Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

A thirteen years old boy (Zhang) in Tianjin jumped off from the 24th floor and committed suicide after playing the game - World of Warcraft for 36 hours straight in a Chinese Cyber Cafe. His mother has decided to sue the local Blizzard game distributor for the cause of her son's death. She claims the boy took his own life after being exposed to the violence and being extremely addicted to the "virtual world" in the cyber space for over a year or longer.

According to the Chinese reporters (NetEase), Zhang left 4 pages long death will where he wrote how he worships the hero in the World of Warcraft and will miss his co-players from the game. His only wish is to give the "virtual equipment (weapons, books etc.)" to his classmates and hope his spirit will follow the legends in the game into the virtual world. However the game distributors claim that there are clear labels on the box indicating the game is not suitable for teenagers that are under 13. It's a fact that the cyber cafe owners in China totally ignore the notice and never care about what game the computer users play in the facilities. I remember my experiences in the Chinese cyber cafes: heavy cigarettes smokes over a crowded and dark space, isolated with poor ventilation system, filled with of teenagers between 12 to 16 playing first person shooting games or war games. This is very disturbing. I think the first thing should be done is to have some clearly written and strictly enforced regulations over these cyber space owners. Parents and educators should work together to help the teenagers from being overly addicted to the cyber space.

I share my sympothy to the poor mom in the incident and wish the tragedy does not repeat itself. Happy Mother's Day!