GTA IV influences another murder (Apparently)

[milomalo]

mmmmm... i disagree, its just a crazy person who was unatendet who dosent have anyone who tell him what was bad and what was good, some persons stays with children minds and like killing ants or frogs(i now its horrible to kill animals, i dont do it and never did(maybe ants who bited me) but some kids do it) to learn the faces of live and dead, this person has a "grown body" has the "force" and acces to a wepaon, becuase nobody whas looking after him!

you dont need to ban' videogames you have to pay more atention, sadly here in my country a ten year old can buy gta4 if he has te money, we need education, all of us! to make an intervetion if we see a kid buying games that arent for his age...

dont know hope someone follows my point here

 

[milomalo]

Let's say %5 of people play/played GTA IV. with this info 1 in 20 murderers will have played GTA IV before. That's a lot of murderers that have played it. Let's also say 30% of people eat bread. %30 of murderers eat bread, therefore bread incites violence. Or so the statistics show -.-

and cereal? how about cereal? i eat it? im a murderer? :S? please tell me so i can stop the maddnes of the froot loops!!

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I beat the shit out of chickens to see if they would fight back like they did in Zelda.

Zelda doesn't do justice to show how bad a chicken can fuck you up. I will never smack a chicken with a sword again.

 

[Gooble]

One thing that I've thought of just recently; how many people who play games like GTA actually carry out actions performed in the game. You only hear of these cases every once in a while when video games are involved, and even then the evidence against them is flimsy at best.

 

[Aetmos]

See, here in the west we just blame violent video games and ignore personal responsibility.

In the east, they appoint government officials to take away any personal responsibility before it ever comes up.

 

[Aetmos]

_Can_ Jack Thompson practice law in Thailand?

 

[fat american]

This kid did something stupid and bad so he blames the videogame.

True and true. He blame the game cause he think he can get away with that! Stupid fuck!
In fact, he rob taxi cause he want money to buy a motorbike! This fucktard makes me (and any other gamer in Thailand) mad. How can a grown up 19 years old person come up with the most stupid excuse the gaming history ever known is beyond me.

Now the fuck-wit government is gonna ban the game. Fuck that kid, fuck his parent, fuck anyone who thinks the game is to blame(cause it's so clear that this kid makes that up)

Grrr I wanna cut that kid's testicle with file slowly and painfully, regrow it and cut it again and again and again and again...

Damn dude! If the mods see that you might get banned.

I personally think that there was something wrong with him in the first place but the game is the violent thing that set him off. IF he watched a lot of violent T.V. or movies that would have been what set him off. Instead it was a controversial media so the press is having a hay day about it. I think it's bull crap. Normal people don't kill people for shits and giggles. I've never been in a fight but only a few of my games are rated less than M.

 

[DARKLARK]

Damn video games, obviously there was absolutely no murder before video games came around. What were we thinking, we've created a monster!

 

[Booze Zombie]

Oh no, this kid killed someone! Let's set a good example to the public by blaming his actions on a video game and sentencing him to death instead of giving him psychological help or treating him like a human.

 

[Q9R42]

There is alot of weirdness and just plain idiotic things in this world.
This is one of them.
Blaming something just because it could either make the one that is blaming on it feel better because it had a reason for happening or just so that they can sue whoever they blame on for alot of cash.

 

[goodman528]

I think it's bull crap. Normal people don't kill people for shits and giggles. I've never been in a fight but only a few of my games are rated less than M.

"Normal people don't kill people for shits and giggles"?! So why do you think people murder other people then? Why is there guamtanamo bay? Take a look at the documentary "Taxi to the dark side".

Everyone on this post I've read so far has said this is BS. But, seriously the attempt at realism GTA IV has made, with all the blood splatter effects, bullet holes in cars and stuff... You know soldiers are traind to kill by shooting at targets shaped like a man, punching bags shaped like a man, and shooting loudly at imaginary men. All this realism in GTA is bad influence, if you've seen it done, you've seen how it could be done, pretended you've done it before.... then you think how it could be done in real life...... then the 1 in a million actually goes out and do it. So, of course they are influenced by the video game.

Bottom line: GTA should NOT be allowed to attempt realism, GTA should go back to the cartoon roots of GTA 1,2,3.

Just because you are not influenced by something, you shouldn't assume everyone else isn't influenced by them either.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Hey man, murderers are always going to exist. If you get rid of games, they'll just go read violent books, like The Bible or the Three Little Pigs.

Also, I found GTA 4 to be incredibly unrealistic. I mean, you pull a rocket launcher out of your ass and then outrun the police when they finally realize that you're killing people.

I still have trouble believing people can be influenced by games unless they really want to be, though. You'd have to be a psychotic to want to test out your new knife on a taxi driver, anyway.

 

[Meado]

Well, at least the guy wasn't under 18; The shit would have hit the fan.

EDIT: Correction: the shit would have hit the fan again.

 

[ideitbawx]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080804/tot-uk-video-murder-b86c26b.html

Police said the youth, an obsessive player of the video game, showed no sign of mental problems during questioning and had confessed to committing the crime explicitly because of the game.

