Death of a game addict
Shawn Woolley loved an online computer game so much that he played it just minutes before his suicide.
The 21-year-old Hudson man was addicted to EverQuest, says his mother, Elizabeth Woolley of Osceola. He sacrificed everything so he could play for hours, ignoring his family, quitting his job and losing himself in a 3-D virtual world where more than 400,000 people worldwide adventure in a never-ending fantasy.
On Thanksgiving morning last year, Shawn Woolley shot himself to death at his apartment in Hudson. His mother blames the game for her son’s suicide. She is angry that Sony Online Entertainment, which owns EverQuest, won’t give her the answers she desires. She has hired an attorney who plans to sue the company in an effort to get warning labels put on the games.
What should the warning label be? “This game is fun and engrossing. You will really like it, perhaps too much.” To extend the notion to its extreme, perhaps all women should have warning labels tatooed on all their fun bits that says, “You will single-mindedly pursue getting some of this. Only death will release you from the slavery of your sex drive and your fixation on these tits and this ass. Make sure you use protection.” Men should be labeled, “98% of violent crime is committed by men.” White men should get the additional label, “Most serial killers and consumers of pornography are white men. We are real perverts. Are you into rope bondage?” And irate mothers should come with a special warning label telling us to watch out for the warning labels they are looking to affix. Tipper Gore’s label should be day-glo and on her forehead.
This is fucking RIDICULOUS! Maybe, just maybe, we might want to consider this guy was a little left of center…TO BEGIN WITH! Let’s see. The guy played all day, quit his job, ignored his family, and "sacrificed everything". This isn’t what some might call regular behavior. And this is coming from a guy who has been accused, on occasions (several times by the author of this very site), of being overly infatuated with video games. I have played video games all day and night. I have spent an entire weekend in front of my television with nary a break for food and drink. But…it never ever left my collective consciousness that it was…a game. I feel for the woman that lost her son. But, projecting that pain and anguish onto a video game or the manufacturer OF that game is beyond me.