Should Video Games Adhere to International Humanitarian Law? | Popular Science

Lots of virtual people die in first-person shooter war games — as of January, 62 billion virtual people had died in COD: Black Ops, according to game maker Activision, and it’s surely way more than that now.

Another interesting statistic: “virtual people” death tolls.

Call of Duty Nut Chokes Boy Opponent

When some kid killed Mark Bradford during a Call of Duty online session - and then taunted him - the guy lost it.

The 46-year-old man tracked down his opponent, a 13-year-old boy, and proceeded to choke him. Bradford, 46, appeared in court in Plymouth, England this week, charged with assaulting the child.

Prosecutor Gareth Warden said, “Mr Bradford was killed during the game and the boy called him a name.” He found the boy’s address, walked over to his house and grabbed him by the neck. The lad’s mother intervened. Bradford, a father-of-three, walked away.

Is That An Ad Growing In Your FarmVille Field? : NPR

On the upper left of Zeitlin’s computer screen is a cartoon version of an airship with the Farmers logo on it. He negotiated a deal with Zynga, the company that created FarmVille, to make the virtual airship available in the game free for players for 10 days. Players who downloaded the airship were rewarded with a brief respite from virtual farming. Zeitlin says more than 5 million users downloaded the airship, and in that time, Farmers’ Facebook fan page went from a handful of fans to more than 120,000.