There has been a lot of controversy on violent games recently mostly caused by the game Grand Theft Auto. Is a series of games which you get to play the life of a gangster and have to work your way up the ranks. The games are violent and gory and involve killing random people for money. You are able to shoot peoples heads off, cut people up with chainsaws and attack people with baseball bats. This game is so violent that grand theft auto 3 is censored in Australia and alot of people actually believe this should be taken off the market. In my opinion this is stupid and is against free speech. No matter how violent a video game is the creators still need to be allowed to do it.


Recently a kid in the USA was supposedly addicted to Grand Theft Auto 4 vice city was brought in under suspicion that he stole a car. Once he was in the police head quarters he jumped the police officer and grabbed his gun and shot him several times killing the officer. Next he walked down the hallway and shot again several times another officer killing him and then continued to kill a 911 dispatcher. After they finally restrained the kid he was heard said “ Life is like a video game everybody has to die sometime.” This is stupid plain stupid it is extremely sad that some people just cant understand the difference between video games and real life. But what’s even more sad is they are suing Walmart for selling him grand theft auto 3 , Gamestop for selling him Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Rockstar for creating the games and Sony for making the system that Grand Theft Auto is played on. WHAT DOES SONY MAKING THE SYSTEM FOR THE GAME HAVE TO DO WITH THIS!!!


Another one is two boys who played one of the grand theft autos were caught with 22 caliber rifles shooting passing cars. After they were caught they told the police Grand Theft Auto made them do it. This is just stupid and I can’t understand what was going thru their mind when they did this. And why do kids who are just that stupid have guns I mean come on. And after such a stupid excuse that was pretty much only an attempt at trying to blame it on someone but themselves.

Games are meant to be played for fun and seriously these people obviously can’t handle them. But what makes it even worse is all these people who buy this game and do all this stupid people try to ruin it for us all by attempting to shut them down. It almost seems like with the 2 boys shooting cars and immediately accuse seems more like a excuse to get money to me then anything. These people who try to stop these games are trying to ruin our rights. Stopping these games are completely against free speech and should not be allowed at all costs.

So share your oppinions on this and the huge contreversy concerning all of this.

Yes it is a problem when you hear these cases and they do bring down a bad rap on the game, but at the same time why are retailers selling GTA to minors in the first place, that's the main issue that needs to get resolved the game is rated M for mature so only for 17 and up, honestly it's a game made for adults not made for kids.

Main thing is that the retailers should really enforce not selling games to kids like this. As for the whole suing thing, that really is stupid to hear but I'm not surprised it's happening, hopefully it gets thrown out of court.

But sadly there are more of these cases and not all of them involve kids. one involves a gang who actually practicced what they were going to do at day with grand theft auto 3 and executing those plans at night.

Yeah that's true it's not just limited to kids but it sometimes crosses over to adults who honestly get too hooked into the game, and as a result stuff like that happens.

Its not nessicarrily getting to hooked on them its more taking the game to seriously.

I never really agreed with the politicians that claim games like GTA are bad, but I do draw the line at games like "25 to life" in which the player can apparently also take drugs in order to enhance certain factors. Now you know that I'm not the person to censor things, but this is going a bit too far.
I'm not sure where this opposition comes from. I think a person won't easily murder others because of a videogame, but with drugs becoming more and more popular and available, promoting the use of it in videogames would just encourage people to use it even more (even if they do just stick to so-called 'soft'-drugs)

As for GTA, I don't mind games like that, in fact I've played every GTA game. I concider it as your basic shoot-em-up dressed in a slightly more realistic storyline.
Mafia, for example, never drew any criticism... while it was actually just GTA set in the 1920's-30's. The game was equaly violent and controversial (robbing banks, forcing people to pay their protection money)

@Stroggy

Actually this drugs part is not entirely true. Take GTA San Andreas. CJ(the main character) NEVER takes drugs in the game. The others around him do drugs often and the game just presents what negative effects the drugs have. There is a beautiful(well, as much a game girl can be) girl in the game, who is a cool and pretty girl until she starts to take drugs. After a while she becomes a very skinny and stupid addict who cries for her dose. I don't think this is PROMOTING drugs, rather twart the kids from ever toughing drugs if they see what that can do to a man. YOu can find all kinds of drugs in a game with all their clearly seeable side effects, presented very negatively. CJ never takes any drugs even if he forced to. I think this is a tribut to DEA :D

Hes not talkin bout GTA.

I wasn't talking about GTA, but about the game '25 to life'.
I've been playing GTA:San Andreas for about a week now and I agree with what you said, the protagonist doesn't take drugs and the game does show that using drugs can wreck someone. San Andreas handles a flimsy good/evil balance at the beginning with your gang being mainly against using drugs while the rival gang is dealing in hard drugs.

