Gather round my children
and a story I will tell
of a video gamer outlaw
perhaps you know him well
The Winchester Star
actually, it's not funny at all.
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Gather round my children
and a story I will tell
of a video gamer outlaw
perhaps you know him well
The Winchester Star
actually, it's not funny at all.
I just love how they always want to blame "the computer". They just don't want to be brash and say. Well, gee. It may be the kid was mentaly unstable or may have caved into peer presures. They want to say "it's got to be in the email".
OMG time to go burn all my books, I mean with my collection I must be a serial killer. I mean what would they think, having a collection including martial arts including text on sticking points and strikes to cause death, the use of weapons, Pathology, Forensic medicine, toxicology, Psychology of the murder and criminal mentality with interview techniques used by law agencies, criminology, Law, including a book on the most famous murder cases, book on vampirism both myth and role-play, several martial art weapons around the place. That is just a selection of what I have around my home!!
Kindred69
I like how Kindred put it....
I have a SHITLOAD of criminal history books, serial killers exposed and other interesting books.... I thought it would make me a better (to be) police officer, now I see that in the eyes of the media, I am but a potential KILLER!
I guess Hitler's book burning sessions weren't lost forever?
The media is always looking for someone to blame. Chances are that this kid was just plain nuts. Look at the games “Diablo II,” “Warcraft II,” “Age of Empires II,” and “Starcraft,”. Granted in Diablo II you fight the devil (Diablo) but what about Age of Empires II I played that game to no end and I can honestly say more violence is caused by people by people throwing tantrums when windows ME crashed for the 10th time that day. One more little thing that’s be puzzling me lately. When ever there talking about violent video games on TV the always show a little clip of doom. Why doom? If you trying to convince everyone that video games are super violent brain washing tools, why show a clip from a game that’s almost 9 years old where all the bad guys look like cartoonish Lego people? Why not use a game like grand theft auto 3, were you can have sex with a hooker and then run here over with a car?
Totally, leave the whole Doom propaganda alone!
Besides, I read in a gaming magazine (Ok not the best/impartial source) that a study was done with 100 people. 50 were told to play "violent" video games, the other 50 were told to read something like quauntum physics. (I'll get the proper facts later) Anyways, after several hours, the two groups were told to shock someone wired to a chair. The results found that something like 80%+ from the physics group shocked the person (some to disturbing amounts) to something like 35% from the gaming group.
And they say we gamers are the violent types... and that it promotes violence....
Dammit! What do you see 70% of the news?!? F'N Violence.....
Shoot em' all! :shootem: (Ok bad example :D)
just what the hell does that mean? the result of the crime was 1 person was dead and another was seriously injured. is he insinuating that it was pure bloodlust? that the only thing this guy was after was to kill sombody?Quote:
When asked if any of the materials helped define a motive for the murder, Eckman said: “In my opinion, I know the motive. I think the result of the crime tells the motive.”
also, “Diablo II,” “Warcraft II,” “Age of Empires II,” and “Starcraft” are some of the least "gory violent" games arround(ok well maybe not the least, but CERTIANLY not the most). i mean look at FPS games. you want gore? take a look at Soldier of Fortune, thats got plenty. infact, you should be GLAD that they show a clip of Doom rather than some of the newer games(although i've seen a q3 clip here and there), cause some games are almost enough to make MY stomach turn, and i'm a pretty hard-core gamer, and quite de-sensitized to game violence. immagine what the general public would say at their first glimpse of SoF or...crap, cant think of the name, but it took place in NYC and was chock full of violence and swearing to the point where they would probably have to bleep atleast every other word. they would go crazy. that would be the absolute END of gaming. there would be govermental "video game controll" commities.
in short: to blame these games for violence(unless its because of crashes/cheaters in multiplayer, both of which create at most severe frustration) is just plane absurd.
Some time ago, a secretary in our office blamed the problems of teenagers on "Satanic cults". Today, it appears that the same type problems can be attributed to computer games.
Just a thought.
The media know nothing and the Cops know Jack Shite.. If a person is predisposed to
being a nut case, fruite cake, serial murderer etc taking these books, games etc from
them will not stop them.. A computer game will not convince a rational person to
commit a criminal act..
[gloworange]....wot.....................huh.....................oh........I.......have........to.......go.....my.......
....com.....put...errrrr..........wants.......me.....to.................tourch...............
