Autistic Xbox Player's Mother Admits He Cheated

[elricik]

Typical, stupid parents thinking their shitfaced spawn can do no wrong, so they'll ***** and moan until reality warps in their favor.
Microsoft gave the kid too much if you ask me, the company didn't have to give him anything. He should carry the mark of cheater on his profile.

I read this entire post in Tali's voice thanks to your avatar.

OT: As for the kid...oh well...guess your just gonna have to leave Halo 3 behind...AND GET REACH!

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

It's still harsh. There are different levels of autism, and the kid might not be fully aware of whether he did anything wrong. It sounds like the other kid gave it to him out of sympathy too. Kind of a pathetic story, the mother lied, but the kid was probably really troubled about it. For a mother child's happiness >>>>> honor or truth.

The fact of the matter is the cheating did in fact occur, and the mother was well aware of what her son was doing and that it was, in fact, the wrong thing to do. Who gives a crap if the kid is austistic or not; that has less than nothing to do with this situation. You take something away from any kid, they spent a lot of time working on, they are going to be unhappy.

Also, they might have gained more sympathy from Microsoft if the mother didn't come out accusing Microsoft of been an evil corperation picking on her son for being austistic. That says to me, they knew what the kid had done was wrong, and were just trying to get out of trouble using whatever they could think of as an excuse.

*Sigh of boredom* Yes, yes, you know the objective truth of morality. Never mind that people have been debating it for thousands of years. Please, by all means preach to me. I'm sure you could school me on all the nuances of deontology vs. consequentialism. Right/wrong, good/bad. Everyone's too busy being a good moral person to have any compassion for anyone anymore. Guess it's easier if we have a black and white definition of right and wrong so we don't have to worry about it. If you're going to take pleasure in the punishment of others while you revel in your own moral superiority, at least fess up to it.

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

Saw this coming a mile away as soon as I saw the title to the first news article.

Honestly, people need to stop milking disabilities.

I know right. I heard one story about... wait for it... Sarah Palin, who was complaining over a Family Guy episode which featured an autistic woman. If any of you have seen it, it is the one where Chris goes out with a girl who happens to be autistic, the actual actor of the woman was autistic too and she said something about People shouldn't carry around autistic children like a loaf of bread looking for sympathy.

Sorry for the off topic remark xD. No but like most other people, I thought the mother would use her sons disability to attempt to gain support and sympathy. But I guess it could be worse, at least she is someone who admitted her mistake, apologized and stopped fighting before it was too late. There are people who, in that same situation, would get stubborn and keep fighting the companies and everyone else who told them to stop.

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

people do realize its just a game, right?

If your referring to all the comments, then it is a gaming website what do you expect. If your referring to the mother battling a corporation because her child was branded a cheater, well it has stopped being about a game at that instance it has been about the mother thinking the company had done something wrong, that they don't care about their customers, and that they can do whatever they want.

 

[tsb247]

I think the kid should still have, "Cheater," attached to his logo forever. After all, he is essentially getting rewarded for bad behavior with the free Xbox Live Gold for a month.

 

[Flare Phoenix]

It's still harsh. There are different levels of autism, and the kid might not be fully aware of whether he did anything wrong. It sounds like the other kid gave it to him out of sympathy too. Kind of a pathetic story, the mother lied, but the kid was probably really troubled about it. For a mother child's happiness >>>>> honor or truth.

The fact of the matter is the cheating did in fact occur, and the mother was well aware of what her son was doing and that it was, in fact, the wrong thing to do. Who gives a crap if the kid is austistic or not; that has less than nothing to do with this situation. You take something away from any kid, they spent a lot of time working on, they are going to be unhappy.

Also, they might have gained more sympathy from Microsoft if the mother didn't come out accusing Microsoft of been an evil corperation picking on her son for being austistic. That says to me, they knew what the kid had done was wrong, and were just trying to get out of trouble using whatever they could think of as an excuse.

*Sigh of boredom* Yes, yes, you know the objective truth of morality. Never mind that people have been debating it for thousands of years. Please, by all means preach to me. I'm sure you could school me on all the nuances of deontology vs. consequentialism. Right/wrong, good/bad. Everyone's too busy being a good moral person to have any compassion for anyone anymore. Guess it's easier if we have a black and white definition of right and wrong so we don't have to worry about it. If you're going to take pleasure in the punishment of others while you revel in your own moral superiority, at least fess up to it.

Microsoft has its rules set in place, and in order to enforce those rules they have to apply to everyone. There is no question of whether what the kid did was right or wrong; by the rules set out by Microsoft, the kid did the wrong thing and deserves the appropiate punishment for it.

While I am sure it is upsetting for the kid to lose all of his points, he broke the rules and he must suffer the consequences for his actions. You cannot possibily believe Microsoft should have let the kid off scott-free just because the kid would be upset over what happened to him.

