Add this to the list of crazy stuff people will do for technology. We've heard of young teens trading kidneys for iPads, virginities for iPhones and weirdos who eat deep-fried PSPs, but parents selling their kids to fund internet gaming addictions? That's new and insane.

Chinese newspaper Sanxiang City News reports that a young couple and former parents of three children sold their offspring off as they came into the world for money to spend on gaming at local Internet cafes.

Li Lin and Li Juan, who met each other at an Internet cafe in 2007 somehow managed to evade getting caught until Li Lin's mother ratted them out to authorities.

The Chinese newspaper report says that the Chinese couple sold their first child for about $500, their second child for $4,600 and the third for $4,600 as well. The couple has pleaded that they had no knowledge that selling your child was illegal.

Their official reasoning for selling their kids?

"We don't want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money."

Is that a good enough reason? Most sane people will say no. Did they sell their kids for too little? Most people will say yes. But who sells their kids to play video games at a lousy Internet cafe anyway? There's no doubt that online gaming is fun, but this is all sorts of wrong.

ABC News Radio, via The Escapist