UK man strangles boy over Call of Duty: Black Ops feud

A 46-year-old UK man is facing jail time after tracking down and attacking a 13-year-old boy in revenge for taunting the unemployed father of three during a session of Call of Duty: Black Ops on PS3. According to UK's The Daily Mirror, Mark Bradford (no relation) snapped after a particularly frustrating day of online gaming, and proceeded to hunt down and strangle the young player who had been tormenting him from a local friend's house.

“I’d been playing the whole day and he was baiting me and just would not shut up,” explained Bradford. “I just lost it. In a moment of madness I went round to the house. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

While you're here, read our Call of Duty: Ghosts review! Or, if you're interested, here are the 13 best COD moments (no, this isn't on the list).

Bradford left quickly after the attack, but was later picked up by police following a call from the boy's mom, who told press: “It’s pathetic that a grown man would attack a defenceless child like this. If you can’t handle losing to a child then you shouldn’t be playing games. I know Mark and went straight round when I found out what had happened. I was fuming. But rather than have it out with him I got the police involved.”

The unidentified boy admits to pushing Bradford's buttons in Call of Duty, but said he was completely taken by surprise when the grown man decided to exact his revenge in person, recalling, “I was just sat playing. We’d had a bit of a joke and then he stormed in and grabbed me. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Bradford has since apologized for the attack, which thankfully left little more than a scratch. He has also admitted assault to the courts, and is currently awaiting sentencing.

Call Of Duty

Call of Duty is a first-person and third-person shooter video game franchise. The series began on the PC, and later expanded to consoles andhandhelds. Several spin-off games have also been released. The earlier games in the series are set primarily in World War II, including Call of Duty,Call of Duty 2, and Call of Duty 3. Beginning with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which is set in modern times, the series has shifted focus away from World War II. Modern Warfare (released November 2007) was followed by Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.Black Ops (released November 2010) takes place in the Cold War, while Modern Warfare 3 (released November 2011) takes place in a near-future setting. Black Ops 2 (released November 2012) takes place in the year 2025. Call of Duty: Ghosts was released in November 2013.

The Call of Duty games are published and owned by Activision. While the studio Infinity Ward primarily still develops them, Treyarch has also developed several of the titles with the release of the studios' games interlaced with each other. Some games have been developed by Gray Matter Interactive, Nokia, Exakt Entertainment, Spark Unlimited, Amaze Entertainment, n-Space, Aspyr, Rebellion Developments, Ideaworks Game Studio, Sledgehammer Games, and nStigate Games. The games use a variety of engines, including the id Tech 3, the Treyarch NGL, and the IW 5.0.

As of November 11, 2011, the Call of Duty series has sold over 100 million copies.^[1] As of March 31, 2012 there are 40 million monthly active players across all of the Call of Duty titles, with 10 million users of the online service Call of Duty: Elite and 2 million paying annual members. Over 1.6 billion hours of online gameplay have been logged on Modern Warfare 3 since its 2011 release.^[2]

Other products in the franchise include a line of action figures designed by Plan-B Toys, a card game created by Upper Deck, Mega bloks sets byMega Brands, and a comic book mini-series published by WildStorm