And yes, right and wrong is quite clearly black and white in this scenario. The law quite clearly states that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it (even though the mother quite clearly said she knew what her son was doing was the wrong thing to do). It was the mother's responsibiliy to stop her son from doing the wrong thing.

Yes, it might feel nice for the kid now if he got all his points back, but honestly what lesson is that teaching the kid? If he uses his austism, he can do whatever he wants? Tell me, if this kid had shot one of your family members and killed them, would you be saying he shouldn't be punished because the punishment might upset him?

To be honest, I have no compassion for this kid in this scenario because he cheated and got caught for it. It's as simple as that. Sure, it would be nice if we didn't have those pesky things like law and order, but personally I like society not crumbling, thanks... I do, however, have compassion towards every Xbox user who follows the rules, and do not get a free month of Xbox Live.

 

[Flare Phoenix]

I think the kid should still have, "Cheater," attached to his logo forever. After all, he is essentially getting rewarded for bad behavior with the free Xbox Live Gold for a month.

I think he shouldn't have gotten the free month of Xbox Live. It spits in the faces of all the people who follow the rules, in my opinion.

 

[MrJoyless]

Guess who looks like an ass now...... seriously fuck that woman and her bleeding heart bullshit

I wish there were consequences for attacking a company with blatant lies just to try and make them look bad because she was upset her son got caught breaking the rules

tho the odds of Microsoft going after these people after all of this attention are pretty much nil but man o man i'd be pissed as hell

 

[Formica Archonis]

No, miss. It's not because you're son's autistic that he didn't know better. And that is in fact insulting your own son. Whether someone knows better or not isn't to deal with whether they're autistic, it's whether they have good or bad behaviors reinforced. If you continually let someone get away with something because 'they don't know better' then they' abuse that.

My goodness yes! So very much THIS! Kids - even ones with developmental problems - are a lot smarter then adults give them credit for. They're not book smart but they can be clever. And they will push and push and push until someone pushes back.

Though I think lessons in fair play should start with the mother and work down.:/

 

[Kitteh]

wow, didnt actually expect her to fucking own up to this XD

this should teach everyone a lesson... DONT FUCK WITH MICROSOFT! if they say you cheated, you fucking cheated >

and yet she STILL wants to play the victim here. god, is my country just ALL victims?

no, we also have a large supply of pussies, assholes, dicks, and the occasional republican

 

[The3rdEye]

1) Who cares about achievements, really? They're nice to have as goals but in the end there's

Spoiler: no actual payout

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=256

.

2) Keep the cheater tag, and no free stuff. You can't have it both ways, arguing entitlement to enjoy videogames like everyone else but not deserving of punishment when you break the rules, just like everyone else.

Spoiler: Or let's flip it around

Let's say we're sympathizing with the kid for a moment. His mother says that Xbox live and more specifically Halo are his only outlet, both for entertainment and socially. So... iow if he had been born 10-15 years earlier what would you have done w/o your electronic babysitter? Okay, maybe sympathizing was the wrong word to use...

3) God damn it, there needs to be a system where if Fox reports on anything more serious than "Kittens, is there anything more fluffy-wuffy adorable. Reliable sources say 'No'" the entire board of directors or w/e cold evil ruling body making the decisions there gets a dozen lashes... with a train. And a dozen more for every news/media outlet that also picks up the story for cheap ratings.

Spoiler: Right?

Or at least give me a shot of morphine every time it happens. It will soften the blow and at least those 10 minutes in which it takes to reach lethal levels my life will be spent happy and painfree.

 

[Krion_Vark]

There's a interesting and relevant comment, by someone else in the comments section of the original Q13 Fox News [http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-xbox-labels-autistic-child-01252011,0,5767271.story] page.

I can't really think of a way of rewriting this, so I'll just copy and paste it verbatim:

Too bad "entitlement" behavior isn't more rare.

The kid is playing games he has ZERO business playing online. And were he playing on an account that accurately listed his age he wouldn't be able to even access that content as it's against XBox ToS. Apparently, it's thought that this rule isn't all that important either. What a poor example to set for a kid--that it's okay to disregard rules because they're inconvenient or you don't agree with them.

We could take this a step further even. The kid has a Facebook page. A PUBLIC Facebook page at that. One which lists his location, email addy, and gamertag. Gee, that's safe. Again, WTG keeping your kid safe and teaching them good habits.

Nevermind the fact that Facebook, also, has ToS that prevent those under the age of 13 from creating accounts. Soooo, once again, someone chose to decide the rules shouldn't apply to them and made/allowed the child to both have an account he shouldn't AND allow all his information to be publicly accessible. Say what you will. But that's really horrible parenting.

