Fallen Comrade
 

I found this news on Ctrl-Alt-Delete:

From GamingHorizon.com:

"Earlier this month, gamer named Mitchell S. with the online screenname "Kuja105" who posts on a few online videogame forums (including GameFaqs.com and MetalGearSolid.org) committed suicide. On January 2 he posted a message in both forums detailing his intent to end his own life, citing overwhelming complications with school and finances.

A very brief period of initial disbelief was followed by a barrage of replies from fellow forum members pleading that he not take his life, trying to talk him out of it.

For days, no word was heard from Mitchell. Fearing the worst, members and administration from metalgearsolid.org began searching for contact information, spending hours on the phone trying to get in touch with him. Finally on January 4, Ryan K., an administrator at metalgearsolid.org, got him on the phone and spent hours desperately trying to talk him out of it.

Sadly, Mitchell soon ended his own life by consuming antifreeze and painkillers.

Later, members from the site contacted Mitchell's family to find out the grave news. They reported it to their online community, and posted a tribute to their passed friend on the front page of metalgearsolid.org." (Read Full Report at http://news.gaminghorizon.com/media2...5340.3198.html)

Mr. Jack Thompson then sent in the following letter regarding the situation to MetalGearSolid.org, one of the forums frequented by Mitchell, where he was known well:

"Your "gamer friend" will find peace through the Lord, Jesus Christ, but sadly it's too late for that.

There is a void in every heart. You can fill it up with the things of God, or the things not of God. This unfortunate soul chose to fill it up with combat games. The playing of these video games is masturbatory activity, meaning senseless self-stimulation. If you gamers could use a dictionary you would know that that term is not necessarily a sexual one.

The real tragedy here extends beyond the life and death of this one fellow. There are literally millions of young people and young adults whose despair is deepend by turning to the things of this world and then finding them meaningless.

All of you gamers need to put down the controllers and get a life. The utter inanity of the vast majority of postings here shows how vapid "gaming" really is.

You are one of the cheerleaders for this wasting of time and the wasting of lives. Do you feel any remorse for having contributed to this "culture of death?" Of course not. Hey, let's all play MORE games, and ignore all the really productive things to do with our lives.

Let's pretend to be shocked that a gamer might descend into deeper depression, as his gamer "buds," knowing he was killing himself, couldn't figure out how to call 911 themselves for him. That would have involved leaving their computers I guess.

Sad. Sad for all of you."

The online tribute to Mitch can be found here:
http://www.metalgearsolid.org/featur...ch_article.php

*Stares at screen for 5 minutes*

Have I mentioned on these forums that JT needs to et a life of his own? I think I have. Kind of applies here. Was there a motive behind the suicide? Gaming wouldn't make sene, although JT probably blames it. I just can't believe that any sane person would say something like that. He probably should worry about things that are worse in our community, although he probably doens't think there is one. He acts like we are all mentally retarded. I just don't understand how he can blame games, when there could be so many different reasons, like possibly in the report, some sort of serious trauma.

But back to my original question, has a motive been found for the suicide?

Oh...

At the begining of the article it said that he was "citing overwhelming complications with school and finances.

I can't seem to find the letter jack tompson wrote anywhere. Where did you find that?

Everything in my original post is currently(1/22/06) on the front page at www.cad-comic.com . It was presented to Tim Asbath by a reader of said comic

Go to Digg and do a search or just go through the recent pages...this is all over it.

I really hope that the family sues Jack for defamation of character against their recently deceased son and brings a lot of media attention to that.

What a douche.

He will but he won't?

It seems like Jack's grasp is weak on other things beside reality.

i heard about this, and i have no comment on it. do not give Jack Thompson a reason to get on television again. if he is so desperate for attention that he would write such a horrendous letter regarding a person's death, then he is beyond all logic and reasoning.

let his cries for attention fall on deaf ears.

Who said what?

Honestly, this of course could be all video games fault. They have no good points at all. They... ya know what, I don't even want to give this the dignity of sarcasm.

Really, we either ignore him or sue him for this. This is... over the top. And if someone sues him, of course no publicity.