That could have been fixed man!!! DAMN IT!! , Im sure Jack Son of a Bitch Thompson will make this part of his Evil plan , or maybe he didnt commited suicide , maybe Jack Thompson killed him , he's starting to eliminated gamers from the top , beware , arm yourselfs Jack Thompson might kill you if youre a gamer.

my deepest sympathies to his loved ones. its never easy losing someone. Lucky, show a bit of tact will you?

I'm sorry but I'm with Lucky on this one. it's January, he killed himself in November, and most here don't have a clue who he is or care that he killed himself. They might have cared 2 months ago when he did it but move on.

believe it or not, competitive gamers in Sweden seem to gravitate to online poker moreso than in any other scene i've noticed. Quake legend Lakerman (Quake 1/Quake 3 duel champion) is a millionaire from online poker. one of his contemporaries, Z4muz, who still competes, also makes a ton of cash from it.

Did he drop any good loot?

If you die in the game, you die for real.

This is really regrettable. Yes, $13,000 is a lot to accrue but it's not impossible to get out of. He could have considered many other alternatives, even if it meant dropping out of the gaming/gambling scene.

What a fool. Anyone who takes their own life gets no sympathy from me. One less idiot walking the earth who could handle everyday life.

Not to be rude or anything, but I'm sure he had alot more problems than just online gambling. ie. extreme depression.

What the, 13,000 are you kidding that’s nothing. People get Hundreds of Thousands of dollars in dept gambling 13,000 that’s like one hand

This has almost nothing to do with his status as a professional gamer, and everything to do with the rising debt of our average 20-somethings. Many young people get into debt and become despaired when they realize how far it's gotten before they stopped spending. This happens to students, and those of us in dead end jobs without means of increasing our pay. Our debts get larger, but our paychecks stay the same, which makes it harder and harder to even think of going back to college. What he does is just coincidence.

Oh, and another thing, not only is this guy a loser but he f***ing offends me. Here we are in a world where people have terminal diseases, deformaties, and serious handicaps and this guy just dumped a perfectly functional young body into a graveyard. What an ass.

Look! An emo-looking kid killed himself! What a suprise. Good job, MySpace, good job.

"While stories about pro gamers with six figure salaries and major sponsorship deals may make you think the scene is all about glitz and glamor, this story shows that is not always the case"

What? Have you seen pro gamers? They couldn't get laid in a womens prison with a fist full of pardons. Yes they get paied a lot of money, but so do people in eating competitions. So easy with the "Rounders" angle, Joystiq, these guys aren't exactly poppin Cris at the "Ridge Racer" after party.

"Yes, $13,000 is a lot to accrue but it's not impossible to get out of. "

Well, the pathetic thing about this is that $13,000 is a joke. It's certainly nothing to kill yourself over.

Yes, yes, I know a lot of people are very poor and won't see $13,000 in a decade. But this guy was young, he was obviously well off enough to own a decent gaming rig, he had money to gamble to start with. He seemed like a basically middle class guy.

It's just an example of how tiny little problems can seem insurmountable when you're young; I mean people kill themselves over freakin' term papers when they're young. It's both sad but at the same time oddly irritating. You wish you could just grab these kids by the collar and shake some sense into them.

To put this in perspective, the *average* credit card debt in the New York metro area is $20,000. But most people also own homes, cars, and whatever else... so the total debt load is more like $500,000. (That's about what I owe.) You just pay it off a little at a time, no big whoop. Nothing to kill yourself over.

I feel bad for this kid's family.

Hopefully this kid was an Organ Donor, then hopefully a little good will come out of this otherwise selfish act.

13,000 dollars!? I'm sorry the kid killed himself... but GEEZ 13,000? This would make a hell of a lot more sense if you added another zero to that. Maybe Sweden is secretly living in the 50's and inflation has not yet taken effect over there.

13,000... how could one kill themselves over that!?

Very tragic

Maybe the Swedish are like the Japanese back in the day. He dishonored his family and took his life so his family would not face the shame. Craziness.
Maybe his computer glitched and it LOOKED like there was another zero at the end... still not worth killing yourself though.

What everyone says about online gambling is true.

It's like video crack.

There is nothing in life worth killing yourself over....this guy had other issues....psychiatric ones no doubt.

I need to say this...

I'm sorry he's dead, people dieing are normally sad things. People who cared about him would have known this months ago. People die, you move on, without death there is no point in living. Worrying about the tens of millions of people who die everyday you don't know is pointless, just like this "news".

I think he died trying to freeze himself because he didnt want to wait for Wii. The Jokes on him...

Poor Kid...

Probably had knowone to talk to and thought he couldn't get out of his situation.

I guess he pwnd him self

I'm with L337 Lemming on this one. Show some respect, guys. Committing suicide does not make him "an idiot." A bit irrational when he could seek help, yes, but not an idiot. Burl, Matt, and Steve, you all are arrogant, self-centered, tactless, and cold-hearted. It's always easier to talk the talk, but not walk the walk, ain't it? If anyone deserves to not be able to enjoy life, it's you all. It's always one big joke to you. I don't need a fortune cookie to tell me that every one of you will die alone and miserable. Congratulations.

Was this guy an Organ Donor, or did he greedily condem several others to the grave with him?

Um, it was about $28,000, not $13,000. The source article is wrong:

"Christian had over 200 000 Swedish Kroner (About 18 144 Euro or 13 867 American Dollars) in loans from the bank, with these loans he also bought a car, though he didn't have a drivers license."

200,000 Swedish crowns translates to $28,673 according to currency converters. The exchange rate is roughly seven crowns to the dollar.

Nevertheless, this definitely isn't something to kill yourself over. Very sad indeed.

Now he's playing with power! oops, wrong death.

your all dicks, someone commits suicide and all you can do is post insensitive comments?, suicide is never justified, so why are you saying thing like "he coould of got out of debpt"?

I get the feeling that gambling debt carries a much higher interest rate than even credit card debt.

A 13,000 dollar balance could balloon into several hundred thousand after interest.

Also, being gambling debt, I doubt they had a nice payment plan set up for him. They probably demanded all or most all on the spot.

Tell me, if someone came up to you and demanded you produce 13,000 dollars in cash right now, could you do it? If so, how? Some of you might could sell your home and have 13k left after paying off your mortgage, but if he was young and just recently purchased a home, he'd probably end up with a loss, if he owned a home at all.

13k in gambling debt is nothing to sneeze at.

Show a little compassion.

First of all, I wish to offer my condolences and sympathy to his family concerning this tragic death. Suicide is especially tragic and often difficult to come to terms with.


I must say that I'm a bit put off by the sort of comments people seem to be posting here - Burl, Joe, Stve, Matt etc.. Desfenestrator got it right when he said that it's just all one big joke to you people. We're discussing someone's death through suicide and all you can do is call him an idiot and say he didn't deserve to walk this earth.

None of you have any idea what his actual position was in this matter - maybe he recently lost family members, or friends, or had unofficial debts, or was clinically depressed, or had recently broken up with a girlfriend or god knows what - but the moment you hear that he killed himself you immediately leap in with your smug, self-righteous comments, apparently assured of your complete and total superiority to this man. Frankly, it's disgusting. Just because you have led a untainted life bereft of sin *coughcough* doesn't give you the right to lord your perfection over his mistakes. We all have our character flaws and we all make mistakes and therefore nobody is perfect, as you helpfully pointed out through the nature of your posts. This sort of thing could happen to anybody given the right pressures/stresses, and if you think you're immune you are deluding yourselves.

Besides, even though you are quite obviously arrogant and uncaring you could at least be politic enough to keep your thoughts to yourselves. And try to be a bit more mature.

"Did he drop any good loot?"

