Government Bans The Game That Has Caused More Than 50 Suicides

The Blue Whale Game has been doing rounds on Social Media recently, and you’re probably aware of it by now. For those of you who don’t know, it is said to be a game that involves a bunch of sinister challenges one is our through, with increasing difficulty, and ultimately the only way to “win” the game is by taking your own life. What is described as just a “game”, is actually far from it.

Apparently, this “game” goes by many names. ‘A Silent House,’ ‘A Sea Of Whales’ and even ‘Wake Me Up At 4:20 am.’ It takes about 50 days to complete the game, and eventually succumb to your pointless death, and can be played via the website VKontakte, which is some sort of a social network in Russia. The name ‘Blue Whale’ is derived from the belief that often, whales knowingly come close to beaches and end up on land, ultimately killing themselves. So, apparently, people thought if whales can do it, so can we and here we are.

Majority of the people who are suspected of playing this game are young teens, aged around 13 – 19, and some even as young as 12 years old in Russia and Central Asia.

According to recent reports, the game is also spreading across Europe all the way into UK. According to Russian media, about 80 to 130 children committed suicide between November 2015 and April 2016 because of this game.

Apparently, one gets accepted into playing this game via “Death Groups”, and can be selected or not, depending on the admin altogether. Once a person is accepted into playing the game, they’re given a set of 50 tasks, probably a task a day. The difficulty of tasks vary.

Some are as simple as just listening to a song, which most people would probably have no problem in. Others are oddly unsettling, like watching some weird videos. However, some are more sinister, Kirk carving a Whale symbol or maybe some words on your skin. It is said that the first of the tasks comes at around 4:20 am in the morning. Every time someone completes a task, they must send photographic evidence to the admin, in order to receive the next task.

A journalist, who worked at Radio Free Europe created an account on VK and posed as a 15-year-girl in an attempt to join the Blue Whale game. Here’s a transcript of the conversation between the admin and the Journalist.

Player: I want to play the game.

Administrator: Are you sure? There’s no way back.

Player: Yes. What does that mean? There’s no way back?

Administrator: You can’t leave the game once you begin.

Player: I’m ready.

Administrator: Carry out each task diligently and no one must know about it. When you finish the task, you send me a photo. At the end of the game, you die. Are you ready?

Player: And if I wanna get out?

Administrator: I have all your information, they will come after you.

The first task the Radio Free Europe journalist was given was a rather dangerous one. One of the games hashtags, “F58”, was go to be carved into their arm. The journalist even tried to fool the game’s administrator with a Photoshop, but unfortunately, the admin didn’t fall for it and the Journalist didn’t get any further tasks.

The Blue Whale incident hasn’t been officially linked to anyone of the suicide attempts but it does have in direct links to many of the suicides.

Recently, a sinister double-suicide, in early 2017 took place and it had direct links to Blue Whale. The teens who did it were Yulia Konstantinova, aged 15, and Nika Volkova, aged 16. Both of them jumped off of a 14-storey building and died. Shortly before her death, Yulia posted a photo of a blue whale on Instagram, and changed her VK status to “end.” Nika, the other girl, posted “sense is lost… End.” on her VK profile.

Here’s a completed list of tasks that were posted in a comment on a Russian news website. The list includes all 50 challenges.

1. Carve with a razor “f57” on your hand, send a photo to the curator.

2. Wake up at 4.20 a.m. and watch psychedelic and scary videos that curator sends you.

3. Cut your arm with a razor along your veins, but not too deep, only 3 cuts, send a photo to the curator.

4. Draw a whale on a sheet of paper, send a photo to curator.

5. If you are ready to “become a whale”, carve “YES” on your leg. If not, cut yourself many times (punish yourself).

6. Task with a cipher.

7. Carve “f40” on your hand, send a photo to curator.

8. Type “#i_am_whale” in your VKontakte status.

9. You have to overcome your fear.

10. Wake up at 4:20 a.m. and go to a roof(the higher the better)

11. Carve a whale on your hand with a razor, send a photo to curator.

12. Watch psychedelic and horror videos all day.

13. Listen to music that “they” (curators) send you.

14. Cut your lip.

15. Poke your hand with a needle many times

16. Do something painful to yourself, make yourself sick.

17. Go to the highest roof you can find, stand on the edge for some time.

18. Go to a bridge, stand on the edge.

19. Climb up a crane or at least try to do it

20. The curator checks if you are trustworthy.

21. Have a talk “with a whale” (with another player like you or with a curator) in Skype.

22. Go to a roof and sit on the edge with your legs dangling.

23. Another task with a cipher.

24. Secret task.

25. Have a meeting with a “whale.”

26. The curator tells you the date of your death and you have to accept it.

27. Wake up at 4:20 a.m. and go to rails (visit any railroad that you can find).

28. Don’t talk to anyone all day.

29. Make a vow that “you’re a whale.”

30-49. Everyday you wake up at 4:20 am, watch horror videos, listen to music that”they” send you, make 1 cut on your body per day, talk “to a whale.”

50. Jump off a high building. Take your life.

You shouldn’t be stupid enough to play this game. Only a crazy person would take fun out of taking the lives of little teens. It is definitely not a game, it is much more serious, if it exists that is.

You could perhaps be thinking that you’d like to troll them, but remember, a person who enjoys seeing people in pain, and killing them can do anything. It’s better to steer off such stuff. Further, it’s not like you can find it in the open on the Internet. Games like this exist only in private groups. So, yeah, stay safe guys.

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11 Banned Video Games That You Can Still Play

We all have experienced those games in our life that bring us Joy, happiness, sadness, anxiety, as well as other emotions that make us remember the special moments in games. Well, developers of this generation and with the technology included, are now able more than ever to create games than can involve almost anything and everything you can and cannot imagine! Regarding the topic of “censorship” can be a very touchy and sensitive subject when it comes to the actual substance in video games.

Developers of course have their set vision for a game when making it from pre-production all the way through to post production and releasing the product to the market. However the reality of the situation is that there are just some games that cannot be presented to the public as it is too unpleasant and not suitable for the community to experience. It doesn’t matter if the censorship is justified or to say what’s fair from what’s not, the matter is that some games just have to be pulled off the shelves and cannot be presented to the public due to the explicit or strange content that the game has to give. Some of these touchy subject have to do with the genres or subject matters of graphic sex, intolerable violence or intense violence, as well as other miscellaneous ideas related to these two prior ideas. Anyways let’s get to some of these games that were banned and why they got banned!

RAPELAY

RAPELAY was developed by Japanese Studio Illusion and was released in 2006. The name already rings a red flag as the game of RAPELAY has you play as a s*xual predator. Not only are you a s*xual predator, but the point or objective of the game is to stalk and have s*x with a mother and her two daughters by r*ping them. RAPELAY was immediately banned in multiple countries after its release and became illegal to sell in Indonesia, Argentina, and New Zealand. However in the United States, it was rated AO meaning that it is possible to get it online but retailers were not allowed to have it in stock.

MANHUNT 2

The second game is manhunt 2 and this is a game developed by famous company Rockstar Games (Studio responsible for GTA franchise). Already with having Grand Theft Auto having its controversy for its extreme violence and language, the game is still able to sell publicly as the actions in the game are not forced as players are free to choose what to do in the game without Rockstar Games forcing them to do so. However for Manhunt 2, the studio took a risk by adding a very extreme amount of gore. This caused a shift in the pushback of the game is New Zealand as well as other nations. The game also was claimed as “refused classification” in the United Kingdom (meaning it didn’t even deserve to be rated). The game ended up being banned in Ireland, Kuwait, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea.