Eight Singapore fans of Japanese game Slayers entered into a suicide pact so that they could become "Slayers" themselves and kill demons in World War III. The "pact" lasted two suicides, before the rest of the kids realized they were being f*cking stupid and backed out of the plan once they saw two friends leap to their deaths from a tall building.
The pact was started by a 16-year-old, self-proclaimed Taoist medium called Ku Witaya, who convinced his brother and six other kids to join him in his quest to become a "Slayer." He had led them to believe the world was coming to an end and that they had to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. The power he had over them was seemingly broken when he and his friend Sia Chan Hong were the first to make this "sacrifice," jumping from a ninth floor window. Hong survived the fall, but died in hospital three hours later.
Slayers is quite an old set of games, based on a series of light novels that revolve around a demon called the Lord of Nightmares that will be reborn if the world is destroyed. Singapore is not exactly known for its liberal and understanding approach to videogames, so we'll see if the game connection has any repurcussions.
Seriously though, these are the stupidest kids I've ever heard about.
[Update: Somebody from Singapore contacted us and said that the suicide was not about games and that if we did not remove this article, he would "contact the relevant government agencies." Seriously, he threatened us with government intervention. Hit the jump for his email.]
I refer to this article:
http://www.destructoid.com/singapore-gamers-forge-ludicrous-suicide-pact-147911.phtml
The news is totally wrong and is disrespectful to the dead. As a Singaporean, I cannot help but to ask the admins to delete this post. The 8 boys were not influenced by any games, they were influenced by religious beliefs.
Here is the right article:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1003691/1/.html
I will be watching the article, and will report it to the relevant government agencies if nothing is done.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
7:40 PM on 09.08.2009 | 
EXACTLY.
If you're dumb enough to kill yourself because you believe something from a video game, then the human race is better off not having your DNA in the gene pool.
@Monodi
Oh, my fellow Uncle Sam-related avatar person, thank you so very much for reminding me of that immensely disturbing film/manga.
& @Kif: Sony, Toshiba, Honda, Toyota.
That short list gave me a good chuckle out of nowhere for some reason. But yeah I agree Kif, just avoid the stuff you think might make you snap.
Holy shit. Muy relevant.
This is sad. Really, really, sad. Poor insane little fucks. This will not fare well for any side of this shit storm.
I hope the remaining kids get some help. Serious psychological help.
Ecch... my writing sucks today... -___-
Killing oneself over a videogame plot? Undeniably stupid. But people have killed themselves (and others!) over far worse - like believing your virign born carptenter friend is going to shake your hand as you enter the afterlife, or believing a merchant who had a flying horse will approve of you personally as long as you kill a whole bunch of people some guy in some mosque said were bad.
Somewhat related, I once knew a guy who swore he was going to be reborn as a dragon at some point in his life, he knew this because he had "dragon reflexes". In order to test this he attempted to stab himself in the chest one time and miraculously was able to dodge the blade, his shirt was a total loss. I believe he works at Hobby Lobby now, so apparently the dragon thing didn't exactly pan out as expected. I guess it's still less crazy then jumping off a building to be like a character in a video game, but not by much.
At least the rest of the group was smart enough to back out. I mean, the fact that they even went that far into the plan was bad, but at least they didn't jump at that idiot. Sure, I'm not supposed to disrespect the dead, but come on, with a mindset like that, wasn't he already dead?
Suicide Circle
But yeah, these are the stupidest kids ever! At least the others backed out.
I've been super-fugging-bored before, to the point where I just continually refreshed videogame 'news' websites in between 'bouts of cranking one off, but never that bored.
Dreamweaver: "I mean, the fact that they even went that far into the plan was bad, but at least they didn't jump at that idiot."
Maybe they were never going to actually jump, they just didn't like the two that did.
@Monodi: D: D: D: Uh, wow. Amusingly enough, that may've cured my hiccups. XD Ahem.
@Zodiac: He tried to stab himself and...dodged the blade? Excepting some street magic tomfoolery, that's pretty easy to do, though making it believable to a crowd would take practice. Mind you, I'm seeing him bringing the knife to his chest and it making a last-second dive in another direction.
@News: Sigh, someone's gonna get wind of this and further criminalize games. I mean, as if we didn't have these stories enough already. Good God.
Did they hear whispers and wrote numbers with thier bloody fingers before jumping off the building ?
Dude, even monkies are smart enough to know better.
Yet another reason to love The Slayers: promotion of Darwinian natural selection.
And while I do see some of my countrymen falling over the hype, it's still nothing compared to the Japanese dressing up as their favorite characters not just once every cosplay event but on a pretty regular basis. Not to mention those moe pillow thingies.
And WWIII? World War II may be finished, but we haven't encountered WWII-2 yet!!!
<Hits Youtube for nostalgia>
Also, update: Wow. That's rather sad that they're going to go to the government to get this story taken down. While I doubt it'll happen, they have a point about respecting the dead, though I have no sympathy for people who willingly off themselves.
I find it hard to muster respect for anyone who believes they'll be a "slayer" when they die and kill themselves over a divorce.
Really? I avoid it because it's just plain fucking weird and makes little sense to me, but to each his own!
I'm working on Singapore, and did post the same story, and got the same flak. Apparently, the suicide happened a year ago on August, and there was no involvement of the videogame slayers, just the word slayers from the post-mortem. It's still a suicide pact involving stupid kids last year, but no videogames were involved. That's why the government pissed off at you.
This is all that's on AP's feed now: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_SINGAPORE_TEEN_SUICIDES?SITE=NYWNE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
As for the government, fuck em. But your credibility- it's been fucked up good.