....the..........................factory...................................next...................dooorrr...[/gloworange]
Oh my god the world is slowly going nuts. This is the biggest piece of balloni i have ever read so what if he reads books like that wow!!!!
If someone is gonna do things like this there only have to watch the bloody news to get ideas so if they feel that media images force people to kill turn off the news.
THE-OMEN it's supposed to be "667, Naibour to the beast!"
I have book, which covers a exsperiment done after the second world war, quit simmilar to the one tyger_claw talked about....I'll post in when I find it....l8r :D
Noia thats already been done it's <pong>665 next door to the devil</pong> and thats what it is staying at.
It's sad how quickly people place a blame on something that is "obviously" incouraging violent behaviour. Bull F*n ****!
I'm guessing that family values of social classes, racism and sexism has nothing to do with it, eh?
boy: "Hey mom, can I go play with Timmy?"
mom: "What, that BLACK boy? You are to stay away from all those TYPES of people."
Thankfully, (No nock on Americans who are here), I don't see much of this in Canada, but I do live in the Northern part of Ontario.
Why look at computer games for responsibility? It is the social engineering of the parents and society that are around the certain individuals.....
Studies have shown that molested people will molest.. why? because they think it's normal.
However, don't get me wrong... There are *****ed up people in the world who need nothing to trigger them.
Speaking of Doom...one of the first PC games that I bought was DoomII...and a (very provincial) friend of mine asked me what the objective was. "To kill the alien hordes...(or something like that)", I said. He replied by saying, "Oh, they're aliens?...that's OK, then"
'Nuff said.
Ouroboros
(this friend of mine now plays MGS2 on the PS2 like there's no tomorrow...funny how people change, eh?)
I personally feel that these type of people will ruin the fun of Technologies for us all. Geezzz! Get a doctor! I know this shouldn't be waht I'm saying but I can imagine one day when the US government will take all computer games out of every home in DA USA. Well, I don't think they will cause then, their youger generation will eventually move to other neighboring countries like Canada. So............ no worries about computer games being taken out of every home.
I'll still waiting for DoomIII, which will feature a brand new 3D engine (unlike to old piece of crap for 486)
Yeah, if we go by library content, then I am a mad scientist hacker with connections to other planets.
Actually what do you expect to happen when parents are too busy with their own lives to take care of their 2.5 children? They sit them down in front of the TV set and ignore them, and then they wonder why little Johnny and Janie are sullen, unresponsive, and place no or little value on human life. The schools are WAR zones from the middle schools up through the high schools. I did some work at a junior high last week, and there is a permanent spot in the parking lot for the sherriff's deputy assigned to that school!
A very sad state of affairs, indeed. :(
****, now that's scary... fortunetaly... I have nothing like that to fear in Canada (yet!)
When will people learn? BE A PARENT!!!
(Although I am shouting, I know this won't get out to the people who need to hear it)
Hey Lawrence171, sorry to tell ya, but Id has no plan to make a Doom3. They finished that saga with "Final" Doom. The most recent thing you can find is the Doom Troopers in Quake III Arena
The interesting thing about these articles that you see popping up about the 'violent content' in the video game field is that the people writing them have no ****ing clue about anything they write about. To say that a game that involves killing people leads to the mental instability of life and death for a person is to say that Age of Empires 2: Conquerors (one of the best games I've played) is a bad thing? **** that, I learned more about history reading the manual and strategy guide for that game than I did in high school. I'd rather play violent video games and remind myself it's just a game rather than watch the news and see what crap's going on in other countries. When you watch the news, what do you see? Nothing but anger, violence, people hating/killing other people, etc etc... Never a good thing on the news, or at least not that I've seen. And these people writing articles about how bad it is are full of **** and I'll tell them that. Good parenting can prevent people from going off the deep end like that kid did in the Winchester Star. Playing games like Diablo II, Starcraft, and Age of Empires II didn't make him do what he did. Christ...can stupidity stop breeding?
This is one of the most rediculous things I've heard since they tried to link vid game violence with the Columbine shootings. This reminds me of my favorite issue of PcGamer (Game Gods). Basically, they grouped (I think 10) of what they felt were the best vid game developers in the country, stuck them in a room together, gave them some topics to talk about, and listened in. I remember (I think it was American McGee) talking about the Columbine shootings, and he said after that happened, he felt like not making vid games ever again, then half a year went by and he was back into it.....