I agree with most of what's being said here. I also think it's unfortunate that this child has been dragged into the spotlight and his condition has been made the focus or a media circus, just because of his mother's attempt to elicit sympathy and get free stuff by misrepresenting events.

I had the dubious privileged of reading some of her Twitter feed before she took it down, and some of the stuff on there was... well it was very revealing... it's led me to the conclusion that this 11 year old can't be held any more responsible or accountable than "Balloon Boy".

All I can see coming from that Comment is Anon Raid. I do agree with it but I feel like Anon is going to go after him for being an idiot. Like they did to the Jessie Slaughter girl.

 

[JWAN]

This is the only news source that didn't immediately side with the mother. Proving that Fox maybe the only objective news source left in this country

 

[Hiroshi Mishima]

I love the smug superiority being displayed in some many of these posts. Heaven forbid anyone ever has a reason for doing anything.

Personally, I'm perfectly willing to cheat at a game if it's not a Multi-player game - which I rarely ever play, so it's never been an issue - as sometimes, it certainly feels justified. When the AI becomes a cheating bastard sometimes it feels so gods-damned satisfying to smack it up-side the head and move on.

More to the point as has been stated already.. if they were genuinely told that the boy was gonna get the Recon Armour, but never told that it'd involve illegal methods, you can't really blame them for not knowing better. How many parents are actually aware of how these things work? Not very many, I'd wager.

Personally, I'd blame the bloke who thought up the idea of "Achievement Rewards" because it's really not fair to the people who want to be able to experience all the game has, but not necessarily the skill level to ever pull it off. Kind of like all those people who never got the Dolls Achievement in Fable 2 cause they didn't go around whoring their accounts out to other people.

 

[Brutal Peanut]

Lol this sounds like something Chris Chan would do.

Oh silly Chris-Chan, forever will he be a man-child.

 

[Flare Phoenix]

I love the smug superiority being displayed in some many of these posts. Heaven forbid anyone ever has a reason for doing anything.

Personally, I'm perfectly willing to cheat at a game if it's not a Multi-player game - which I rarely ever play, so it's never been an issue - as sometimes, it certainly feels justified. When the AI becomes a cheating bastard sometimes it feels so gods-damned satisfying to smack it up-side the head and move on.

More to the point as has been stated already.. if they were genuinely told that the boy was gonna get the Recon Armour, but never told that it'd involve illegal methods, you can't really blame them for not knowing better. How many parents are actually aware of how these things work? Not very many, I'd wager.

Personally, I'd blame the bloke who thought up the idea of "Achievement Rewards" because it's really not fair to the people who want to be able to experience all the game has, but not necessarily the skill level to ever pull it off. Kind of like all those people who never got the Dolls Achievement in Fable 2 cause they didn't go around whoring their accounts out to other people.

Can't people read?

"Zdenek was aware that her son gave his information to another player, but still paints her son in an innocent light. "I did warn him about this but seeing it wasn't a bank password or anything big, it's just a game we didn't worry about it too much and the boy just offered to give him Recon Armor, which he did," she said"

The mother clearly knew what her son was doing was wrong, and actually warned him agaisnt it....

 

[squid5580]

Still getting a free month of Xbox live gold for lying? Wow

You get a free month of gold when you sign up. I assume that is what they meant by new gamertag and month of gold. So if he had bought a year card then that would be gone. And have to fork out the 60 bucks to get it again.

 

[squid5580]

I love the smug superiority being displayed in some many of these posts. Heaven forbid anyone ever has a reason for doing anything.

Personally, I'm perfectly willing to cheat at a game if it's not a Multi-player game - which I rarely ever play, so it's never been an issue - as sometimes, it certainly feels justified. When the AI becomes a cheating bastard sometimes it feels so gods-damned satisfying to smack it up-side the head and move on.

More to the point as has been stated already.. if they were genuinely told that the boy was gonna get the Recon Armour, but never told that it'd involve illegal methods, you can't really blame them for not knowing better. How many parents are actually aware of how these things work? Not very many, I'd wager.

Personally, I'd blame the bloke who thought up the idea of "Achievement Rewards" because it's really not fair to the people who want to be able to experience all the game has, but not necessarily the skill level to ever pull it off. Kind of like all those people who never got the Dolls Achievement in Fable 2 cause they didn't go around whoring their accounts out to other people.

You have contradicted yourself. Achievements are a multiplayer game. You are competing online to get the highest score. To get to the top of the leaderboards. Just some people don't care about that and are playing just for fun and don't care what rank they are. You will notice most games that have cheats disable achievements when said cheats are used. Unless you are using a device to cheat.

 

[Cyberjester]

This seems to happen to MSFT a lot. People violate the ToC, MSFT shuts them down, they get sued and everyone hates them. Poor MSFT, never loved