Absolutely. It's a lifeline to a lot of people, just like the internet. I think it's the same debate as went on with people shutting themselves into their houses to sit in front of the computer 24 hours a day, it's just extended to games now because games involve people so much more. Same with MMOs. MMOs and online games draw in the same kinds of people who got hooked on chatrooms back when AOL first became popular. My cynical side just calls it thinning the herd of the weak people too stupid to successfully live in real life, but that's probably no fair at all. Especially when you're talking about kids.
Unfortunately, with kids the source of the problem is that parents need to be more active in the lives of their children and not allow them to escape to something like that, but nobody will ever call the parents out on it. They'll just say "Boy, he was addicted to video games... damn those evil video games." Damn you for being worthless parents, or at least not being aware enough to realize what was actually bothering your son and then failing to discipline him in a constructive way. I'm a big fan of discipline, but it doesn't work if you just neglect it for years and then suddenly try to use it as a one-off against some problem that crops up. That leads to results like this.
Of course we don't know that the guy is a bad parent or that he never disciplined his kid. The kid could have had other problems or been a little addled. I'm just saying.
Also, one of the comments on the article says that the kid basically ran out into the snow in a t-shirt. That makes it sound to me like the kid probably just ran off in a fit of rage, then realized all too late just how quickly weather can kill an unprotected individual, which would make this more of a tragedy than the article let on. The kid's immediate emotions may well have been what got him killed. If he'd just run to his room and locked the door instead, or gone to a friend's house, or... uh, gotten in trouble in summer, maybe it wouldn't have happened. What a shame.
