Two 17- year olds murdered the parents of one of them by stabbing them multiple times with several knives (it is not clear how many were used yet). Unlike in other cases, they were not loners, were known throughout town for being cheerful, happy, helpful young boys, one of them was best in his class, they led a computer class and so on and so forth, no signs of danger to say it short. (they DID stand out, but rather in a positive way.)
Now here’s the thing. On the night in question, they called themselves by the names of Reno and Sephiroth. And unfortunately, that dragged the “killer game debate” to a ridiculous level. While their HDs are now being searched for ego shooters, FF7 is now happily considered a killer game in several newspapers already. x_X It’s sad. And so, the “let’s pass on the responsibility to something else no matter how idiotic it is!” goes on. (sorry I dont have any direct online sources now, it was mainly in regional papers and smaller newstime broadcasts. bad enough.)
What’s next? “old woman killed by huge ball made of her own furniture by young boys who were inspired by the killer game katamari”?
Doesn;t Germany have some sort of hatred for games already? I could have sworn there was already an even bigger bias towards games there than there are here…
We hate games! In Germany, we don’t laugh. >:| And turks suck too, but we still eat their kebab. right 984?
No but seriously, the debate whether to ban these games has been going on forever now because they don’t ever get anything to work (thank god in this case), but the debate has been heating up again recently because of two brutal school shootings that happened last year (there’ve been more, but two were particularly inspired by violent video games, so yeah). I don’t know if the disapproval of violent video games would be higher than in other places though. I have no idea how “high” it is in the US, so I don’t really have something to compare it with.
Fact is, politicians, psychologists, representatives of the media, teachers and everyone else who has an opinion (= everyone!) are currently smashing each others heads in and trying to come to a conclusion. And of course, most people that have the most to say in this have the least idea about games, as usual. So this could take a while.
This happened here too. The killer of Holly Jones ( http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/jones_holly/ ) was said to ‘have been addicted to Final Fantasy, a violent videogame.’ It was said once on the news and never mentioned again, presumeably because people called in and said it wasn’t really violent.
Jesus, this is frightening. What I’m perplexed about, though, is why they even decided to go by those names.
Considering the media, I’ll say this. It’s no secret that the media rarely, if ever, does appropriate research when it comes to games and game violence in particular. I once saw an article on CBS where it was so hilariously obvious that the reporter had no idea what she was talking about (GTA San Andreas and how evil it is) that I still have it bookmarked. The very first sentence declares “Welcome to the dark world of ‘Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ where killing cops earns you points, not prison.” Haha. Points. In GTA. Wait what.
It’s like D&D all over again.
Which was Comic Books all over again.
Which was T.V. all over again.
Which was Movies all over again.
Which was Books all over again.
Which was Theatre all over again.
Which was Painting all over again.
Which was “Are you getting the point already.”