So I read that article again and decided that now is the time to write someone about this. I found the contacts list for www.winchesterstar.com and emailed them the following:
It may not go anywhere, it may be ignored and/or deleted, but at least I know I tried.Quote:
To whom it may concern,
My name is Todd Keller and I'm currently in central Florida, Tampa. I'm 26, work full-time as a unix administrator,
and for the record, did not go to college. I'm also one of the most hardcore gamers you'll ever meet. After following
a link on the security site (www.antionline.com) that I post on (I'm Vorlin on there), I decided that some response
was required as I feel this is yet another bad display towards gamers and gaming as a whole. The link I followed
was http://www.winchesterstar.com/thewin...ont_police.asp . Parenting is to blame for what
that kid did, not the games he's played. His lack of a self-esteem maybe is part to blame for what he did, not the
books he read. I myself found the London Dungeon in London, England to be fascinating and I guarantee you that's
a TON more violent-oriented than anything he read (for reference, the London Dungeon page can be found at
http://www.thedungeons.com/ and will show you more about medieval torture than you probably ever wanted to know).
Now, to break down the video games (all of which I played and beat), here's a brief history on each one.
1) Diablo 2: fictional real-time action game where you pick a profession (barbarian, sorceress, amazon, paladin, necromancer
and assassin, druid with the expansion pack) and go off to fight through four acts (fifth one in expansion) to destroy Diablo.
Anyone who finds this more realistic than life needs to be thrown in a padded room as you'll fight things that are as far
from anything real as you can get. Weaponry includes staves, swords, axes, daggers and other medieval type items.
Company that made this game: Blizzard
2) Warcraft 2: fictional real-time strategy game where you pick either the Orcs or the Humans and (in single-player) march
your way up the campaign to beat the game. Each level gets harder and harder with objectives such as "Keep so-and-so
alive" or "Get this amount of resources". Resources allow you to build more troops (archers, mages, warriors, etc) and
allow you to expand your kingdom. Once again, since orcs don't exist, anyone who thinks this realistic needs to join the
person who thought Diablo 2 was realistic.
Company that made this game: Blizzard
3) Starcraft: fictional real-time strategy game where you pick either Zerg, Terrans, or Protoss and basically do the same thing
that is mentioned above for Warcraft 2. One of the best and most popular games in the real-time strategy as far as sci-fi goes.
Company that made this game: Blizzard
4) Age of Empires 2: based-on-real-information real-time strategy game where you pick one of thirteen or so races and based
on those races, you get specific bonuses/detriments. I learned more about history because of this game alone than I ever did
in four years of high school. I seriously suggest you go get the strategy guide to Age of Empires 2: Conquerors and read it...
cover to cover...and I think you'll agree. Races include byzantines, mongols, britons, aztecs, koreans, spanish, mayans, japanese,
turks, chinese, franks, teutons, persians, celts, and vikings (continued list here)... Play it. You'll be setting up LAN parties at
the press forgetting to put out tomorrow's paper all because you're about to roll up in player X's camp with a bunch of pissed off
berserkers (viking special), trebuchets, cavalry, archers, and battering rams (can we say raiding party?) and he's egging you
on because he's got his towers, castles, and defending parties ready to go. Company that made this game: Ensemble Studios
Now, I could list all the games I play but that list would be more than this email could allow. Most of these are viciously violent
and definitely are displayed in all their gore by my $400 video card (NVidia's Geforce4 ti4600) and I love every second of it.
Games are made for entertainment and people that think that they're more realistic than reality didn't have the right upbringing,
social structures, or whatever. Blame the families and blame the life they put themselves in. Don't blame the games because
that hardly has anything to do with it. Also, what a person reads doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to do something.
Every book you named could be found at www.amazon.com or at Waldenbook's and by your article, books of any violent
nature should be removed from bookshelves. There went fiction, nonfiction, sci-fi, etc... Am I left to read those soft-porn romance
novels that women like to read?
Moral of this email: There's always another side to the story and I have yet to read anyone's rebuttal in defense of gamers. This
email serves as that defense because we are not like this kid who was apparently warped from the word 'go' and his parents
didn't do much of anything for him. If you're wanting, you can quote me on anything in this email (although I doubt it'd be printed,
it seems only the negative stuff ever makes it to the pages), all I ask is that due credit remains. Thanks for your time and I'll be
off gaming the night away while someone's reading this.
