Rockstar game blamed for hammer murder

Absolam

It's obvious...we have to ban hammers. They're clearly responsible for the moral decay of society today. Who's with me?

bringitdown

LOL

I hate to say it but how many people do u know who are totally obsessed with Champ Manager?????? doesnt mean that all of them turn into World Class managers!!

I might have to test that theory, I'm off to purchase Championship Manager. See ya'll when I'm managing Arsenal.

Big Nelly

bringitdown wrote:

LOL



I might have to test that theory, I'm off to purchase Championship Manager. See ya'll when I'm managing Arsenal.

Well I can put myself into the bracket as being obsessed(playin constant since 99) but I am still waiting for Utd/Arsenal/Chelsea to offer me that job....even colchester wud do at tis stage......put in application for Ireland job but someone called Kerr got it....haha

BrookieD

what about the parents who:-
A) Could have paid the kids drug debt! thus he would not have fliped?
Taken the game away if they were that worried about it.
C) Moved all Hammers/Knifes/Bats and anything else that could be used to kill away from the kid.

D) play a game for a whole day and see if they are crazed enough to kill???


:mad:

fizzynicenice

evad_lhorg wrote:

is the game any good?

The game is Rockstar North's 'Manhunt' and good god it kicks ass, yes it is violent, Very Very Violent!
but it has 18+ certs and it has warnings of extreme graphic content.
the kid was messed up anyway and it the parents who lived with the nutter and didn't even think anything strange when he allowed himself to become 'obsessed' with a damn video game
::annoyed::

ykt0di9url7bc3

Yeah, I can't walk past a tri-colour now without wanting to capture it.

roffle

tbh, video games should have a positive attitude to real life violence...

fights in alleys after closing time would be more civil, Live on 3 X rr ....

tbh IMHO video games offer interactive alternate realities which borders on escapism, not personality altering subliminal messaging based on a guided character ethos*

*serioudly, it was the best way i could put it

Zombrex

I agree that violent games and movies should not be shown to minors. But blaming this on the video game, as if the game turned the guy psycho, is just plan sillness. If there were no video games, it would have been a movie. No movies it would have been TV. No TV it would have been a book. It wasn't so long ago that people wanted to ban the "dangerous" Catcher in the Rye.

The guy was obsessed with Man Hunt because it was volient and mentally ill, not the other way around. Serial killers often start off by harming and killing household animals like cats. Does that mean we should ban cats in case they get obsessed with them.

vibe666 wrote:

do these left wing idiots not think that people were bashing each others heads in with hammers long before video games were even around?

Right wing, not left wing ... it is always the right wing, conservatives trying to save our moral fibber for the evils of sex, violence or what not. And then 10 years later a Convervative minister is caught in a sex orgy with two hamsters and a goat :rolleyes:

BlitzKrieg

the only prob debating this topic is that we never get anyone against violent computer games to debate against us...so we end up all agreeing with each other just phrasing it different.

Waltons

It's obviously all MANSON'S fault.

the_obsolete

BlitzKrieg wrote:

the only prob debating this topic is that we never get anyone against violent computer games to debate against us...so we end up all agreeing with each other just phrasing it different.

That's because we've all played far too many computer games to count, some VERY violent, but some not so. To get someone who's against violent games you'd have to bring in somebody with no experience playing them, and so would have no interest in the Games boards.

Big Ears

who would have no understanding of if games could make people mentally deranged .

Im not 18 , and GTA never did me any harm .(now why have I got this feeling of pulling a trigger , and thinking about Haitians at the same time :rolleyes: ) .

Raskolnikov

Fantastic publicity for Manhunt though, admittedly, even I'm going to give it a rent to see what all the hype is about

the_obsolete

Be ready for LOTS of graphic violence! Sure after a while one time I actually had to stop playing it disturbed me that much (I know it's a pussy-ish thing to do, but I just didn't have the stomach that day...).

Azza

I see the Irish Times yesterday said sales of the game shot up in Ireland. Guess there is such thing as bad publicity. I'm also of the mind set that games/movies/books don't make people killers. If a person is determined to kill someone he will find a way to do himself or by obtaining inspiration from somewhere else. Games and movies don't make killers they just make them more creative. Although I can understand the greif the parents of that boy must feel.

One thing that I will say is that games and movie certs don't work. Having worked in a video store for a long while the cert sytem is crazy. If a 5 year old has his parents permission he can rent a 18 cert movie. Yet if we give it out in a wrongly certed box we could be hit with a huge fine. But I can say in 10 years
there never has been a case of certs been inforced or sort of inspection. Like underage drinkers can be difficult to tell what age some people are but we don't want to hassle customers for id's as many might just be under age and have there parents permsion for the last 3 years or so. Besides time and again we have parents renting horror movies for there kids and anytime we refused a kid a movie 95% of the time a parent will return to get it for them.

