China dad tries to kill son's online gaming addiction with in-game assassins

How do you kill your child's addiction to online gaming? A father in China has tried one rather extreme answer: hiring in-game assassins.

A report on Kotaku.com said one Mr. Feng hired the online hitmen after his 23-year-old son did poorly at school and could not land a job due to his video game addiction.

"It is unknown where or how Feng found the in-game assassins – every one of the players he hired were stronger and higher leveled than (his son) Xiao Feng. Feng's idea was that his son would get bored of playing games if he was killed every time he logged on, and that he would start putting more effort into getting a job," the Kotaku.com report said, citing a Chinese-language article on people.com.cn.

"One thing's for sure: Feng's way of deterring his son from playing games might be one of the best ideas to come out of China recently, particularly as reactions to 'gaming and Internet addiction' have been very extreme," it added.

The online hitman was an unusual approach as other options included sending his son off to addiction camp or stripping him of Internet and gaming rights.

Xiao Feng started playing video games in high school and considered himself a master of Chinese online role-playing games.

The elder Feng said Xiao Feng did poorly at school and could not get a job due to his gaming habit.

He was also annoyed that his son would not land a job and would claim he could not find any work that he liked.

Xiao Feng even failed to last three months at a software development company.

But once faced with the in-game killers, Xiao Feng confronted his father.

"I can play or I can not play, it doesn't bother me. I'm not looking for any job — I want to take some time to find one that suits me," he was quoted in the report as telling his father.

This relieved the elder Feng, though it was not immediately clear if he had recalled the in-game assassins or if Xiao Feng has landed work. — LBG, GMA News

 [Read Full Article on GMA News]