Dad Hires Online 'Assassins' to End Son's Gaming

A father in China worried about his unemployed son's obsession with online gaming put a hit out on the 23-year-old's avatars in his favorite games, paying "assassins" to kill his son every time he logged on. The two reportedly reconciled after the son discovered the plot, though it's not clear whether the father's extreme approach pushed his son toward getting a job. "It's not going to do much for family relations," a gambling and addictions expert tells the BBC. "I've never heard of that kind of intervention before, but I don't think these top-down approaches work. Most excessive game-playing is usually a symptom of an underlying problem." (More online gaming stories.)