But then again I never forget the time I had my former vice principal of my school in the shop with her 14 year old daughter. There was a popular romantic comedy out certed 15 that the daughter wanted to rent but she would not let her. She was so embarrassed she left crying

AdMMM

They should blame no-one but themselves. They let their son play a game that wasn't suited to them. Granted, however, it might all boil down to the shop selling it to him in the first place!

neXus9

Waltons wrote:

I don't think postal or postal 2 ever hit the news, did they?

Well, the postal service in the US tried to sue them because the title was offensive. It was thrown out of court and the game company gave out a statement basically telling them that they were muppets.

CyberGhost

well I can't say that games don't influence some people, they certenly do! but that's why there is a rating on the game! and it says 18+! it's his parent's fault, and IMHO he would have killed eventually even without a game!

and some people just shouldn't play!

Retr0gamer

He probably killed his friend for recommending the game. Its terrible. I think Rockstar were trying out the new GTA close combat system and decided to make a game out of it.

koneko

I can't count the amount of times I've run over prostitutes in my car after playing GTA. The game made me do it.

But seriously, this kid would have bashed the other kid's head in even if he didn't play games. He probably would have used a brick instead of a hammer. WTF is wrong with his parents that they couldn't see there was something wrong with their son. You don't just bash someone's head in out of nowhere, he would have been having issues or acting messed up before this. Blame-shifting is what this is.

Doodee

I had to do research for this topic for a project in college. I believe there have been a few studies in UCLA about it. Quick Google ,
i think our conclusion was that video games dont create violence, its the individual. The studies in UCLA found that different people respond to violent games in different ways, and those who have irregular amounts of Adrenaline etc in their system were the kinds of people who tended to get violent.

Basically games were simply the catalyst for the violence and it could have been brought about any other way.

then again, mothers need excuses as to why their kids ****ed up.

the_obsolete

Joodee wrote:

then again, mothers need excuses as to why their kids ****ed up.

Oooooooh very naughty, but nice one!

Retr0gamer

then again, mothers need excuses as to why their kids ****ed up.

How true. Don't know how many times when i was a kid and hear mothers say 'my [insert scumbags name here] would never do anything like that'. And they were always the kids that are now in jail or should be.

monument

koneko wrote:

I can't count the amount of times I've run over prostitutes in my car after playing GTA. The game made me do it.

Yeah, well, the other day I… built a city, built a railway, tried to take over the world, then save the world from zombies, messed about on the moon, went to mars, became a pirate (the type on ships, not the net), jointed the mob, then jointed the army, drove around London in a nicked police car…all because games told me to do it.

A bit off topic, anyone notice the increase in so-called ‘joyriding’ since around the time the first GTA game was released? :rolleyes:

CyberGhost

then again, mothers need excuses as to why their kids ****ed up.

True! usually it's the family's fault!

Crash

damn games - ever time someone gives me a rocket launcher i get the urge to rocket jump - only happened that one time but now i cant strafe in this wheelchair

Syth

Y'see the whingers who don't want to blame themselves (Mothers Against Responsible Parenting, i think they're called), are going about it the wrong way. Going to the media saying that the game is evil will just encourge the people who would like to buy the game. I mean if your parents are against something, then it must be cool. If they really want to stop people play it, then they should get all the parents to convince their kinds that they like the game. Then it's immediatly uncool. Like with Chinpokomon in South Park.

RuggieBear

From mcv ....

03 August 2004 by Tim Green
The story of the “Manhunt” murder case took another twist with the revelation that the game was present in the victim’s home, not the killer’s.
Narinder Pooni, media services officer for Leicestershire Police, told MCV: “Apparently the game was found but it was in Stefan Pakeerah’s bedroom.”

Pakeerah was murdered by his friend Warren Leblanc in February.

While this fact does not in itself undermine the allegation made by Pakeerah’s mother and the Daily Mail that Leblanc was influenced by Manhunt, it does make the issue more complex. It also raises questions such as whether the 14 year old victim owned the game. And if so, who bought it for him?

As for the link between Manhunt and the crime, the police are clear. Pooni said: “We haven’t connected the game with the murder and we’ve already made that statement, but some sections of the media chose to ignore it…the motive was robbery.”

Not sure how true this is...

p

neXus9

I don't why they don't put age ratings on books. Have you ever read american psycho, ff sake.

BlitzKrieg

quick question...


Do you (in manhunt) have to kill someone with a hammer to rob them? From what i've read its based around a twisted form of hunting (u being the prey) and looking at the extract above the police state that the intent was robbery...


ye gods people are stupid...

Explosive_Cornflake

I remember the day this happened. Rented out a lot more copies of manhuint that day. No such thing as bad publicity.
Which reminds me.
GTA [1] even got banned at a cetain stage, was an 18
GTA2 was a 15's if i remember?
Wait, no, i just checked the box, its a british 18.
Hmm i thought i was an interview when that came out saying something to that effect on that channel 4 game show, bits was it? Had 3 chicks on it, couldn't decide which of them were good looking.