Tag Archive for: hitman

My 4 year old son loves his Super Mario Bros video game. Some days it borders on an unhealthy amount of love and I have recently started taking measures to cut back the amount of time he is allowed to spend on it. I realize that it is a non-violent video game for kids, but I really don’t want him to be so dependent on video games for entertainment. I mean, that’s why I bought him all those toys, right??

While doing my daily rounds on the internet yesterday, I came across another reason why I want to cut down on his video game time. That reason came from this article on Kotaku.com, which describes how far one father was willing to go in order to deter his 23 year old son from playing video games.

The father of 23 year old, Xiao Feng, didn’t like how much time his son was spending playing online video games, so he took matters into his own hands. In an effort to discourage his son from gaming and to get him to focus more on finding a job, Mr. Feng decided to hire in-game assassins to kill his son’s character every time he logged into his game.

As a former (mediocre) online gamer and as someone who has been killed in Call of Duty more times than I care to admit, I can sympathize with the frustration the boy must have felt. The son probably won’t admit it but the planning that must have gone into hiring in-game hitmen is most impressive. I wouldn’t even know where to start in contacting the top players of a specific game. It’s not like they use their real names and openly publish all of their contact info. Although, they may begin now that a new “Hitman For Hire” business opportunity has opened up!

I’m not sure how effective this strategy would be with other kids but it seems to have had the desired effect with Xiao Feng, who said “I want to take some time to find one (a job) that suits me.” I’ll be keeping this one in my back pocket for future use. Secretly, I hope it’s something I get to use someday. Talk about being a Bad-Ass Dad! Way to go, Mr. Feng!

Cheers!