After an argument with his parents over his "obsession" with the Xbox 360 game Call of Duty 4; Barrie, Ontario teen Brandon Crisp left his home on October 13th 2008. The fifteen year old Canadian had been suffering from failing grades at school and had been spending all his time on the game. After asking for directions to a nearby semi-rural area Brandon left his home and hasn't been heard from since. His mountain bike, which he used to travel, was found in a ditch a few days later and confirmed by police to be his. Hoping that the teen may be staying with a friend he met online his parents and police are naturally fearful that he may have instead met an online predator and been lured away. A $10,000 reward has been offered to information leading to his location.

Oh lord here we go, game bashing on the way. I feel sorry for the parents and the kid, but at the same time if he was this obsessed, where the hell were the parents? I just hope they don't use this as an excuse to bash video games yet again.

Here is a book for parents and family... gamewidow.org

To buy a signed copy of Game Widow, click here. lol Book of the Year

They apparently tried to talk to him and get him to do other things but sadly he wasn't having any of it (I guess to the point of running away from home!).

This is an M-rated game so he wasn't supposed to play the game in the first place... who bought it for him and how come the parents didn't just outright forbid him to play it as soon as they found out about his grades and the amount of time he spent with the game?

There isn't anything illegal about an underage kid playing an M-rated game

It's not really an issue about the rating of a game anyways, it's about the parents not being assertive enough in their parenting. They should have set clear boundaries for game playing and known there was problem when his grades started to drop.

Maybe not illegal, but there are reasons children aren't supposed to play these games, as this case sadly shows. Brandon apparently wasn't mature enough to make important decisions such as when to stop playing and go to sleep or do his homework, and when to listen to his parents. They should have stopped him ages ago.

http://www.barrieadvance.com/barrieadvance/pictorial/119877

They had no idea what the game was all about (he had been playing it since he was 13), had never heard of parental controls and now they want Bill Gates to take the game off the market to save some kids from problems. They still don't get the fact that games aren't childrens' toys ot that they have a responsibility in this issue.

They'll most likely blame the game, but even then it doesn't make much sense. It's not a MMO, it didn't make him commit any violence, and it's a reputable franshise. I hope he's alive, but what were they thinking letting him spend ALL his free time playing it ? Even I've got better things to do than play games all the time. Why didn't they take it way from him ? It's only proof that most people (AKA parents.) are lazy and quick to blame everybody but themselves for stuff like this.

Way easier than starting to believe that the foundations of the family institution may not be that strong after all. I want to be an optimist though and think that they'll ask themselves what they did wrong (and I don't mean just this particular family) after the whole thing is over and not start a crusade against video games. On the other hand I don't feel that only his parents should take the blame. When you're 15 you're old enough to be able to put restrictions to yourself and the things you do. Anyway, I hope they find him.

Tell that to the conservatives. :p

In what aggregate state?

Obviously, this boy wasn't. And with 15, you still ought to get your ass kicked by your parents if you're behaving irresponsibly. It's an age where you can give kids the right to prove that they can handle themselves, but you can't just ignore it if they obviously can't. I don't know about this family, but I have seen how some parents don't give a f. about their kids and not even feel guilty about it, then when something happens, they're suddenly the best mums and dads and everyone else is to blame.

Meh, I hope he shows up dead in a ditch. With a shovel stuck up his ass. Idiots like that are a fucking disgrace to mankind, let alone gamers.

He's f---ing FIFTEEN, what is wrong with you Von Katze?

Sounds like he's trying to get attention mom. I hope, like other human beings on here, that he's safe and just being a kid.

Precisely. I'm gonna pull the Unicorn-Lynx gambit here and say that no matter how politically correct it is to wish him well, I do not: He's a kid, but he's old enough to know when he should just shut up and get his act together. If he was coming downhill because of this "obsession" as it's been said, there's no way he could expect to defend himself. I know I would've shut the hell up and started doing some homework right away.

Of course, you might argue that if he came to the point where he makes this scene over a videogame then maybe it's not his fault and something's been wrong for quite some time; like, if the kid came this screwed up, there's probably a problem with the source material... and I gotta admit you'd be right.

Ok, let's do this: Let's have him show up alive and well and return back home safely with his parents. And then have the house crumble down and crush the entire lot.

...said the overconfident parent before his kids turn to teenagers...

Bloody hell Katze, you're one dry bastard of a master race gamer dad. Anyways, anyone up for a bet? I heard the area he's lost in somewhat resembles Deliverance.

Bloody hell is right. WTF man ?

I understand his sentiment, although I wouldn't put use the same "vibe" of argumentation:

Stupidity should never be rewarded, condoned, nor supported in any way.

So that girl with the tight mini skirt and an obvious IQ with 25 that trips and falls during a horror movie while being chased by a psychotic tentacle monster, really should not get to see more than 10 minutes of a movie.

