That's a good find.  Glad to see a number of these things have survived.

Very cool, a game so powerful that people commit suicide over it.  I want to play it NOW!!

About four minutes into that first video the mother/father says that they never knew their suicidal boy/son was into D&D, and they never saw any of the books or other game items until the night they came home and found his dead body on the front lawn.

Later the interviewer gets the dead boys younger sister to admit that the boy had threatened to KIll her if she ever told their parents he was playing D&D.

FormCritic wrote:
Sad people.  Sad families.  Sad situations.  Sad excuses.

I often wonder if people, in their grief, either don't know the media is manipulating them, or don't care.  Being on TV is probably the most important thing that ever happened in their life (including the death of a loved one, loved ones die all the time, TV is a one shot for most people) and as the same charges of deviltry and suicide were levelled against heavy metal and video games in years to come, ultimately their appeals and appearances on TV are useless and minor footnotes at best.

The best thing to do is give the vultures nothing...you're a sound bite to them, and nothing more.  I've actually seen people push other people out of the way to get on TV live spot interviews with these Z-grade celebs (let's face it, local TV personalities are about as low a common denominator of "celebrity" as you can go)

I don't know if JohnGaunt remembers this, but at the Pinball festival this year, a reporter for the local paper was taking pictures of the two of us playing a machine. Afterwards he asked us a couple of questions, then asked us our names.  Both of us kind of balked for a second, and he came back with "But if you don't give me your names, you WONT SEE YOUR PICTURE IN THE PAPER!!!" like we should have gasped and fallen to our knees in wonder....our names and images in the paper? Laws!!!  What would be next, American Idol?????? Sadly that technique would probably work about 99% of the time with this image obsessed culture of ours.

Mike B.

I used to work for a company that was located in an area called 'TV Hill' due to all the local TV stations that ran their programming from the area. A month or so after I started there, the boss' daughter, son-in-law, and their children wound up on the wrong end of a murder-suicide deal. A notice appeared on the company bulletin board absolutely savaging the local press over how they hounded the family, with one reporter being so obnoxious his name was mentioned.

A couple of year later, one gent who has no legs had his car stolen. It was a specially rigged car so he could drive it, and you just don't get loaners for that situation. One of the stations was contacted for the purpose of getting the word out that he needed the car back. When the news piece ran, he was one ticked puppy over how they edited the interview into a big sob story.

I have zero respect for network reporters.

ExTSR wrote:I remember when 60m came to town.

Ed Bradley was pretty much a jerk. He had already dreamed up the story he was going to tell, and tailored the facts to match.

I've heard over the years that's pretty much SOP for 60 Minutes and other "investigative" shows....aka the NBC Dateline scandals over the years...nothing like planting a bomb under a car to get exactly the effect you want on camera!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977814,00.html

Mike B.

All true enough - reporters are only trying to do a job. Many of us think its a shoddy job done by bottom-feeders, but then, who believes everything they see/hear in the press (I could tell some stories...!)

And Bracton is absolutely right - these people are just trying to make sense of something un-imaginably hard. Consider for a moment, if one of your children died for a reason you simply couldn't fathom - you'd be looking around for answers wouldn't you - and surely you would grab hold of any shred of information that would make you suffering easier to bear.

I reckon we have all read about the Dallas Egberts of this world, and poured scorn on the likes of BADD et al; and while these organisations/parents/authors etc are certainly mis-informed, and sometimes plain stupid, we perhaps lose sight of the crux of the issue - the death of a loved one.

Now - you should all go and hug your kids and spouse. (It's my youngests 5th birthday, so perhaps this post is written with my own family verymuch on my mind - and of course I'll get an extra big hug when I get in from work , because I provide presents!! )

One would think that the parents not even knowing he PLAYED the game, which we all know is insanely time-consuming, is an indicator of other issues. Either he felt he couldn't talk to his parents, or they just didn't pay enough attention to him.
I always crack up when I see these things. It amazes me how much effect the media has on sheeple. "Well, I saw it on CNN, so it MUST be true!".
What is REALLY funny is the way they construe the game as a mindless maze crawl. Never any mention of how it expands your thinking and reasoning abilities.