Tag Archives: murder

This is fantastic. As you can see here, an unnamed British newspaper is offering “hundreds of pounds” to people who can provide them with a good enough story of how gaming turned them into criminals.

“Did computer games make you turn to a life of crime?” asked the paper. Well, did they? Did your prostitute-murdering career begin with the launch of GTA III? You’re in luck. Get over there quick, before Anne Diamond applies for a story about games turning her to crimes against reality.

Tyrone Spellman, 27, of Philadelphia, has been sentenced to between 22 and 45 years in prison for killing his daughter after she pulled over his Xbox 360.

“I’ve been doing this 13 years, and this is one of the few cases that’s ever left me at a loss for words,” Assistant District Attorney James Berardinelli said. “There’s never a good reason for [murder], but this is just the pettiest of reasons.”

Grim, in any sense of the word. More here.

A laywer, here, is trying to get a murderer off the hook by telling the jury he lives in “a different world than you and I,” the other place being that of videogames.

Andrew Reid Lackey admits to shooting, stabbing (over 70 times) and gouging out an eye from his 80-year-old victim.

The murder appears to have happened because Lackey was disturbed when robbing a house, but his defence is claiming he was acting out the event as if in a game. We’re not so sure we fancy your chances there, Andrew.

According to this, a recent study at the Indiana School of Medicine has shown that, “Exposure to violent video games, even E [Everyone - Ed] rated video games, increases aggressive thoughts, increases pro-social behavior and increases general arousal,” said Dr Greg Snyder, a psychologist at Omaha’s Children’s Hospital.

The study compared brain scan of a teenager who has just played what was deemed a nonviolent video game to the scan of a teen who had just spent 30 minutes playing a violent game.

“The more normal [violence] is, the more likely it is they’re going to activate or engage in those behaviors when provoked or even unprovoked,” Snyder added.

Ryan Miller, the manager of general operations for Gamers in Omaha, countered, said video games become an easy scapegoat when children turn violent.

“Just like any new media, it gets attacked. When any new genre of music comes out, it gets attacked. TV will, of course, get attacked. I’m sure, way back when, books got attacked,” he said.

Lots more through that link. We’ll post some more news, right after we get back from killing some people.