Here we go again.

weemcd

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/01/26/need-for-speed-most-wanted-found-at-scene-of-fatal-crash/

Another chance for the pc bregade to jump on the anti video game bandwagon and parents can blame games for spoiled teen idiocy.

projectmayhem

tbh burnout inspired me to drive head-first onto the wrong side of the m50 and smash as many mofo's as possible

Vokes

As has been the case in the past, the media has suggested video games, specifically NFSMW, as a motive for the deadly crime.

A motive

TheDoc

this spawns abck to so much evertyhing else i nthe world.

The event where a teenager went into his American high school and shot up like 8 students, and it was later revealed he used doom as a training aid.... The game was blamed for this action.

With marlyn manson and the girls who kiled themselves, the aprents " suing" him blaming him.

Video games cannot be held responsible for stupid retarted kids, nor movies or music.

Hold on till i go kill every sarah conor in the phone book and blame it on james cameron, let a radioactive spider bite me and sue marvel when i get cancer.

Seriously ****ing stupid people in this world?

But its Canada wah tdo you expect?

Officer Thomas "Sarge, we found need for speed underground in the passenger seat, its a fast paced racing game"

Sergeant Ass "Clearly themotive, the boy was playing it and thinking he was in the game decided to race other cars and crash into this taxi for bonus crash points"

Officer Thomas " Or maybe he was at his friends house playing it and was brining it home, or borrowed it, or just bought it?"

Officer Ass " Are you some sort of idiot, my theory is clearly the more accurate."

Big Ears

Is Officer Ass related to Sergeant Ass ?

TheDoc

yup, two different officers,

had to laugh when i hrd this was canada, so typical.........

Crucifix

SofaKing wrote:

A motive

Yeah, wtf?
And why the hell did he have it in the seat. Was he bringing it with him to try and impress it?

Linkdude

9. No, no! There's definately something in this logic...just the other day I found myself under the influence of video games. I started jumping on turtles and headbutting giant floting boxes with questionmarks on them. I don't know what came over me...

FFS

Specious reasoning at its best.

That comment made me laugh.

A scapegoat for crappy parenting, it's been going on for a while.

"We can't raise our kids, quickly, blame it on that GTA Game in there!"

If I was under the influence of games, I'd probably jumped into a volcano with my stylus, curled into a ball, and tried to draw a rainbow line beneath me, or tunning really fast and curling into a pikey ball and killing people who I thought were robots.

Dooom

Video games don't influence my life anyway. I'm sitting here, typing this in my sneaking suit and night vision goggles of MY OWN FREE WILL DAMMIT!

Wait hang on, they collided with the taxi. And the game still managed to stay on the front seat? What, did they have a specially installed seat belt for it or something?

senordingdong

Jesus, the world is just full of it this week, aren't they?

flogen

projectmayhem wrote:

tbh burnout inspired me to drive head-first onto the wrong side of the m50 and smash as many mofo's as possible

U R L337

the_syco

Eh... I wonder how many born-again christain yanks died in pile-ups last year, with a bible in their car? The bible could be a motive, after all.

DonkeyStyle \o/

As has been the case in the past, the media has suggested video games, specifically NFSMW, as a motive for the deadly crime.

How about stupidity as a 'motive'?
Maybe they just need to put more clear warnings inside the car... "Warning: Car may cause death if operated by moron."

Spike wrote:

Wait hang on, they collided with the taxi. And the game still managed to stay on the front seat? What, did they have a specially installed seat belt for it or something?

Maybe it was planted there after the crash... the plot thickens.

Anyway, who cares if the game encouraged him to race or not... why not concentrate on the underlying issue of people not being able to control their monkey-see:monkey-do impulses... I usually scoff at the "Don't try this at home!!!" warnings on TV shows with "Yeah as if I'd be that fúcking stupid" ... but you have to wonder...

Guy:Incognito

I was under the influence of games at teh weekend. Best match I ever played, scored a hat-trick, it was clearly becaus eI thought I was Ronaldinho.

Borat_Sagdiyev

Yet another example of how "the greatest county on the planet" does things. If I took my parents car and crashed at high speeds into a taxi, I wouldn't make the courts to get life in prison because I would be hung from the nearest high tree by my balls.

The point is, if I do something wrong, I have to explain myself to my parents, as does everyone here I would imagine. If your explanation is satisfactory, then they'll back you up. But you can be damn sure that if your explanation isn't up to scratch, they'll bate seven differen shades of sh!te out of you - and you'd deserve it.

Cut to america, if a dumbass teenager does something wrong over there, they don't have to explain themselves to the parents, far from it. The parents automatically think "My child couldn't possible have thought of doing this on his/her own, they must have been influenced by some other power. So then its obviously not my fault, and its not their fault either. Oh, they play a certain game that allows you to <drive fast, shoot people, jump from tall buildings onto the ground and survive, pick one> ? Oh my god! Its that awful game's fault. Where's my lawyer's number?"

Class A f***ing Muppets.

Borat_Sagdiyev

As a wise man once said, it's like blaming spoons for Rosie O'Donnell being fat.

