 

The study should not be belittled, nor should the sentiments behind it, although it reads more like an act of political pandering than anything else. The truth remains that, in a movie rental establishment and a video game store, it's just as easy to find games that treat women well as films, and that should be applauded. 

Approaching the issue from the feminine perspective, however, the author of the PixiePalace blog sees things differently:

I think [the EP action is] awesome and well overdue. I wish our government here in the United States would ask for something like that... I don’t think I think [the game biz has] made as much progress as [Kuchera] does. Where I really take issue with him is his claim that videogames are no worse than movies in this area... If you walk into a video store, it’s pretty easy to find a movie that portrays women pretty well. They’re the movies that are marketed to women...

 

If you walk into a videogame store, you’re going to have a harder time finding a game with the same qualities in gender portrayal. First, you have to find a game with female characters, which is not always as easy as it sounds. Then, you have to find one where they are both realistically shaped and clothed. This is extremely difficult, especially if the box art is most of what you have to go on. Finally, you need a character with depth. This is very hard. Even if her whole story revolves around the men in the game, she must stand alone as a person and be believable or she’s little more than cardboard. It’s a rare find in a videogame. Alex Vance is one in a million. Portal is downright unique...

As reported by Brand Republic, the European Parliament is urging its member states to address the issue of gender stereotyping.

The move follows a report by the EP's Women's Rights Committee, which suggests that big business exploits gender stereotypes for financial gain.

Video games and digital media are specifically mentioned by Sweden's Eva-Britt Svensson, author of the report. She writes:

The report shows how a stereotyped, sexist, and often degrading image of women is presented by the new electronic media. The report concludes that the majority of video games constitute one more element in the reproduction of discriminatory stereotypes against women that perpetuate and trivialise abuses against their human rights...

GP: From Lara Croft to the controversial Hitman ad pictured at left, such examples are not difficult to find in the video game space.

Eurogamer reports that the Collector's Edition of THQ's Saints Row 2 will ship in a box which depicts a pistol mounted in a fancy gun case:

...in keeping with the game's general sense of fun and social responsibility, the box is shaped like a gun and you get a USB stick in the shape of a bullet...

 

It's not alone, either, with a 1GB USB key in the shape of a golden bullet to keep it company, along with a 3rd Street Saints poster (a woman blowing the smoke away from the barrel of her man's gun) and a map of Stilwater, the game's sandbox location.

For now at least, the special packaging appears to be exclusive to the Xbox 360 version - and to the European market.

Via: Sports Legends