han22 mei 2006 – 21:28

According to you, the main similarity between the game and the actual killings is that, in the game you first have to buy a gun before you can start shooting innocent people. Which is exactly what the guy did in real life! Can you believe that? He first went out to buy a gun! Wow... Yep, we should definitely blame the game industry. Never mind that going on a killing spree with a toothpick wouldn't be quite as effective. Never mind that journalists like you should be writing articles about the fact that anyone anywhere can just buy a gun without any license or background check, walk out of the shop and start shooting people. And never mind that the killer is a very confused teen who comes from a right-wing background where violence and racism are very much acceptable. Never mind all that: just blame the game.

Here's another quote from an article I read: "A man was arrested by the police today who had been dining in several restaurants without paying his bill. He always ordered a menu, ate all of it and then simply walked out..
Psychologists stated that the criminal was probably influenced by the video game Pac Man, in which you also have to eat everything before you can go to the next level." OK, I just might have made that one up. But you
do get my point, don't you?

Now before anyone starts thinking that I'm a puppet whose strings are being pulled by the evil game industry: I don't like video games at all.
It used to be fun in the old days when you just had a black & white screen, exciting games and a straightforward game play: one joystick, one button to shoot and one to jump. But these days... A few weeks ago I ended up with a teenager who had some sort of modern game console and he challenged me to a fighting game. After hopelessy staring at the joystick -which had at least 27 buttons- for a few minutes, I shrugged and said
"play ball young man". Needless to say, the kid kicked my ass. While I was frantically pushing on all of those buttons more or less at random, the guy pounded me with flamethrowers, horsewhips and something called a 'MultiKillDeathKick'. I went down in about seven seconds.

Which or course left me feeling very old and very frustrated. But does that mean I had to go out to buy a gun and start shooting teenagers while screaming "MultiKillDeathKick this, you bastards!" No it doesn't. The point of all of this is simply: journalists shouldn't make stupid statements like that and put the wrong ideas into people's heads.. Don't blame the game. Blame society. Blame the guy's cranial malfunctions. Blame
the right-wing hate-crusade. Blame anything you like. Or maybe you might even want to get introspective and blame yourself.
Blame the media. But if all of this is beyond you, just leave us alone and go & play some more Grand Theft Auto. Because how else do you know exactly how that game
works? Huh?