According to state-owned media in Russia, 15 year old Pavel Mateev from the Tomsk region committed suicide after losing in an online video game by decapitating himself with a chainsaw on the morning of September 4. His mother reportedly bought him an online computer game, which hasn't been specified at the time of this writing, and sources claim he was "addicted" to it, playing an unspecified number of hours at a time.

The Russian Investigative Committee has confirmed that it is looking into "incitement to suicide" when it comes to Mateev's death. This could mean that Mateev was urged by other players to kill himself, or it could mean that his reaction to the game itself could be what led him to commit suicide. No further details have been released at this time, so it's hard to say either way.

The online video game Mateev was playing has yet to be revealed, but it's possible he was playing a "game" that had the express goal of convincing him to kill himself. Russia has had problems with such games in the past, like the "Blue Whale" game that was blamed for about 130 suicides in the country.

More recently, a suicide game has emerged from the messenger service WhatsApp called the Momo Suicide Game. In this game, a real world player takes on the role of a strange-looking creature named Momo, which then encourages the user to record themselves engaging in risky behavior, including self-harm and suicide. The Momo Suicide Game has gained more notoriety recently, as a controversial mod was created that added Momo to Minecraft.

If Mateev wasn't playing one of these suicide "games," then the other possibility is, as Russian channel NTV sources suggest, he was addicted to whatever online video game he was playing and decided to kill himself after losing a match. If so, this will likely bring up the video game addiction debate yet again, which has made headlines thanks to the World Health Organization officially recognizing it as a mental health disorder earlier this year.

Source: The Sun