EverQuest players often joke about the addictive nature of the game – often referring to it as "EverCrack" – but for 21-year-old Shawn Woolley the game became deadly serious, and his mother is preparing to sue Sony Online Entertainment over his suicide.

The Wisconsin man fatally shot himself on Thanksgiving morning last year, and his mother, Elizabeth Woolley, had the misfortune of finding him. He was sitting at his computer in his apartment, and the place was strewn with notes related to the game. But none of them offered any clues as to what drove him to such an end.

When Elizabeth tried to find out what happened in the game to drive her son over the edge, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) balked, she said, citing privacy concerns for other players. Because EverQuest figures so prominently in the last days of her son's life, Elizabeth said she plans to sue the company to find out what role it may have played. She also wants to warn players of its potential for addiction.

"One of the things I personally would like is for them to look into his account," Woolley said. "He quit his job the week before he did this and played (the game) the whole week, and I want to see if there was something that made him do this because he didn't have any major crises in his life."

Shawn Woolley did have some physical problems. He was prone to epileptic seizures; and if he played the game too much, he could and often did have seizures. The suicide appears to have been planned, though. Elizabeth said he bought the gun a week before Thanksgiving. She said she had no knowledge of the purchase beforehand and didn't notice anything odd in his behavior during that week.

That, according to Dr. J. Michael Faragher, dean of the School of Professional Studies at the Metropolitan State College of Denver and co-director of the Center for Addiction Studies, shows planning, not an impulsive act. "You'd be hard pressed to say it was an impulsive act when there was some planning going into purchasing the gun," he said.

He doesn't believe Shawn's seizures and epilepsy would have had anything to do with the suicide. "I couldn't say there's a cause and effect (for suicide) based on seizures," he said.

However, Faragher doesn't think there's much of a case to be made against SOE for responsibility. "If it wasn't this (EverQuest), it would have been something else," Faragher said. "I don't see a culpability as much as I see a lack of feelings of Sony's social responsibility. I don't think this kid would have played any less if Sony had posted a warning."

Woolley hasn't yet filed suit but has hired Jack Thompson, a colorful Miami attorney and frequent critic of the entertainment industry to represent her. Thompson was on vacation and unavailable for comment, and SOE declined to comment on the impending suit.

Anything that has the potential to generate significant changes in mood, effect or feeling is potentially addictive to someone, said Faragher, and EverQuest, a game with no end – unlike your typical video game – is no exception. He defines addiction as having three qualities: It must by some reasonable definition be harmful, the person's behavior is apparently out of control, and most important, the addict expects the behavior will lead to feelings that are preferred to those felt before indulging in the activity.

Shawn got involved in the game in 2000 and by 2001 it had consumed his life, Elizabeth said. He'd quit his job and played almost non-stop, eventually being evicted from his apartment and moving in with his mother, before leaving her home and then being put in a group home for addictive behavior.

He was diagnosed with depression and a schizoid personality disorder and put on medication. Residence in the group home was voluntary, however, and he left. He then rented his own apartment, over his mother's objections, where he resumed non-stop playing.

His mother, meanwhile, was dismayed by the lack of available resources directly related to online addiction. "There's no programs for the family sitting on the sideline, racking their brains, trying to figure out how to get their kids off the computer," she said. "I think a treatment program needs to be set up for this that's just as accessible as Alcoholics Anonymous, because I didn't have anywhere to go for help."

Sony, meanwhile, has not helped at all, she said. Elizabeth has no idea on which of the 43 EverQuest servers her son played, who his friends were, or even how to get into his account.

In addition to wanting to know what drove her son over the edge, Elizabeth Woolley wants SOE to provide something for people who are addicted to its game.

"It might be an act of kindness to humankind," she said. "If they are making all this money off of well-adjusted people, then we can help people who are not so well-adjusted."

Faragher agrees with her, pointing out that casinos have finally taken some responsibility for gambling addiction by offering addictive players access to help lines.

"I believe any industry that profits from the behavior of people should be willing to contribute something to the people who end up suffering," Faragher said. "They don't really owe it as much as I believe it's an ethical thing to do."