Update: Microsoft has doubled the reward money offered to anyone who knows Brandon's whereabouts bringing the total reward to $50,000. They've also decided to help the investigators by providing contact to his clan members. Volunteers continue to search the suspected areas Brandon might be in.

It's nice that Microsoft tries to help. But there are quite some places and people that see actions like that as confessing ones guilt. I'm not sure that's the signal Microsoft should be giving in this subject matter.

This kind of story isnt the first, i remember watching a documentary about the evolution of video games and there was a bit about a Japanese girl who ran away from home as her parents forbid her from playing space invaders in the arcades. Shed been begging on the street for coins and as soon as she had enough for 1 credit she was straight in the arcade.

Yeah while its not illegal for the kid to play COD4 his parents should have put there foot down sooner before it started to effect his education.

Blaming the parents exclusively is as closed-minded and dumb as blaming the game exclusively. You guys talk as if the parents didn't RTFM for raising children. Last time I checked, there wasn't a manual. Give him and them a break. The problem doesn't lie with Call of Duty's developers or the parents or the kid. The problem lies with the fact that the global culture now consists of human beings finding their only source of pleasure from sitting in front of a glowing box until they become fungus-ridden bags of greasy flesh that don't even know they're alive.

Hence, us normal human beings shouldn't even feel guilty for killing them so they don't waste anymore of our precious oxygen. Thanks for supporting my point u__u

The problem lies with the fact that the global culture now consists of human beings finding their only source of pleasure from sitting in front of a glowing box until they become fungus-ridden bags of greasy flesh that don't even know they're alive.

Looks like we are back to the famous debate (mainly between DJP Mom and myself) about culture and responsibility.

It's funny that you blame neither the parents nor the kids, but the "global culture". What is culture if not something created and approved by people? People like those parents and this kid?

To blame this culture is nothing but a desire to get rid of our own responsibility. Whose fault is this that people sit in front of TV? The culture's? Hell no. Nobody comes with a gun and forces people to watch TV. If they watch TV and turn into bags of greasy flesh it's because they chose to.

I find it frightening that people are considered mindless drones manipulated by some evil "culture". Every person has the power of choice and the power to absorb or resist whatever cultural influences are around. If he doesn't use this power, it's entirely this person's problem... or the problem of whoever raised him, if he is under age.

I comepletely agree. People (Lazy people.) will always try to place blame on anything and everything but their own actions for the bad things that happen to them or somebody else.

Or what Oleg really means is blame the Republicans and MTV endorsements. :)

oh my god that picture's the best ever

Haha, great!

Is Call of Duty 4 such a great game? Hah. Maybe parents should promise his son to buy him another game, Fallout 3, for example, to return? Or guy, if you are reading this, just get this game by yourself and return back home to play it!!!

http://www.goldenjoystick.com/

Infinity Ward's shooter has been named Nuts All-Nighter multiplayer game of the year

:X

Sad news, his body was found in the woods. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/531082

It goes to show that real life is more dangerous than videogames. I just hope the parents don't feel guilty, because being responsible parents means putting your foot down. Whether the kid suffered an accident or just made an unwise decision to stay in the woods, it could've happened to any family for any different reason.

Fuck. This is awful.

The jury still seems out on whether he was preyed upon or just died of stubborn exposure.

I can't really imagine running away from home on the basis of a game (and I don't need to tell you how much I loved my games 8) On more than one occasion my parents imposed play sanctions on me and I did what any sane teenager would do: played them at school and at my friend's houses instead. Of course, if one has no friends that's perhaps a different case, but news at his shocked schoolmates suggests he wasn't a total outsider.

I don't mean to sound callous -- this is a really a shame -- but the situation is just so difficult for me to understand I figure there must be more to it.

Of course. We may correctly assume that the "fight" over the game was just simply the trigger of other bigger problems at home, understandably undisclosed to the public.

But, if by per-chance the former does not apply, and really was just a simple fight that leaded a dramatic response from a rebellious teenager...welcome, to the real world. Shit happens. Bad unforgivable shit. Not a politically correct reply, I assume...but this is reality we live in, unfortunately.

I was thinking if I was him and somehow went as far as running away from home, how could he return home with all the media attention? You know? Sure you're upset with your parents and you want to make a point or something but then it gets really out of hand and then suddenly you gotta trek back home amidst all this attention as that kid who ran away from home over a video-game. It's really sad but I wonder if it was just exposure that did it or if it was maybe something he ingested? or maybe got hurt and got gangrene or something? Terrible.

Interesting analysis. Didn't think of that. How does one handle a "point of no return" situation?

Had he a shovel up his ass?

Breaking news! No foul play involved; boy probably fell from a tree, says coroner.

Sad but hilarious.

If he was older [or god forbid, a girl], he'd certainly have reacted far differently.