Now I'm not sure if everything I've heard about '25 to Life' is correct since I got most of my information from previews on TV-shows and from gaming-magazines.

My opinion is simple (and we talked about something similar when I already expressed it):

There are violent impulses in every person. Doing bad and being evil is not people learn how to do - it's something that lies within every person.
Many institutions will try to look away from that and would just blame the influence of: low class literature, comic books, inapropriate songs, movies, agressive sports, TV series, news programes, animal programes showing predators in action, video games,...

Basically in the last 200 or so years everything that was aiming for realism was considered a bad influence (because certain people wanted to look the other way pretending this is not happening in their neighbourhood).

Video games are just the next target.

Nobody forces people to watch certain things, to play certain games, to listen to certain music...
People do that, because they like it. Now a regular normal person like Stroggy (no offence, but you said you played all GTA games), will play a game (even if it's really violent). He may like it or dislike it, but I guess he liked it, because he obviously plays the game a lot. But Stroggy also does other things. He is not addicted to the game.
Now the kid Punch was telling us about was addicted to GTA. And if you are on the level to get adicted (no matter to what) then you are going to loose it anyway (you probably have, that's why you got addicted in the first place). For that kid it would just be something. Were it not for GTA there would be some other thing that would get him addicted and do what he has done (maybe a Beach Boy's song about driving around with cars - and he'd do the same thing... well they'd say that in the 60s probably).

Well personally I find the GTA games alright, but they get tiresome quickly and thus I rarely play it for more than a few minutes. However I do know people that are addicted to it (people that strive to complete the entire game and talk about it all the time) but I can't imagine them going out and shooting everybody because of this addiction (and they do seem to be addicted)

Well there are different levels of adiction...

I know many people that are really stuck on a game and don't wanna leave the computer without finishing it (playing a game for 16 hours a day or more - if they have the time). But that's 'just' being hooked.
They never showed other signs of adiction.

The difference would be the same as with alchohol:

1) People who enjoy it and drink a lot of it, but not to get drunk and do not have the need to drink it - so they can live normaly without drinking alchohol (the same could apply to people who love chocolate)
2) People who drink frequently and get drunk, but can still function normaly, because they sober up and they don't have the need to drink or to be drunk constantly (border line cases).
3) People who need to be drunk. These people can't stand the state of being sober (adited).

The friends you described are probably in the 1st category. Like the game a lot, play it a lot, talk about it a lot, but they could discart it without any problems what-so-ever (if you can easily stop doing something without having the need to do it again you're not addicted yet).

''it's a game made for adults not made for kids.''

It doesn't matter how old a person is aslong as they call tell the difference between Right and Wrong, there are people aged 18+ that still dont understand why killing people or doing things that harm others is wrong. Wherby there are many intelligent young gamers that can easily tell the differenecs between what they should do and what they shouldn't. What difference does age make aslong as the person understands what they are doing in the game can and should not happen in real life.

Also, I really am growing fond of the way one persons wrongs is suppousedly caused by one single cause (a videogame). Surely the person has to be (for lack of a better word) ''wrong'' in the first place. Video games dont brainwash people.

People are born Good OR Bad in my opinion.

I don't think anything except severe emotional trauma could change a persons perspective on morality.

Thats my two pence and yeh... im a british teen, so what?

Want me to smash your face in with a baseball bat?

Learnt that off of this cool new game I got called GTALondon3D :ph34r:

Oh and just so you know... not every teen in the world is a young vandal with no brain! :tai:

connection between violent games and violent behaviour was never proven.

but there might be correlation between violent behaviour and wanting to play violent games.

Short And Sweet, shame about the grammar.

Good point though.......

I figure if a person is unbalanced people will always try to blame something for what made them that way and so other idiot will file a law suit.

Attilla the Hun and Genghis Khan despite their brutal conquests and murderers officially did not play any violent video games. People blame comic books, novels, bibles, tv commericials, Roleplaying games, and even Twinkies for committing crimes. I used to play Super Mario Brothers alot when I was younger, and you could say I was addicted to it. However it never drove me to jump on a turtle shell and try to kick it down a bottomless pit.

And I do agree they have the rating system for a reason, but its easy to get an adult to buy you a game if you have older friends or parents that buy you anything just to shut you up.

But I don't believe books, movies, twinkies, or even guns cause the problem, its all the matter of the individual and how their mind works. That and parents that don't pay attention to what the hell their kids are doing and are ready to sue everyone in sight when their kid goes on a shooting rampage.

