Gamertell

Grand Theft Auto IV was recently removed from store shelves in Thailand by the order of New Era Interactive, one of Asia’s largest game distributors. The reason is that Polwat Chino, a 19-year-old boy, killed a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the game.

Ah. Yet another case of “life imitating art.“ Remember the problem though. Before games, movies and any violent media, there was still violence. So, in comes the obvious step of scapegoating. The easiest thing the blame is something that really can’t defend itself. It’s the basic psychology of blame. Since the Columbine school shooting, the popular thing to blame for violence has been videogames.

We are in an age where one of crime’s biggest motives and accusations is…

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Back on Monday (February 18, 2008), MSNBC published an article by writer Winda Benedetti criticizing infamous Miami lawyer Jack Thompson’s far too well-known crusade against videogames. Benedetti even went so far as to suggest that certain games can actually be thought-provoking enough to warn against the dangers of such things like obesity, which gaming is also often blamed for.

Yes, you read that paragraph right.  In the wake of the recent shootings at Northern Illinois University, someone in the media actually…

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