Alarming trends show kids and teens often fall prey to online games and challenges. An online game can be very influential and can cause significant damage to children and also claim their lives. There have been some instances where children who played these games were driven to self-injury, suicide, and sharing explicit photos online to strangers. Some even tried to kill others. Here is a list of such dangerous games that got banned over the years:
1. The Blue Whale Challenge
The Blue Whale challenge is an online game that instructs the participants to complete 50 tasks over the course of 50 days. These include self-harm, watching scary videos, waking at odds hours, etc. On the final day, the task is to commit suicide. This challenge hit the news over parental concerns. It has allegedly claimed hundreds of lives so far.
2. Grand Theft Auto
In 2008, a young man hailed a taxi in Bangkok, Thailand. When it was time to pay for his ride, he pulled out a knife and stabbed the driver to death. Later, he blamed Grand Theft Auto for his violent actions, saying “killing seemed easy in the online game” and he needed the money to play it. All GTA games were consequently banned from the country.
3. The Guy Game
This online game was released in the US in 2004. The gameplay was a standard multiple-choice trivia competition. But the catch was that as you answered questions correctly you were ‘rewarded’ with footage of young women taking their tops off and showing their breasts.
In one instance, one of those pairs of naked breasts belonged to a 17-year-old girl. The online game was banned from the internet and pulled from the market as it was in violation of child pornography statutes.
4. Metin 2
This previously banned “dangerous” online game was apparently the reason behind the death of a 13-year-old boy in Istanbul. Concerns over the game emerged again after it was suspected of being a reason that triggered the death.
The game first became alarming after the death of another 13-year-old boy in the eastern province of Erzurum in 2009. The Government in Turkey had already banned the game being played in internet cafes for children under the age of 15 following the death of another boy.
Many specialists warn parents to be cautious of online games. Parents are urged to monitor their children’s activities on the internet. Often parents need to explain to their kids about these horrific online trends. Is it important to be vigilant and ensure that young people do not fall into social pressures or addiction and end up hurting themselves? A simple trigger can prove disastrous, and even fatal.