Whenever I post a story about a parent neglecting his or her children while playing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, I can’t hide my disgust for that sort of person, so you can imagine how I felt about myself this weekend when my two 10-month-old children left the house in the middle of a boss fight.
It took five years, but a woman who played World of Warcraft day after day as her three-year-old daughter wasted away, dying of malnutrition and dehydration, is headed to prison. Rebecca Colleen Christie of Las Cruces, New Mexico was sentenced to 25 years in prison yesterday.
When officers arrived at a house in Kent, England, earlier this year to investigate appalling conditions reported by a neighbour, the game obsessed homeowner’s two dogs had been decomposing in the dining room for two months.