Murderer claims to have recreated scene from GTA IV |
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BY Adam Sandberg August 4th, 2008 |
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Thailand, which last year banned YouTube because of a posted video that insulted the country’s king, is now trying to halt the sales of GTA IV due to the murder of a 54-year old taxi driver. A local 18-year old confessed to robbing and murdering the taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the the game.
“We are sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games,” said Sakchai Chotikachinda, sales and marketing director of New Era Interactive Media. If found guilty after trial, the 18-year old student will be facing death by lethal injection. Police said the teenager is an obsessive GTA player, and that he showed no sign of mental illness during questioning. Apparently, he claims that he wanted to see if it was just as easy to perform the deed in real life as it is in the videogame.
Turns out, it is. What the lunatic didn’t realize is that it’s not as easy to get rid of the wanted stars. Putting a halt on GTA IV is not the optimal solution to a problem like this, clearly people that are ready to kill a person “for the fun of it” could just as easily be triggered by numerous things. Should we put a ban on Lethal Weapon 4 as soon as someone claims that movie to be the reason for their sins? It’s just tragic when something like this happens, but banning a game doesn’t equal banning murderers.
August 4th, 2008
at 2:55 pm
It’s another case for Jack Thompson. It reminds me of the teen who killed himself for a “Wii”. Isn’t it likely that looking into his past record might have done something? He certainly didn’t kill himself for a console.
August 4th, 2008
at 4:46 pm
Looks like we need a way to keep the mentall unstable away from video games.
August 4th, 2008
at 11:51 pm
Yeah, it’s sensitive in a case like this. The maniac claims he plays GTA all the times - people automatically thinks the game is the problem. But are they wrong? This time, it probably had something to do with it. So should we keep the mentally unstable away from video games, or the video games away from the mentally unstable? How do you know who’s crazy?
August 5th, 2008
at 12:09 am
According to the police, the boy showed no sign of mental illness. Do the Thai police have qualified physicians that are trained for this sort of psychoanalysis? Did the police even try consulting psychiatrists outside for this case?
It’s hard to say if what the police are saying is really true. Just because the institution enforces the law, it doesn’t mean that its people are always telling the truth. For all we know, the cops may just be manipulating something to their favor.
You see, blaming video games is the easy way to get people’s attention away from other possible shortcomings like bad parenting, poor investigation, sensationalist journalism, or shoddy governance.
August 5th, 2008
at 12:15 am
True, FPS. It also says that the kid was polite and diligent, according to the parents. Seems like there’s a lot being left out here and that the purpose of Reuter’s article is in a way to blame the game.
I read some stuff on this story in Swedish newspapers and two or three experts was quoted saying stuff like “I’ve treated kids that play videogames and they do get really obsessive, like it’s their real world”. Newspapers should be more careful with stories like this one, it’s not the same when kids start to play WoW 24/7 and when someone go out stabbing a taxi driver.
August 5th, 2008
at 12:26 pm
Can’t say I blame the media for running with this one since the dude came right out and said why he did it and what inspired him. Now, if they just tried to link him to it by showing that he played the game, but never came out and admitted it then I would be upset. It’s fairly easy to admitt that GTA was his inspiration. Was or is he right in the head? Clearly not if he can be calm and open about murdering someone like that.
There is really no way to blame this on anyone else but him no matter where he drew his inspiration music, movie, religion, book or videogame though. This isn’t an impressionable kid that was too young to buy a copy of an adult rated game, but a grown person of age to be competent of and held responsible for his actions.
GTA is a pretty sick game given what players can and often ARE encouraged to do, but it’s still just a game.
August 8th, 2008
at 2:25 am
I still think it’s too vague to blame GTA on this one. The kid is already 18 so he has criminal liability. Was he clear in the head? According to the police, he seemed sane during questioning. Then again, it’s pretty hard to rule anything out just upon a few hours of questioning.
Was the kid guilty of murder? Yes. Did GTA cause him to go bananas? Perhaps. However, if violent games really do cause mentally-stable people to go bananas, then a whole lot more people should be doing the same thing.
Funny that the police didn’t even investigate the kid’s relationships with his family. It may just open a can of worms.
Could it be possible that the kid just wanted to blame something for his erm, stupidity? Hard to say. Whatever the case, I still think there’s nothing solid that can be used to pin this on GTA or Rockstar.