Father-of-three attacked teen after Call of Duty jibes An angry gamer has avoided jail for attacking a teenager who mocked his online gaming skills after he was gunned down in Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops. Unemployed Plymouth resident Mark Bradford, 46, admitted one count of assault by beating and was given a suspended prison sentence over the attack, The Daily Mail …
It's evidence that pent up frustration from hours of having the piss taken out of them can push a person with "mental health issues" to violent reaction.
Any conclusions reached beyond this are just supposition and unsubstantiated theory.
Further more, have you not noticed that The Reg always baits its readership? It's like a spoiled child craving attention in the form of comment. In most cases though, the baiting is a little more subtle than calling its readership dickheads.
At 46, give it up as a lost cause that you are ever going to beat a teenager.
I'm 40 and the bitch-slapping I receive on Call Of Duty free-for-all really shows how slower my reaction times are from my teenage years.
Or it may just be that I'm c**p, but I blame 20 years of drinking.
48 and I went 26-6 on a match in Killzone 3 very recently
Picked up most kills, longest streak (12) and best KDR and our team won. I also consider myself as pretty poor at online games.
So why did I do so well? And normally on winning team?
Know the map, and know where you will get shot from. Experience can override reactions a lot. Oh and I use Move!
I would not even try COD, too many irritating children, like that 13 year old.
<-- only icon with red eyes!
Has the bairns for fetching his slippers, crips, and the remote too.
Incidentally, what's this "tennager" of which the first line speaks --- Tennant's drinking teenager or so? Sounds plausible for the neighbourhood, with people named after UK beauty spots.
Now where's my little Slough with my fish lunch? Bet he's been goading Preston to steal Bexley's g-strings again.
Doesnt Call of Duty have a PEGI rating of 18?
I seem to remember seeing this on the COD BO box:
BBFC Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over Suitable for 18 years and over. Not for sale to persons under age 18
did the kids mum get prosecuted? were social services called? was he banned from xbox live?
think of the children please......
Right, and clearly only *they're* at fault and in no way are you partly responsible for continuing to put yourself in a position where you interact with the snotty little ballbags. One bad experience is unfortunate, but repeated bad experiences of the same sort is a masochistic refusal to learn your lesson...
I play a game called Heroes of Newerth and the community for that game makes CoD seem like its filled with sweet, kind and considerate angels.
And yet I keep playing it. Why? Because I *enjoy playing the game*. Why should my gaming habits be decided because someone else is a mouthy little shit?
Do this the first time bob says something even remotely stupid and mute voice comms of anyone with an annoying accent, who plays music or offers obvious advice. It really spares a lot of grief, and it's often funny to see everyone else reacting to flames you don't see.
Just make sure you tell them your muting them so they can rage away to themselves.
Hmm.. Maybe I'll send a few to hang round outside your house and throw abuse at you.
Hey, time for you to move. Have them outside your work too? Get another job..
They hang round the places where you go to unwind, and throw even more abuse at you? Stay in your hidden hovel, do nothing, close the doors and windows, and have no life..
Or, you could call them out on it, make them face the consequences of their actions, and have a life.
Actions have consequence; I certainly knew that by my teenage years. If I'd kept yelling abuse at an adult, I'd have expected a clout. I didn't throw abuse, and I didn't get the clout. Fair deal as far as I can see.
Heh, Juillen, you're welcome to try - there's already a gang of *actual* scumbags known to loiter in my general area, but unlike this case, they're a real problem. As in, they're known to the cops and have records for involvement in burglary, dealing,etc.
So if you can exchange that for someone whose worst offering is a bit of unoriginal windup-merchantry, I'd be onto a winner.
My point is that not all gaming involves online gaming, and the fact that the guy in this case *knew* where his taunter lived suggests that he had chosen to remain in that same game for most if not all of his all-day gaming session. At which point I say, yes the 13-year old minor is acting like a little ballbag and could do with some re-education, but the 46-year old adult has shown even worse social skills and even less ability to deal with the world. Not exactly a win for all concerned.
Gaming is a hobby. I avoid online gaming like the plague, because I'm familiar with the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I'm not saying it's *right* that tons of bored teenagers are little ballbags in online gaming arenas, but I do acknowledge the fact of their existence and modify my behaviour to minimise contact with them accordingly. Because doing so is an absolute minimum of hassle for me, though thank you for playing at being an Internet Retard and trying to compare IRL harasssment that follows you to several locations with in-game harassment that can usually be circumvented by the cunning measure of *gasp* logging out of the game.
If you don't want to do that, it's up to you. If your idea of a good time is trying to play a game you enjoy but being continually interrupted to pursue some Quixotic quest to Show The Youth The Folly Of Their Ways, then good luck to you. I know where I'll be, and I suspect I'll be the less angry of the two of us as a result.
Link their gamertag to their parents' bank account - maybe the threat of little Timmy clearing out the account every time they mouth off might bring them into line! Maybe people could get paid £1 a time for being nice and complimentary about their fellow players. Cue really really friendly teenagers falling over themselves to be as nice as possible.
The kid was trolling and then shit got real.
