but the game me do it....
Recently, i read an article on a Korean kid who shot and killed a taxi driver because he 'wanted to see if it was as easy as GTA 4'.................. since when is blaming a source of entertainment (not just video games, ANY entertainment) ok and logical?
Recently, my parents attacked me for playing GTA4 because it was 'to violent'. At this, i grabbed a book i borrowed from the library titled 'Bad Company' by Jack Higgins. This book is about vietnam and goes into detail of torture tactics, including forcing bamboo splinters underneath a prisoners fingernails and then setting them on fire. Also, prisoner executions, including disembowling someone and then hanging them with their own intestines, or, removing a mans privates and forcing them into the back of his throat so he chokes to death. Now, when you read books, you picture the events in your head as you have no visual stimulate. Compared to the burning bodies on GTA4 (just on fire, no burns or chared skin) this book is more violent. I get more violence out of books i borrow from a library then i do in a game.
When you look at it, violence in video games make up a small percentage of violence we are exposed to everyday. Just turn on the news and you get 'Store robbed by armed men, soldiers die in suicide bomb attack, 70 year old man beaten to death after withdrawing money from atm' and other stories. Open up a history book. I had one in year 10, showing pictures of people who had been hit by napalm and phospherus in wars. I was exposed to more violence in school then on games.
Now im not saying that violent games DONT cause violent behaviour, in some cases it may (a bi-polar suffer plays a game in a manic condition, it can lead to them comiting violent acts in the real world) but saying that every violent thing that happens is because of games is flawed. And besides, little ten year old Timmy shouldnt be playing games like GTA4 and Condemed 2 in the first place.
This may look like im blindly defending games, but im not. I just want people to stop turning to games as the cause of violence. Look at everything that kid or person is exposed to before placing blame. Let me put it to you this way, a kid plays GTA4 and shots someone. This kid though, is bullied at school, mistreated and abused by his parents and has no friends and is a de-social individual. The game might have done it, but more likely it was the other four issues that did it.