P.S. Punch, I loved the article

This case is a matter of view. If somebody wants to blame a criminal act on the a violent video game, he can. and the media will support it. Shame.
You watched the news recently right? The news are full of stories like: "KID GOES ON SHOOTING RAMPAGE BECOUSE OF *VIDEO GAME*! - Little Billy(12), after finding his father's revolver in the bedroom drawer, gone on a shooting spree at his school, killing 3 teachers and 7 pupils. After the police arrested him he told:"*VIDEO GAME* made me do it. I'm innocent!"(or something like that). The social worker told us that Little Billy was under a massive shock after the incident. Anti-Video Game activists protested in front of the school today, claiming *VIDEO GAME* is a threat to the children and demanding *VIDEO GAME* to be withdrawn from the market..."
Substitute *VIDEO GAME* with any M+ video game.
I have two problems with this.
First, the pistol. "in the bedroom drawer". Little Billy's father was irresponsible, thus leaving his child subject to violence. ANYBODY can have a gun in the US, it is stated in the constitution. But not just peaceful citizens can buy a gun, but anybody like criminals, maniacs etc. There is a problem with this. A bun must be applied on guns.
Second, a videogame in itself cannot cause such acts. If somebody is mentally instable, he is more prone to commit violence, regardless of any video game he plays. But if somebody has a normal self-esteem and mind, he wont do anything like that, regardless of any video game he plays.
This is all about common sense. If somebody can make a difference between reality and a game, won't do violent crimes becouse of games. If sombody can't thats becouse of somekinda illness, and that needs to be treated.

I have some personal opinion on this. The kid was smart! <_< Two birds with one stone, clever :ok: First, he killed the techers and classmates he hate, and innocently blamed it on *VIDEO GAME*. Haha, this is good :D Of course he was shocked, who wouldn't after killing 10 people? ^_^ He knew that everybody will take pity on him, and he will be free in no time, and the media will blame the company made the *VIDEO GAME*. After seeing this, some other criminals tried to do the same and blame their crimes on GTA od whatever... shame.. <_<

Truthfully, the perserception of right and wrong is totally different for all. One (easy to beleave) perseption is that its all the parents fault. If they dont see the large M (or in the case of PAL games 17+.) on the box, they're failing all responibilty as a good parent. Of course, thats what I beleave, seeing as soon as the ESRB took control, they looked into it.

I beleive it is the parent's responsibility to decide whether their child is mature enough for a game. A parent should be able to buy violent games for their children but it's their responsibility if it turns out the child is not mature enough. Most teenagers are mature enough to play GTA without turning into psychotic killers but not all are, the ratings are there to protect that minority.

I played Deus Ex (aparently I should have been 17) at the age of 12. My parents didn't really care, the blood is not very bad, the dialogues, whilst adult, are not overly offensive.

The only 'adult' thing in it is those two lesbians in Hong Kong.

the lespians ruled. was well funny. parents who dont lock there guns up should take part of the responsibility for there childrens crimes. you could get hi in dues x as well which was well funny. i did it a few times just to watch the screen go all trippy. in fallout 2 you could get your charector hooked on drugs. which was annoying if you were in the middle of a battle and you hit your comedown. still its all in the name of fun. drugs and violence is commonplace in books and movies, and not all of those books and movies portray the drugs in a major negetive light either but hey, drugs are a part of life and not a modern problem either. in fact some people belive the problem began in the 60's when all the drugs were made illegal, go figure. is a game is going to make someone take drugs, i dont know, but i dont think its anywhere near as bad as the avarage gangster rap albums lyrics. and emeninem can go on about drugs and viloence all he wants and all he gets on his cd is a *parental warning* sticker .. in fact musicains have been dropping in drug lyrics , sometimes hidden sometimes not scince the recording of music began.
think about it. somone takes drugs in a game and in that virtual world there charector gets some benifits. they listen to a piece of music where a real person whos face and persona they respect is going on about how great drugs are which is more real for that kid?

Hehey my favourite moment was in Deus Ex when I tried to storm that warehouse absolutely pissed out of my head. I kept mself drunk too, it was hilarious. I couldn't hit anything.

Drugs are not really an issue in today's world to be honest. In the UK, 2 million adults take ecstacy every weekend. It's big news if even one of them dies.

Cannabis is less harmful than tobacco (mental illness my arse, they just can't tax it)

The only drug which causes problems is heroin, as it spreads HIV quite quickly.





Mentally unstable people with guns will always e a problem. Games are just a scapegoat. As soon as there is another media breakthrough they will get blamed on that. That simple.

first this deus ex thing is kinda :ot:

PS: thx doc adrian i loved making it!