It's not all good news on the gaming front

Six years on the game

A 24-year-old man with the online identity "Bei Ai Ran Shao" posted a confession on the Internet in March saying that he stayed at home playing World of WarCraft for six years and never stepped out of his apartment once.

He said in the letter that he was jobless and felt sorry for his mother who had supported him all that time.

The man hadn't changed his clothes in six years and could not even recognize the streets outside his home anymore. The man said he had now decided to quit playing the games and would apply for a job at McDonald's. He said he wanted to go to college some day and live a normal life like everyone else.

Widowed by husband

A woman in Chongqing ended her five-year marriage last November because she considered herself to be a "gaming widow" whose husband was obsessed with online video games.

The woman said her jobless husband played online games day and night and never took care of her and their six-year-old son.

She worked as a sales clerk at a department store and was the only breadwinner in the family. Financial difficulties and living pressure had made her decide to divorce her husband.

Savings wiped out

A high school teacher named Wang Li, from Harbin, Heilongjiang province, spent all of her savings, $17,647, playing online games this year.

Wang said with the best gear she could build cities and lead gangs to kill enemies and monsters.

To keep her leading position in the game, Wang said she spent $735 a month on virtual gear and weapons and she even decided to sell her car to buy more.

Wang reached the highest level of the game in less than one year and had many followers online who nicknamed her the "game princess.

Learning a lesson

In order to meet overwhelming demand, a college student called Alan Feng has created a course called "Game Theory when Applied to StarCraft" at the University of California in Berkeley.

Feng, 20, developed the idea of a class on video games while talking with friends. The response they got from the school board was supportive so Feng became an instructor.

A youngster's mother in China emailed him to thank him because her son had begun taking more interest in learning English so he could follow the course online.

Feng was born in China and moved to the US at the age of three. He dropped out of school because he was spending all his time playing StarCraft two years ago and came back a year later as a physics major at the university.

(China Daily 05/25/2009 page6)