"He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game," ...

The suspect told police he did not mean to kill the driver, whom he had chosen as a possible victim because of his age, but that he stabbed him to death when he fought back, newspapers reported.

...

The ministry has been pushing for tougher regulation of video games such as ... restriction on hours that youngsters can play the games in public arcades.

A multi-million dollar lawsuit was filed in Alabama against the makers and marketers of Grand Theft Auto in 2005, claiming that months of playing the game led a teenager to kill two police officers and a 911 dispatcher.

jeez, if anyone can't tell that all the people mentioned above are fucking idiots. yes, monkey-see-monkey-do happens: if it didn't, there would be almost nothing to learn from. but if you have to try every single immoral thing that you see other people do ....

i may not be any better in other areas, but i know when to stop. this guy is just fucked. i love how the article basically said the kid didn't expect the guy to fight back. bad sentence structure or a hint the kid's a few notes short of a tune?

those regulations are laughable too. "ok, instead of letting them play for as long as they want, we'll cut them off partway through their game so then they start to THIRST for it ... Brilliant!!"

With some therapy he could've been taught to lead a normal healthy life but s*** man, anything could've inspired him to do something bonkers without it.

... there is plentiful evidence against the notion that some therapy could have taught him to lead a normal life. [/mr.knowitall]

Really? I thought they could teach them social cues and basic premises of conduct that's unacceptable.

why would they want to hammer home what's UNacceptable? i think he already knows what's acceptable and what isn't if he never acted rashly until now. maybe if he was also known to strangle small animals to death or something, maybe figure out why he's doing it, see if understands what he is doing in reality, and then replacing it with an ACCEPTABLE action

you were on the right track, but teaching negative habits in therapy reinforces them, (which sounds like why yahtzee is as fucked up as he is). too many people dwell in their own negativity, and while not trying to sound like a hypocrite, most art (including my own) reinforces negativity within. good therapy isn't just teaching "some social cues": both positive and negative cues come deep within the subconscious mind, they're not just patterns you can learn and correct without adjusting how you use your thoughts on a daily basis

 

[Fl@nked]

I think violent video games DO have an effect on us as a person. I do NOT however think it will lead us all to kill. For people who already have anti-social problems I think this can be a flash-point that will make them go over the edge. For people who don't get enjoyment out of killing and death, this will JUST be a game and ONLY a game. Most of the population is horrified by violence (you can say you are tough but I am not the one you are lying to) and only enjoy these games because in the back of their head they know this experience is JUST a simulation, nothing more. For sociopaths, this little fail-safe is not present, and therefore it becomes a slaughter simulation. We all need to be on the lookout for gamers who exibit dangerous tendencies. If someone does something that makes you say "It's only a game" then maybe this experience is negitively influencing this person. I get a nervous when my friend says that he is harming people in a game "just to do it" Basically, I am saying that violent games are mainly a danger to people who are already going down the path to violence. These violent gamers are the exception, not the rule. Lets keep it that way.

Your friend
Fl@nked

P.S: Goodman has a good point(hehe). We are going to be biased because guess what, this is a gaming forum. A one sided argument is dangerous. Remember that. Without someone supporting the other side, no one can see all sides of the problem.

 

[mark_n_b]

Has anyone ever read Crime & Punishment? I am wondering why we don't blame that for more blunt object deaths?

There is significant question as to whether this is an actual case of being driven to rob because of the violence in a video game. "I wanted to see if it was as easy as" seems very contrived especially from a kid that was as super as we are being lead to believe he was before the robbery/homicide thing. We are not getting the whole story here.

I don't like this whole "debate" for one plain and simple reason, it is giving too much credit to the idea that violent video games can so drastically alter behavior to cause someone to do this.

It's untrue, we all know it. Yes yes yes, parental socio economic influence on top of all that, this would have been the straw to break the camel's back. Maybe the fact he didn't have any money to feed an addiction. But the content? I encourage everyone to stop this right now. How would you feel if the next legislative ban of a game quotes something you wrote in this thread?

 

[L4Y Duke]

Anyone who can be influenced to commit an act like this obviously lacks self-restraint, and/or is using it as an excuse to carry out his anti-social behaviour.

Especially considering this is GTA we're talking about. It's one of those games where the penalties for such actions do occur, albeit in a streamlined fashion.

Honestly, I'd rather commit such acts in the safety of a virtual world, where escaping the consequences is but a button push away, than in actuality, where it's a lot harder (and more futile, as forensic TV shows have lead me to believe)

 

[Church256]

Yes games influince peoples behavior but it's only about 1 in about 100 million gamers who will actually do something. Seriously anyone whose ever commited a crime that's been blamed on gaming had something wrong with them. No sane person would ever think of killing someone just to see if it was as easy as it was in a game.

EDIT: I don't see why we care anyway in a few days this news will be forgotten.

 

[Asehujiko]

This is the Thai government abusing isolated cases to further it's own agenda.

If he was truly inspired by gta, he would have used a rocketlauncher.