Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Despite the Brandon Crisp thing happening months ago, CBC has nevertheless decided to hop onto the late bandwagon and strongly implicate videogames in his death. Apparently, a 15-year-old running away from home and falling out of a tree is evidence that gaming has a “dark side,” and CBC wishes to explore it in an upcoming programme.
“When Brandon Crisp’s parents took away his Xbox, they had no idea that their attempt to restrict their son’s video gaming would lead to tragedy. In retaliation, Brandon ran away. His body was found three weeks later. His disappearance, and death, became a national news story as it revealed a dark side to what many thought was a harmless entertainment. Gillian Findlay investigates how a video gaming obsession can turn to addiction and a pro gaming circuit with thousands of dollars in potential winnings, experts say, can fuel the need to play.”
Brandon Crisp’s death was a case of teenage rebellion going wrong, with the videogame implication being tenuous at best. CBC’s claim that it “revealed a dark side” is bunk, and in fact so off-base that if they’re choosing to hinge the entire show around that incident, we’ll be in for one of the biggest stretches of imagination and reason since Denis Dyack told us that Too Human was good.
Maybe it’ll be a fair and even-handed report, but the forecast is looking bleak. The show airs on CBC at 9pm tonight, and I recommend that those in charge of making it read our article about things we can ban instead of videogames, to put this so-called “dark side” into perspective.
Published: Mar 6, 2009 09:00 am