Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Guardian article on violent video games

This post includes an article from the Guardian and revolves around violent video games. By including this article, I will select quotes to include in my essay which revolve around public concern surrounding violent video games.

Important Quotes from the article:

After the murder of James Bulger in 1993 there were various calls for the banning of "video nasties". At the time MPs called for certain films to be banned.

There was a similar outcry after the Columbine school shooting, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before shooting themselves at the high school in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999.

They were known to enjoy playing Doom, a game licensed by the US military to train soldiers to kill.

The killing of Stefan Pakeerah in Leicester in February 2004, which his parents believe was inspired by the game Manhunt, put the games industry back in the spotlight.

Stefan, 14, was stabbed and beaten repeatedly with a hammer in an attack his mother described as mimicking the gameplay in Manhunt. Warren Leblanc admitted to the killing and was jailed for life. A number of shops, including Dixons, stopped selling the game.

Manhunt 2, released earlier this year, was the first game in a decade to be banned in Britain. With its "unrelenting focus on brutal slaying" the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) - which rates video games and films - rejected the game after finding it "constantly encourages visceral killing".

Yet, in 2005, the BBFC said there was no evidence directly linking playing of games with violent behaviour. A government study last year also downplayed the link between video games and violence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/aug/28/conservatives.ukcrime1?INTCMP=SRCH

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