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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. More »
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The 34-year-old woman who left her 13-month-old boy alone in a bathtub while she played a Facebook video game got 10 years in prison, as prosecutors pursued a stiff sentence to underscore the seriousness of the crime. More »
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Earlier this month at a supermarket in Japan's Kumamoto, 3-year-old Koko Shimizu went to the restroom while her mother paid for their groceries. Within minutes, the little girl was missing. Her body was discovered 500 meters away inside a large drain near a river. More »
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Between May 2008 and August 2009, workers at China's Suzhou industrial park slaved away, cleaning touch screens for Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The chemical used, hexyl hydride or "n-hexane", made workers ill. More »
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While a 5-month old baby died from internal bleeding, 21-year-old Trent Owen Ngaruhe Hapuku apparently continued playing his PlayStation. More »
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There seem to be few gaming stories out of Korea lately that don't involve some sort of fatality. In this case, a 19-year-old college student died after a 12-hour-session with an FPS at an Internet parlor. More »
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Yesterday, Pokémon writer Takeshi Shudo was rushed to the hospital after suffering a hemorrhage and collapsing at Nara Station. He has since passed away. Shudo was 61 years-old. More »
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This past March in British Columbia, two teenage boys — 16 and 18 — raped and killed 18-year-old Kimberly Proctor before mutilating and burning her body under a bridge. When it was over, the 16-year-old told a friend on World of Warcraft what they'd done. More »
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On October 6, Gears of War composer Kevin Riepl tweeted that he thought someone "roofied" him while out drinking. He'd blacked out. "Somethings effed up," he added. "Like literally. Something knocked me out." Within days, Riepl was on life support. More »
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The Chinese government has taken swift steps to deal with teenagers that are addicted to online games and the internet. One step has been the creation of boot camps. More »
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June 8, 2008 was a dark day in Japan. A temp worker drove a rented truck into a group of pedestrians in Tokyo's geek mecca, Akihabara. He got out and began randomly stabbing bystanders. Seven were left dead, 10 injured. More »
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Stephen Perry, who was a writer for 1980s cartoon ThunderCats, recently went missing. His van was found last Sunday. Inside it, a man's severed arm. Stephen Perry, police now report, is dead. More »
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Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns was the first man to win titles in four different weight classes. That was more than 20 years ago. He's now in debt to the IRS, and his possessions are being auctioned to pay the bill. More »
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A Korean couple is said to have neglected their infant - to the point of starvation - while they fed their own online gaming addiction in Internet cafes. The Sun's reporting this, so, let's get our sensationalism detectors on. More »
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Police and relatives say an argument over Tony Hawk: Ride precipitated a shocking murder in New York; Anthony Maldonado, 9, (pictured) who got a PS3 for Christmas, was stabbed in the chest by an enraged 25-year-old early New Year's Day. More »
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A Florida father is looking at a long and uncomfortable tour of the justice system after getting high, gaming all night, and then falling asleep on his 7-month-old daughter, suffocating her in the process. More »
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Japan's Oricon Life polled 500 men between the ages of teen and 40-something about which games have made them cry the most and complied a list of the top five. Weepy drumroll please... More »
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A jury awarded $16 million to the family of a Sacramento-area woman who died in a 2007 radio stunt in which participants chugged water and held their bladders in order to win a Wii. More »
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Touching? Whether a man and his son enjoy kicking a football or playing a video game together, who's to judge. But there is a helpless irony in seeing Call of Duty left on the grave of a fallen soldier. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5343724&view=rss&microfeed=true You say you love Kotaku, but do you really mean it? More »
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With all those SEGA characters like Ulala, Sonic, Amigo and Alex Kidd, you'd think that Sega Superstars Tennis isn't missing anything. It is: Online! The Sumo Digital developed Wii tennis title "doesn't have any online play to speak of" says IGN after getting hands-on with the title. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, however, do have online play. And if that's not enough of a kick in the pants, the motion controls are not "particularly responsive." Insert sad face. More »
