Police believe games "may have been a factor" in violent assault
Video games have been implicated in a violent assault by a teenage boy on an online gaming buddy.
A 14 year old Scottish boy confessed to cutting the throat of a 13 year old friend whom he had met online playing Gears of War 3 - which is rated R 18+ by PEGI.
"The reporting officer was of the opinion that the violent video games played online by the accused may have been a factor in his conduct," prosecutor Andrew Brown said, according to the Daily Mail.
Scottish Police Federation chairman Brian Docherty also seemed concerned that the offender's gaming habits were related to the crime.
"These games are rated 18 and shouldn’t be played by children of this young age – but online gaming may be outside their parents’ knowledge. We need to look again at what we can do to stop this," he said.
In response, Microsoft pointed out pointed out that it has robust parental controls which would have allowed the youth's parents to control his access to violent games.
Nobody seems to have made any mention of the mechanism by which games are supposed to have enabled this crime, although it was noted that the two boys were arguing about video games when the assult occured and had been trading heated messages via Xbox Live.
Thanks, Kotaku.
