When
you hear the term Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, you may pass this off as some
game, toy, device or software. But use its abbreviation PUBG and the world
turns upside down for players, their friends and relatives and for the gaming
world at large. This an online
multiplayer battle royale game developed and published by PUBG Corporation, has
in many cases in India believed to have directly or indirectly lead to players
affected by their online experience in getting violent and in some cases
killing others or endangering themselves or suffering fatal attacks or
accidents
Earlier in the year, in a 15-year-old boy
allegedly stabbed his brother to death in Thane after he requested him to stop
playing PUBG. The 15-year-old accused allegedly banged his older brother’s head
against the wall and stabbed him repeatedly with a pair of scissors, said a
police officer.
This week, in a startling incident, a son
beheaded his father for not allowing him to play the popular game. The incident
occurred in Karnataka’s Belagavi district on Sunday night. 25-year-old
Raghuveer Kumbar allegedly killed his father Shankrappa Kumbhar (65). Raghuveer
was addicted to playing PUBG and his father objected to him playing the game.
This led to constant fights between them.
Later in the week, a 14-year-old boy
allegedly committed suicide by consuming poison at his residence after he
received a scolding from his family members for playing online game PUBG. This
begs the question, is it time to ban the game, or should there be restrictions
on who can play the game.
For media executive, Jai Nangvenkar the
realism in the game is what makes it very interesting. He said, “One is dropped
from an aircraft and then you land and then select your armaments and group.
Then the fun begins with all the shooting. It is such great fun. I spend at
least two hours every day playing the game with my squad. I can safely say that
there will be more than a million players in India itself. I am a college
student and I have friends who play as long or even longer. I used to play the
game at night after everyone slept but then I began to feel very sleepy in
class and it began to affect my performance. I cut it short before my parents
stepped in. Now I play in the evening for a couple of hours and that’s it.”
With regard to banning it, he said it would
not be possible because online gamers would find a way to circumvent the walls.
For another great fan of the game, 18 year
old web designing student from Panjim, Joel Jao, the prospect of the game being
banned was unthinkable. He said, “I play for a total of an hour every day in
the morning and evening with my friends. Yes, my mother has at times stopped me
from playing and even made me go offline while I am playing. I get very angry;
I feel rage but I cannot yell at my mom so I keep quiet.”
He said the government would never be able
to ban the game because there were millions who were fans of the game and they
would get very angry if such a move was initiated. No one, he said, would keep
quiet. He admitted the game was very addictive but the prospect of fighting and
killing people was great fun.
For Anand Prakash a college student, a
session lasting 45 minutes every day does it for him. He admits that on certain
days, his mom makes it clear to him that she does not want to see him playing
the game and he respects her wishes. He said, “It is a very addictive game but
when I am not allowed to play it, I don’t get angry or irritated. It’s part of
everyday life.”
These games and their effects have been
watched with interest by psychiatrists. Ponda based psychiatrist, Dr Ravindra
Agarwal said it would be unfair to put all the blame on the game. He said, “I
think it is a bit of both. There are vulnerable people everywhere and the game
is filled with violence. Certain people can get swamped by it. Young people are
very impressionable and they can act out what they see on screen. Repeatedly
playing a violent game will make some people, especially young people, to
behave in a violent manner. Not everyone will respond in such a manner but there
are people on the fringe. Banning a game is not the way forward. There are more
games targeting adults with even more violence but do you see them going around
shooting people? Such behaviour from the youth though shocking will
occasionally happen.” Another mental health professional Dr Melvin Chagas Silva
also felt that there would have to be other factors at play with regard to the
boy killing his father. He said, “Video games are addictive but I think the
causes are multi-factorial.”
Dr Meenakshi Martins activist and actress
and mother felt most of the games online were full of violence but with regard
to the incident involving the murder of the father by the son, she felt the son
must have experienced a psychotic breakdown. The son, she felt, had issues that
were not tackled at a young age. Mental health problems would not be recognised
in rural areas unlike in a place like Panjim, where families would bring in the
family member with issues. Banning a game was not the way forward, she felt but
it needed regulation. The addictive nature of these games could not be helped,
she said, and the action by the son, she said, was not an act of crime but an
act of passion.
GAMING IS NOT A NEW FAD
Jaisinh Malik from Porvorim was part of the team that won
Quark for two consecutive years at BITS Pilani. Currently working as an
accountant, Jaisinh credits his cousin for introducing him to gaming. “When I
was a school student, my brother and I would longingly wait to visit our cousin
in Pune as he had a bulky desktop computer and he would play Prince of Persia
on it. I was too small to play or understand the console but enjoyed watching
my cousin and brother playing the game. We didn’t own a computer at that time.
When I grew up, I started visiting cybercafés in Panjim to play video games
against competitors and gradually entered tournaments,” says Jaisinh.
Angelo Godinho from Verna enjoyed the time he spent with his
friends at cybercafés in Margao where they pooled money together to play video
games on at least nine computers at a time. “The earliest game I played was
Tetris on a handheld console. Then it was Super Mario on the TV but my
favourite game was Street Fighter 2 and the reason was that I could compete
with someone sitting right next to me. However, gaming has evolved drastically
from Call of Duty on individual computers to games like Counter Strike and FIFA
on handheld devices; these are multiplayer games, where we compete with people
who are not even in the same room,” says Angelo.
Bizarre
Incidents around PUBG
A fitness trainer from Jammu ended
up in hospital after losing mental
balance while playing the game
The fitness trainer
allegedly got addicted to playing PUBG online over a span of ten days. After
completing one of the rounds, the man started self-harming and had to be
hospitalised.
A Pune youth’s addiction to PUBG apparently caused him to lose an entire
academic year
According to Medical Mantra, the boy started showing severe symptoms of
addiction towards the game after playing it for a year. When his parents
noticed it, they tried to take away his mobile phone from him, which made him
violent. He has even allegedly lost an academic year due to his addiction which
spiralled out of control.
A Mumbai youth committed suicide after being denied a smartphone to play
PUBG
According to The Times of India, the teenager took the extreme step when
he was denied a high-end smartphone to play the game. Feeling distraught, he
hung himself from a ceiling fan in the kitchen of his residence.
Two men in Maharashtra who were playing PUBG near Hingloidistrcit’s
railway tracks, were mowed down by a train
According to The New Indian Express, the two men were so engrossed in
playing PUBG that they did not notice the oncoming train. They were run over by
the Hyderabad-Ajmer train and their bodies were found late at night by people
living in the vicinity.
A youth In Madhya Pradesh was so engrossed in the game that he drank
acid instead of water
According to News18, the
youth from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh was so engrossed in the game that he
picked up a bottle of acid instead of a bottle of water and drank it. He was
rushed to hospital soon after.