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From reader Pdubbs601: More »
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As tragic as this sounds, the real story has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. A young man (17) in Pennsylvania wanted his father to look at his Xbox 360 for some unknown reason and the father refused. An argument ensued resulting in the kid handing a rifle to his father and telling him to just go ahead and shoot him. So the father did. Now the kid is sedated in the hospital with a bullet lodged in his skull and the father is in jail. When asked about the situation, the boy's mother (and the man's ex-wife) said: More »
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Here's an interesting anecdote: some GameStops are no longer getting specific information regarding their next Wii shipments. Apparently overzealous shoppers are searching for Wiis with such ferocity that they've been stalking UPS drivers—we use that word only semi-loosely—as they've figured out delivery routes well enough to anticipate drop offs and harass UPS drivers beforehand. Wow. Freak. Eeeeee. More »
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Akihabara isn't really all that, anymore. It's like post-Giuliani Times Square with fat girls in knee-highs. Nerds have been replaced with tourists, yuppies and couples on *get this* dates. Big business like chain stores have moved in, closing Mom 'n' Pop shops and adding a layer of gloss that didn't exist before. Hit book/movie/TV show Train Man made otaku cool, and Akiba culture mainstream. Journo Patrick Macias tackles in the issue in The Japan Times, writing: More »
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After Theresa Duncan, former game designer and filmmaker, ended her own life, Rockstar in-house graphic designer Jeremy Blake went missing. He was last seen entering the surf at Rockaway Beach, and a body believed to be his was found by a local fisherman. It was announced officially that the body had been identified as Blake. According to police, 35 year-old Blake committed suicide by drowning himself at Rockaway Beach in Queens. Besides working at Rockstar, his art work had been exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. A tremendous loss to not only the gaming industry, but also the art world. More »
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A four-year-old British toddler Madeleine McCann was kidnapped from a Portugese resort several weeks earlier. Sadly, the parents had left the toddler in bed while they had dinner nearby. The girl has gone missing ever since, and it's believed that she's in Morocco. In hopes of capturing her, soccer star David Beckham (above) has even made a public plea, and posters of Madeleine are now being posted in Second Life at prominent in-world locations. According to Jim Gamble of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center (CEOP), this shows dedication on the police's part. Not sure how many Second Life inhabitants were at resort during the kidnapping or how many actually have information pertaining to the little girl's whereabouts, but every little bit helps. Brian Ashcraft More »
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A 330 pound (150 kilogram) Chinese man spends "almost all" of his seven day holiday playing online computer games and dies. And guess what's blamed for the 25 year-old's death? Yup. Says a local teacher in LIaoning province where the man passed away: More »
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Astute Kotaku reader Jacob says he came across this banner ad while strolling the net. He didn't say where he was when he saw it, so I suspect a porn site. Just kidding Jacob. (No, really, porn.) More »
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Proving that American doesn't have a monopoly on fucked up, Japanese university student Hiroshi Shimura has admitted to murdering a 61 year-old man and his 86 year-old mother at their home in Tokyo. His motive? The suspected killer says: More »
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Eleven-month Brianna Dastine was killed. And Thomas J. Brunell III attempted to get a PS3 out of the ordeal, police say. After a fatal car accident cost the child her life, trucker Brunell was called in to tow the overturned 1998 Nissan Quest. Police authorities say the trucker took more than US $700 worth of video game equipment that includes a PS3, a controller and a PS2 game. Says the tow company's co-owner Pat Rossnagle: More »
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Ack! What cruel bastard owns this poor cat?! And making him pose with an Xbox 360 controller no less! There must be laws against this in Japan. More equally disturbing pictures after the jump. Brian Ashcraft More »
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And you thought your mom loved you more? Ian writes in to point us to a link of a Zelda quilt his mother made his brother. More »
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I can t believe they are still holding Pac-Man tournaments, but apparently they are. Are very own Alice reports over on Wonderland that some sad, hat-wearing guy scored 54,450. Won. Smile guy, that's a good score. More »
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