The guy shouldn't have attacked the kid, but the kid now knows his actions have consequences too.
Its all fun and games until someone turns up at your front door.
Alternatively don't troll people who live just up the road from you...
Anyway the law won in the end.
"Yeah. The consequences are the kid just got £80. He got paid to mouth off. Buy, that'll sure shut him up!"
Not only that, but if he plays his cards right he can make a few hundred more from talking to the tabloids about that weirdo down the road who spends all day online gaming with little boys and then beats them up.
This is why I am a member of a gaming community for older gamers. Playing with the great unwashed almost always guarantees meeting some kind of mouthy little sod who you want to slap, especially on a AAA title like CoD.
I actually enjoy my online gaming now that I know I can always join up with other older, cynical bar-stewards like myself. Our shooting-people-in-the-face abilities don't define us, it's purely a form of relaxation, hence a lack of agro.
Even the children are well mannered on a lot of games.
Just keep away from COD.
I let my 11 year olds play Uncharted multiplayer and they chat along very nicely.
Rudeness is best dealt with by shooting them.
I find in general you get the odd bit of swearing but because you got hit, not aimed at the person.
Sometimes the odd "good kill" is warranted, friendly environment is great.
That sounds interesting, I'm hoping to get a 360 in the new year and this would be one of my priority titles. I'm normally quite happy making my way through the actual game but online stuff is always appealing, aside from the idiots you always get. Any chance on a heads up of this 'grown-up' community?
I expect that Daily Mail readers already have Google's SafeSearch turned up to maximum. For the rest of us, well, I'm an adult and I'm capable of discriminating search results from their descriptive taglines. Even with SafeSearch off, the entire first page of "mature gamers" is exactly what you would, I hope, be searching for.
Actually there’s a surprising number of community sites and clans out there for older gamers which cover all tastes and platforms, it’s just finding them can be a bit of a pain (as someone has pointed out, search results for mature anything can make your eyes water).
I found the one I am a member of by going to my console’s official forums and reading the clan recruitment thread. In amongst the depressing posts looking for BE$T GAMAZ EVA!!! you can find some really good ones. I won’t link to ours as I don’t want to flout the spamming rules here, however if you were to search for people who own a PS3 and could be described as Coffin Dodgers you might find us ;)
Simple solution to that. I belong to a group which used to be known as Over The Hill Gaming. I'm one of the oldest, having just hit 50. When playing online, I ONLY play within my group. No need to worry about snotty brats in the game when the youngest one of us is late-30's with a couple curtain-climbers.
I used to invite the little shits outside. Let's play this with REAL weapons and see who survives, eh? It definitely wouldn't be the little turd who's barely shaving. Now, however, I don't even bother. Simpler to not put myself in a position to get baited. Yes, the kiddies can/will kick my electronic ass in most online games. I choose to sit smugly satisfied that, in the Real World™©®, my age/wisdom/treachery will nearly ALWAYS beat their youthful "skill."
I am a gamer. I am in my mid thirties, gainfully employed in a well paid job and pay plenty of those taxes you speak of. Most of the people I work with are also gamers.
Next time you decide to spout a generalisation that bad-mouths a disparate group of people, try to make it one that, in general, holds true, lest you be seen as a arrogant twat for slating an activity you don't engage in yourself. Unless of course you do play somputer games yourself, in which case you are also a hypocritical twat. Note the common factor there, twat.
Can you demonstrate that the typical gamer is an unemployed and unemployable layabout? For several years now the gaming industry has been worth more in revenue than the film industry (eg see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6852383/Video-games-bigger-than-film.html). For that to work, either there are *shedloads* of people on benefits playing games (shedloads because the disposable income of your average benefits-claimant is not particularly high) or the average expenditure of a gamer is substantial (again, discounting unemployed benefit claimants as they simply don't have the disposable income).
TL;DR - citation needed or GTFO.
AC. can you cite a source backing up your assertion that a majority of gamers are unemployed and unemployable? It's a hard one to claim, because if the only people playing games are unemployed and thus presumably Living Off Mum & Dad and/or on benefits, the games industry shouldn't be worth more than the film industry (see, for example, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6852383/Video-games-bigger-than-film.html). For the games industry to generate that kind of revenue, people with more disposable income than that typically possessed by those living on benefits have to be playing them.
So in the absence of further evidence, your statement is incorrect.
That being said, I suspect your original post was a metafictional piece of trolling, given its apparent intent to wind up its audience and its publication in the comments of an article about the repercussions of a child's intent to wind up their audience.
Oh go on then, I'll bite....
I am employed.
I would like to think that I am not useless (however this is merely my opinion).
I don't drink that often (couple of times a year, mainly birthdays and social gatherings).
Nor am I a waster (again, my opinion).
Did I mention that I am a gamer? Oops! Sorry!
Although in all fairness, you are generalising what a "typical gamer" is with your comment, so it is unlikely that I would be able to meet your lofty criteria.
but the kid got what he deserved.
By that, I'm not condoning assault, just saying that if it was common knowledge to them that they lived down the road from each other, the teenager obviously baiting the bigger guy was just stupid.
