JAKARTA - Playing online games is fun. But what happens if you experience addiction even to the point of material harm? Yes, a teenager from Kharar in Punjab, India is experiencing this.
Quoting NDTV Gadget, Sunday, July 5, this incident started when the COVID-19 pandemic situation required students to study from home and continue to attend online classes, the teenager argued that he needed a proper cellphone to be able to take online classes.
The mother complies by lending her cellphone. However, instead of taking advantage of his mother's gift to study, the teenager used the cellphone to play the currently popular game, PUBG Mobile.
Worse, the teenager drained his parents' savings of around Rp. 300 million more to buy many in-game features such as virtual ammunition, Royal cards, and others. Apart from that, this teenager also made in-app purchases to raise the profile of his teammates. He reportedly has access to three of his parents' bank accounts.
When traced further, the parents did not know the mode of the child, they were recently made aware by the bank by obtaining detailed transaction data.
In the report, the teenager scrambled the balances between his parents' three banks so that they didn't appear to decrease in each account. She also continued to delete messages sent to her mother's cellphone about the details of the transaction.
The father of the teenager, who is a government employee, said the funds were planned to be saved for medical expenses and his son's future. He has also divided the funds into the accounts of his wife and sons, while most of them are in his savings account which are not salaries.
Knowing that, the father then asked his son to work in a mechanical workshop. This is intended to make him realize how difficult it is to make money.
Not the first caseThis case is not the first. Several previous cases also occurred. They spend a lot of money playing online games. The following are some previous examples of when children spent their parents' money on video games:
1. According to a report last year, a 16 year old teenager based in Madhya Pradesh had died of a heart attack after playing PUBG for six consecutive hours.
2. A story from the BBC reveals that one of the parents claimed how their son spent 3160.58 pounds sterling on a game on iOS called Hidden Artifacts. Another parent claims how his son used his £ 2,000 credit card for an EA NBA basketball game. A teenager spends £ 1,000 on a Fortnite game.
3. Former NBA player Kendrick Perkins revealed earlier this year how his kids spent $ 16,000 on a Fortnite game.
4. A teenager uses his father's credit card and spends US $ 7,000 to play FIFA.
A mobile game that always gets high ratings
Although it has received a lot of criticism for its addiction, PUBG has tantalized many teenagers by bringing new and interesting features to the game.
However, the game has topped the top game downloads on Apple and the Google Play Store. Since its inception, PUBG has achieved immense popularity with 734 Million downloads as of June 2020. India which has a younger population has contributed to this with 174 million large downloads.
According to the Sensor Tower report, PUBG has led the global rankings in March and the game's recent estimate has recorded revenue of $ 1.3 billion for the year.
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