Legal Niches

Korean Parents Neglect Real Child for Virtual One

By pete_gallagher

The South Korean parents of a three-month old allegedly fed their gaming habits obsessively while neglecting their daughter, who effectively starved to death.

The 41-yeard old husband and his 25-year old wife, identified only as 'the Kims,' spent up to 12 hours every night at Internet cafés playing games, according to a story on ABC. The couple came home one morning last September, after spending the whole night out, and alerted authorities upon finding their daughter deceased.

An autopsy revealed that the baby's death came about from malnourishment. The Kims subsequently confessed that they had been feeding their daughter 'rotten, powdered milk and had often spanked their crying baby.'

In a sinister bit of irony, officials reported that instead of taking care of their real child, who was born prematurely, the couple was infatuated with raising a virtual daughter in the massively multiplayer online game PRIUS.

The article also features a quote from Dr. Kim Sang Eun, of Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, who believes game addiction is a brain disease. She stated, 'there's no certain clinical indicator to define 'game addiction' but our study shows that brain PET [scan] images of suspected online game addicts are very similar to that of a cocaine addict.'

The parents were arrested on Wednesday.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on March 04, 2010 (boomark / email).