Actions have consequences. Hopefully this has happened at a time when the kid was impressionable enough that he starts thinks about that before doing things like this in the future as next time he might pick an even more unstable target and not get off as lightly.
"...walked 200 yards to where the boy lived and grabbed him by the throat, causing scratches and reddening."
ie. did a Homer Simpson. The internet suddenly got real for this lad, in no undertain terms. The lad was not completely innocent. Swearing at people, being abusive and bullying are also illegal.
Let's face it, 13 year olds probably need a beating, and those who mock older, bigger guys in spite of warnings to stop probably need a life lesson in restraint.
Seriously, who has dealt with teenagers and NOT felt like doinking them in the eyes, like Moe did to Larry and Curly? Hell, I felt like doing this to teenagers when *I* was a teenager.
Alas, our nimminy-pimminy laws, written by bleeding heart lawyers with no grip on reality and no marketable job skills, make this a legal minefield. Also, the concept of "the jerk needed hangin'" doesn't float with most judges these days. Usually I just drink sourmash, light a stogie, and tell the little wankers what it's like to get a b______ from a Polish lingerie model while driving a Maserati at 150MPH on the Nurburgring.
If there's violence and you hate it - blame the games
For they ought to be X-rated - blame the games
When of shootings there's a spate, it
Sends you fuming in debate, it
Means you ought to be sedated - blame the games
(three more verses here, if anyone's interested: http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/traditional1385.shtml)
Unfortunately, £80 compensation means the annoying little squirt has found that this sort of wind-up behaviour is profitable.
Gobby kid deserves slap, Gobby kid gets slap, slapper gets 16 weeks (suspended) in pokey.
Gobby kid learns he can do whatever he likes, behaves like a shit till one day he is old enough for the state to put him in pokey for his actions which comes as a big surprise.
There's plenty of evidence that TV causes an increase in violence (search for Dr. Aric Sigman). Games possibly do as well, but not just agressive games. I guess we'll never know though, as the control group is very hard to find. And assuming it was true, who would be interested to find out? Who would be making any money from a finding such as this? Not the multi billion games industry, that's for sure. Not the people who enjoy playing games.
I just try and get out into the fresh air every day, and spend more time outsidse than watching TV or playing games. I insist my kids do the same (more so, as they don't have a desk job). I read books too. I know I'm probably in the minority.
Anecdotally, I've noticed that one of my kids seems to get very unruly and just badly behaved after watching too much TV or playing games.
On the other hand, I'd have wanted to strangle the little tyke myself. ;-)
Unemployed old guy is online playing video games with little boys.
And we're concerned about this act of violence? Shouldn't we be a bit more concerned that we have a 48 year old guy using voice chat with little boys where instead of setting an example for them, he's behaving like this?
Someone will hopefully have learnt that all actions have consquences and he wont try that again with someone down the road...
I'll just stick to the more intelligent shooter, America's Army and laugh when a kid asks "how do I?" and we will all answer... "Do the basic training!" over and over till he shuts up... and gets shot...
My only concern that wasnt probably addressed was why this 13yr old CHILD was playing a 18+ ADULT game?????
My first reaction was "the little scrote bloody deserved it". If you're going to try to hide behind the
"anonymity of the internet" to insult and annoy people, make sure you really are anonymous, because someone, somewhere is eventually going to snap.
The more rational part of me is going "that's inappropriate". But having wanted to do it several times to the online trolls, I can't bring myself to seriously disapprove of the man's actions vs the troll.
and killing the little twonks, (actually in my case, setting them on fire and hitting them repeatedly with an axe.)
Sounds like the little 13 yr old idiot got a big nasty surprise that he may well have deserved, but unfortunately for the 46 yr old, only the police are allowed to rough up 13 yr olds like that.
But then what is a 13 yr old doing playing an 18+ game ?
As a part time server admin for a small gaming company, we have a policy of "any swearing/baiting gets you muted", a second offence gets you banned from the server for a day.
Most kids learn to control the potty mouth by the 2nd offence (or more usually, clear off to a server that does'nt care), with the result that gamers of any age can join and get killed without the abuse.
PS I'm 46 and fought in the Quake wars for the likes of you
I'm forty next month and still havin' it.
I was playing some 22yo kid from Sweden on QuakeLive the other night and he beat me to 1st place by 1 frag 3 times in a row! On a full server.
I can regularly rule the roost playing Quantum of Solace on the 360 too (without a keyboard and mouse you pathetic loser :D )
I really expected to be crap at 40, but what I realise is, I can still be just as competetive, but I think perhaps not as frequently as I used to. It takes more to get in the zone (ie staying off the whisky).
As commentard #1 said 'if you provoke people until they hit you then you will have been hit...' and judging by the upvotes, we get that. Perhaps the 13yo also learned a valuable life-lesson.
I've just noticed, resizable textbox!
+1 Reg
New Scientist magazine had an article some years ago which explained why boys have puberty later than girls.
The reason is that because boys are little gobby shits they would be killed by the elder males as potential threats. But because they are physically immature they pose no threat and are just given a slap or two.
Pay attention teenagers!
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