Gamers Hired By Father To 'Kill' Son In Online Games

from slate.com: Want your deadbeat kid to stop playing so many video games? Here's an approach that probably won't work, but could make good fodder for a Failure To Launch-style comedy.

From China, via Livedoor and Kotaku East, comes the tale of a father whose unemployed 23-year-old son was allegedly devoting the bulk of his waking hours to an online war game. As the son's skills grew, he began to find that he could defeat almost all comers — until one day the young man found himself being cut down immediately every time he began the game. After a while, he began to suspect that something was up, and grilled his virtual assassins as to why they were targeting him. Eventually one let slip that he had been hired by the boy's father for just that purpose.

Kotaku East explains:

Unhappy with his son not finding a job, Feng decided to hire players in his son's favorite online games to hunt down Xiao Feng. It is unknown where or how Feng found the in-game assassins—every one of the players he hired were stronger and higher leveled than Xiao Feng. Feng's idea was that his son would get bored of playing games if he was killed every time he logged on, and that he would start putting more effort into getting a job.

The plot apparently failed, as Xiao Feng refused to stop playing the game. But hey, if he keeps at it, maybe one day he can score a gig as an online video game hitman.