The PUBG effect

A tragic incident where four members of a family were allegedly murdered by one of their own has shocked society.

A teenage boy who entertained himself by playing the popular Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) game allegedly picked up a gun imitating the killing of four ‘enemies’. And this time, the battleground was his own home where he targeted his mother and siblings.

On January 19, the bodies of the woman and her three children were found in a house in Kahna, on the outskirts of Lahore.

A week later, police found that her eldest son was the alleged murderer. Repeated defeats in the PUBG game impacted the teenage boy to the tipping point, where he eventually fired shots at his own family, probably assuming that everyone would come back to life as we see in the game.

The suspect told the police that he was “under immense stress due to continuous defeats”. He claimed to have felt ‘victorious’ after killing all his opponents.

During police investigation, it was revealed that each time the suspected murderer lost a round of the game, he used to remain silent and usually stopped eating anything. The game was reportedly of more concern than his real life.

SSP investigation told Bol News that the day the incident took place, the suspect lost the game and slept without eating. He woke up late at night and picked up a gun that belonged to his mother. He reportedly knew where she used to keep it and killed his mother and three siblings.

This was not the first time that an online game addiction has led to death. Suicides among young people are on the rise due to games that reportedly promote violence.

On June 22, 2020, a 20‐year‐old man from Saddar Bazaar, Lahore, committed suicide. He was a second‐year student at Forman Christian College. The report claimed he was addicted to PUBG, playing the video game almost all of the time.

A day before committing suicide, he debated with his father about the amount of gaming he was engaged in. His father scolded him and prohibited him from playing the game and in response, he committed suicide by hanging from a fan in his bedroom. Two days later, a 16-year-old man from the same city committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan after he missed a mission that had been assigned to him in PUBG.

Right after a week, another incident took place in Lahore where an 18‐year‐old man residing at the Punjab Housing Society committed suicide in the same way after being defeated. He had made a video call to an unidentified girl before taking his life and also left a suicide note in which he described PUBG as a ‘killer online game.’

In December 2020, a man in Jaranwala died after playing PUBG for 24 hours straight. He was admitted to a hospital after he ruptured a vein. In April this year, a young man killed his brother, sister, sister-in-law and friend in Lahore after his family stopped him from playing the game.

Lack of communication

Psychiatrist Dr Iqbal Afridi, who also serves as Dean College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan and Adjunct Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas, USA, believes that it is very important to identify the triggers.

“Due to an excessive exposure to electronic and social media platforms, families are less connected. A lack of interaction and communication between parents and children is the core unidentified problem which has left our children and youth totally unguided.

“Unfortunately in the past decade, the law and order situation was worse which made parents cautious of sending their children out and kids were compelled to get stuck in homes,” he further said.

“If you stop water coming out from one side it goes the other way; this is what happened to our children when they were not provided with an alternative and lockdown during the pandemic added fuel to it.”

He also addressed the issues connected to mental health and constant gaming. “Staying awake for the whole night and sleeping during the day creates a chemical imbalance in our minds and results in more stress and aggression. During daytime, sunlight gives us vitamin D and other factors that work as an antidepressant. We need to fix core issues first.

“We cannot take a U-turn on this issue; as a society, our problems need to be corrected. It’s not sound to pressurise children once they get addicted to online games. If you keep bending the branch of a tree it would break into two,” he elaborated.

Need for counselling

He advised that children need counselling so parents should take out time from their routines for their children and listen to them and try to spend more time with them. “Parents should tell them the importance of religion, health, education and friends and family and let them prioritise everything.”

He also suggested that learning should be made easy and fun for children. “Learning should be fun rather than fearsome; it should be a blessing rather than a burden.”

Educationist Dr Mohammad Ali Shaikh, former vice chancellor of Sindh Madressatul Islam University, also endorsed Dr Iqbal Afridi’s views of guiding the students.

“I think providing guidance to students is a must on part of educational institutions but controlling their behaviour is not right as it gives rise to unnecessary problems. Inform them of all the aspects and then let them take the decision. This is what education means. They must be provided with facilities for physical activities. Moreover, children should be taught to read better.”

Disadvantages of addictive gaming include wasting time and suffering from mental illnesses. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has officially recognised the addiction to playing electronic games or video games as a mental illness and added ‘gaming disorder’ to its latest list of addictive behaviours. Symptoms of the disease include playing games for long periods of time, giving preference to games over other routines and increasing gaming despite the negative effects.

Dr Moiz Hussain, founder of Mind Sciences in Pakistan, explained the changes that occur in the mind when an individual has mental health struggles such as ‘gaming disorder.’

“There are mental illnesses like schizophrenia in which living in illusions may transform someone into a maniac. It all starts with the imbalance of enzymes in the brain.”

When anyone does a task which he likes a lot, an enzyme called dopamine is produced in the brain which gives him pleasure and to get more and more pleasure one keeps repeating that activity, he explained.

“It is the same as anyone getting addicted to drugs. In PUBG, a player gets immensely submerged into a game. And if after several hours spent on the game, he or she could not win it, his brain could not get the desired level of dopamine which may result in a state of depression and aggression. In this state of mind there are chances that one can think of real life as a game.”

This is apparently what happened in this case; the boy could not differentiate between reality and illusion, he elaborated. “So he recreated a scene and killed his entire family just to win the game. Doing so, his dopamine level increased, giving him satisfaction and pleasure to the amount which his brain needed.”

Dr Hussain also urged the government to make a strict policy to regulate such games. “The future of the country, which may serve the nation by becoming doctors, teachers, scientists or administrators, is in a very dire state of mind. We cannot leave our youth in such a state, unguided. The government should consider this matter seriously.”

Former head of Department of Neurosurgery, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Dr Raza Khairat Rizvi also advocated the ban on such games or restricting them to certain ages.

“There are no organic changes seen in the mind in such cases like any tumour growth or something. Although there could be a visual impairment, it is a mindset and behaviour which is affected badly by playing video games for long hours. It turns into a habit.”

Minors are more involved in such games at an age of their brain development, he added. “They are immature and cannot differentiate between right and wrong. Indeed parents and teachers play a role but to an extent; if the regulatory body will not bring this matter into account and take necessary actions, these cases may rise.”  A spokesperson for the police said that in recent days, there have been reports of shootings due to addictive gaming. “So the police department has decided to seek help from the government to ban such games. A writ petition has also been submitted in the Lahore High Court seeking a ban with a link of this violent incident.”

Many measures have been taken in foreign countries to combat gaming addiction. In South Korea, the government has banned children under the age of 16 from playing video games between midnight and 6am. In Japan, players are warned if they play video games more than the allotted time. In China, an internet company has set a time limit for children to play popular games. PTA had banned PUBG in July 2020 after it had received numerous complaints that the game affects physical and mental health. The ban was lifted the same month by the Islamabad High Court. Doctors and educationists have also urged the PTA to take this matter into account to formulate some restrictions on such online games.