I mean seriously guys, this is not world of warcraft. You cannot ressurect at a graveyard. Christian was a real person, a human being with conscious thoughts and emotions just like the rest of us. And when that gift of life is taken from somebody so young in any way, it is not something to joke about. So don't think yourselves so high and mighty please, or at least if you do, shut up about it.

Show some respect... seriously. I mean, I love how sensitive you guys are towards death. It's so funny, right?!

Hey Joystiq,
It may be best to close the comments on this, the insensitive comments have already begun.

My prayers are with his family.

man, i can't believe some of the assholes on here, the kid killed himself, he was obviously depressed, why the hell would you call him a loser?

13k in gambling debt is nothing to sneeze at.

yeah, but he was 21 and did it online... then killed himself.

It wasnt like he got shocked from bad wiring.

There is always more to the story. He might have been a generally unhappy or lonely person with somewhat of an addictive personality disorder -- which is why gaming and gambling were his passion without enough additional support. Too many people see the symptoms (violent games, gambling, etc.) as a cause (he committed suicide because he was $13,000 in debt) and not really a symptom (he was $13,000 in gamblinb debt and committed suicide because he was unhappy).

Many, many people have credit card debt greater than $13,000 without committing any violent behavior. The average household in the US has $8000 of credit card debt, for example.

Anyway, it's a shame. I'm thinking of his family and friends.

go hard or go home...no sympathy for suicides, especially from people who have no mental illness...this guy quit.. 13k in debt sucks, but the game is far from over...only thing that sucks about this is his family having to deal with this....

Be a hero...

I can gather sympathy for people who commit suicide because they have some terminal illness that offers a miserable death, but when it comes to someone who kills themself over a self inflicted problem I have absolutely no sympathy. In those cases it's the ultimate act of selfishness. Sounds like this guy's ego was so great that he'd rather die than experience the shame of informing his parents of his gambling debt.

This guy was clearly a loser in more ways than one. Society, including its genepool, is better off without him.

I've noticed that a lot of you are trying to mask your fear response to suicide behind judgement and anger. What's the point? Why not just come out and say, "Suicide really scares me"?

It's nonsensical to make comments about 'wasting a perfectly good body'. Bodies are not commodities; they cannot be exchanged.

The gentleman clearly felt very alone. This is a tragedy and should be considered as such. Standing in judgement of the recently deceased shows a marked lack of emotional development, not to mention class.

Well, first of all, it's a terrible shame that this person went that far. But my comment is about Joystiq's take on it:

"While stories about pro gamers with six figure salaries and major sponsorship deals may make you think the scene is all about glitz and glamor, this story shows that is not always the case. "

How in the world do you twist the world around enough to make this connection? How does his having a gambling problem relate even remotely to his having been a pro gamer? There are many, many people with gambling problems in the world, from all walks of life. If the guy had been a plumber would you have said "think the plumbing scene is all about pipes and plungers? Not always the case!"

Stupid and disrepectful. Grow up, Joystiq, and stop trying to make every corner of the world about gaming.

Being alive's mostly a waste of time anyway. Somebody wants to kill themselves more power to em whether they have a reason or not.

15 Jeff:

First of all I want to say that you are the only reason I read the comments here on Jostiq beacuse sadly you seem to be the only one being able to take some self distance and furthermore your posts are always spot on.

I come from Sweden so I know how our country works.
I fully agree with you that (correction) 28 000 dollars isnt a reason to commit suicide. Though in Sweden we cannot understand why americans always put things on credit and have such an enormous dept.

Sweden isnt like U.S.A. We dont have the kind of poverty you do. And if you lose your job and wife (etc etc) you always have our social security net to land on. Think Sweden as middle class U.S.A,. We dont have the poverty and we dont have the same amount of rich people. So even with a dept like that you can always manage really good in Sweden. (healthcare,all kinds of schools and dental is free (dental is free up untill your 20th birthday)

That is why the reason he commited suicide isnt beacuse of the money. Clearly he had other reasons.

What the, 13,000 are you kidding that’s nothing. People get Hundreds of Thousands of dollars in dept gambling 13,000 that’s like one hand