Geez, stupid kid. We don't know the story behind it though, the parents did the right thing taking away the xbox. But maybe they could have prevented this from happening in the first place, stricter rules etc.
Now if other console fanboys could learn from this example and do the exact same thing the world would become a paradise. The only products with higher rates of fanboyism than consoles are apple macs.
he was only 15. what do you expect? the parent didn't handle the situation properly. "father said he had not known how important the gaming system was to his son and how he would react when it was taken away." this says it all.
One thing that I would like to see is for the parents to actively sit down and see what their child is interested in. So that 1) they know when their child is overly invovled. 2) they won't/can't blame games as a fascade for bad parenting due to increased understanding. 3) Strenghten bonds.
Well, in my opinion, it's actually both parties' job. The kid should know that these stuff are addictive, and he has a good long way to enjoy himself other than just plain online game. The parents should be discussing to their kid about his problems and his life. Maybe, online game addiction causes by schooling stress and stuff like that. And maybe he didn't tell/discuss his parents or he couldn't find a way to properly channel his frustrations. It goes both ways.
That's just gold. How some people can degrade themselves into playing a good FPS on a console evades me. For what it's worth, playing Halo on the PC with a mouse still felt like one was handling one of those infernal xbox controllers.
Any kind of addiction of games are giving dreadful results. One guy played some game for hours continously and suddenly his heart stopped and died on the spot. Sigh. So, I repeat, any form of addiction isn't good. China's have some programs which weans those young guys who are addicted out of those online games.