--Todd
System administration -- it's not just my job, it's how I buy video games.
There are unstable people in all places, anything might drive them to KILL, **** when i play starcraft i used to kill of my alies if they pissed me off ... but that is a GAME not life. Dude if i could shout all the bad drivers here, i would be the greatest mass murdere alive ....
no but i did read something about some game displaying some subliminal messages ... ???? have you guys heard anything about that ?
Vorlin -
well written. i actually came very close to posting on their forums untill i figured out that nobody would ever read it and i probably didnt have the time to give the subject its due. the only thing i would have changed if i could would be to throw in something about the "gore" of warcraft II and diablo being at about the level of the classic "frogger" where you would see a smushed frog if you got run-over, cause thats about all you see in those games...smoosed/slightly bloody and (in the case of WCII) pixilated.
Yeah really...the graphics weren't much to speak of, considering it was a mostly top-down slightly-kiltered isometric view and the "gore" wasn't anything to write home about. Either way, I hope someone pays attention to it. Then again, they probably won't because God help us if someone actually tries to represent the other side of the coin.
Don't you all see!?! It's all because of that product of an evil manufacturer, AGE OF EMPIRES 2. Microsoft intented this to happen. They want people to kill other people. Or what about that evil organisation called Blizzard? Damn, they work with the devil himself! Look at all the evil games they made! Where is this world going?:)
People should not blaim video games for violance, people should be blaimed.
(you know, that microsoft part wasn't sarcastic)
Hey Im not really suggesting anything against those games, but the games he was playing, dont you think they could of influenced him a bit?
See my posts about how if a person takes any game into context as part of reality, they need to be put in a padded room. There's a difference between trying to "escape reality" by being online and people that think they're invincible because they can die/respawn in UT like nobody's business and therefore think they can't be killed when they gun down X number of people.
iaceo crimen, ergo sum, criminosus
I will admit that games are getting more and more realistic when it comes to gore, AI response and so forth, but come on, just watch a few action flicks and you've got the knowledge to become a terrorist!
Dammit! It ain't just videogames, it's everything!
What people need to realize is that it takes someone with an ability to distinct between reality and fiction (Like vorlin said) and to be able to tell from right and wrong.
I just don't understand how someone can possibly blame the books. There are really only two reasons you'd pick up a book on assassins or something. One, you want to learn something about them. Perhaps to find out what motivates screwed up personalities and learn to better deal with them. And that's a perfectly innocent reason, most of us on this site have books like that.
Or, you plan to use the material to hurt someone. If the books were responsible for murder it's because the kid picked them up beforehand and figured out what he wanted to do later! Sane people don't just randomly pick up a book on assassins, read it, and then suddenly have the desire to kill. The books are only involved if you have that desire beforehand!
How ****ing stupid are the police and the media?
these werent books about REAL assassins, they were fiction books read for entertainment. one would not read those for either of those two reasons(unless they had a VERY messed up view of reality). The Day of The Jackal is a good example of fiction about an assassin.Quote:
Originally posted here by Alcatraz
I just don't understand how someone can possibly blame the books. There are really only two reasons you'd pick up a book on assassins or something. One, you want to learn something about them. Perhaps to find out what motivates screwed up personalities and learn to better deal with them. And that's a perfectly innocent reason, most of us on this site have books like that.
Okay, apparently I'm arguing something else then. My arguments would be valid for non-fiction books. But still, those books wouldn't be read unless you were already into the subject. The books didn't get the guy interested in the genre, he was obviously already into it and then picked up the books.
Yes, everyone knows Age of Empires is the game of killers. Maybe we can sue Microsoft.Quote:
Some of the games seized were “Diablo II,” “Warcraft II,” “Age of Empires II,” and “Starcraft,” he said.
with disturbed_teenager_io;
use disturbed_teenager_io;
package will_we_ever_learn?;
begin
A weak and flaccid mind will only and can only spawn weak destructive actions.
Hi..i just want to say...if winning was all, why would one have an aponant...?
All I have to say is that if videogames and books are so illicit to the mind, then remove them....
remove Romeo+Juliet (suicidal)
remove Moby Dick (bounty hunter)
remove Huckaberry Fin (school skipping/misbehaviour)
remove 1984 (stalking)
remove MacBeth (must I say why?)
remove ... you get what I mean!
you know what, remove the Bible! That thing is full of evil deads