Just read that on the above link, absolute classic.

Illuvatar

I'm an american and it doesn't happen that way, I just have better parents and they brought me up right.
But if I was Canadien I would probably want to kill myself as well, especially if I was French Canandien.

DAMN French Canandiens!

ghost26ie

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote:

But its Canada wah tdo you expect?

see it right beside the U.S., we most of this type of s**t happens. you have all dubya's friends down there just love this stuff. it has obviously just bleed on up into canada. all that stuff in the 80's with rock bands like judas priest, some kid commits suicide while listening to their album, its immediately the bad fault. Eminem has the same problem at the moment with a guy who killed his girlfriend the same we as in the song 'stan'.

Smurfpiss

Do any of you guys know what canada is like......?
I'd describe them as conserative liberals. They're all very sensible and like to keep things clean, but when it comes to stuff like banning/blaming video games...well they tend to go protect their rights to free speech etc.
I really doubt this will have any impact.
If it happened in america...that would be a different case.

steviec

Hmmm I'm seeing a lot of people here using this news as an excuse to complain about damn Americans which is no different to jumping on it as a chance to condemn games.

From one of those 'rabid' new articles:

A copy of Need for Speed, a game that allows players to select custom cars and race them through crowded urban areas, was found on the front seat of one of the suspect's cars following the late-night crash. "Here we have, in real life, two guys driving high-end cars at a high rate of speed in an urban area," said Toronto police Det. Paul Lobsinger.

"I don't think it's a giant leap for people to say, 'Wow, how does this go together?' "

You know what? It isn't a giant leap. I own the game and that's an accurate description. The joyriders are being charged with criminal negligence causing death and could get life in prison, so you can't say anyone is shifting the blame. A fact is simply being stated, by the police investigating. If it was a movie or a book that specifically glorified street racing instead of a game on the passenger seat that'd be mentioned in the same way.

It doesn't say much for the gaming community when a man is killed and the first reaction of nearly everyone is to jump to protect their hobby and accusing the media of sensionalizing things etc etc. I haven't read one single media article that has said this case is a direct result of Need for Speed and most have been condemning street racing culture, of which Need for Speed(in its current form) was born in the first place. Articles have just pointed out the game because it was in the car and it very directly simulates exactly what the joyriders were doing when they killed the taxi driver. I don't think that's unreasonable.

I know the games industry has come under attack about all kinds of stupid things in recent times but there's no need to be so defensive about incidents like this.

Dooom

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote:

Officer Thomas "Sarge, we found need for speed underground in the passenger seat, its a fast paced racing game, eh"

Sergeant Ass "Clearly themotive, the boy was playing it and thinking he was in the game decided to race other cars and crash into this taxi for bonus crash points, eh"

Officer Thomas " Or maybe he was at his friends house playing it and was brining it home, or borrowed it, or just bought it, eh?"

Officer Ass " Are you some sort of idiot, my theory is clearly the more accurate, eh."

Considering it's Canada, I thought I'd better edit that. It's a bit more realistic now.

ghost26ie

steviec wrote:

Hmmm I'm seeing a lot of people here using this news as an excuse to complain about damn Americans which is no different to jumping on it as a chance to condemn games.

mainly because stuff like this normally happens in the US. yes there are a few outside US, but a whole lot less the occur there. as i said before they liked to blame rock bands for lots suicides and mass murders, it isnt the fact u can buy on most streets in the country and that must families have several. with them its never the obvious its always something else. i played plenty of these games myself, have never took it to ht street. never joyrided never gone a killin spree in a school, post office or the other favourite, a macdonalds. i've nothing against americans, but sometimes some of them can be a bit to much.

Reku

Borat_Sagdiyev wrote:

Cut to america, if a dumbass teenager does something wrong over there, they don't have to explain themselves to the parents, far from it. The parents automatically think "My child couldn't possible have thought of doing this on his/her own, they must have been influenced by some other power.

I blame the bible belt and TV evangelists, afterall they're the ones always trying to brainwash everyone into thinking that regardless of what happens there's always a higher power behind it!:p

mcgovern

At times like this:

“Computer games don’t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.” (Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989.)

*Goes to beat up some school girls, kill some Strogg and turn into a pile of rocks*

BloodBath

I hate to generalise but tbh the majority of Americans are complete idiots. Here's a country with some of the most liberal gun laws in the world despite having one of the highest murder rates from guns. Do the American people stand up and condem guns and demand tighter control? Oh noes the british might invade us! No they support more liberal gun laws so they can protect themselves from guns with guns. Then when some idiot teen gets his hands on one and kills someone there is always something else to blame. Here's a country that voted George W Bush into power (even though he didnt actually win) and supported him through his endless list of stupid decissions that put the country at risk for his own profits. It's as clear as day. Do you expect outsiders to not think the average American is an idiot?

Anyway I know it's completely off topic and this is related to Canada but I wouldn't worry about it. The media just like to make money. They will sensationalise anything to make it more interesting than it actually is. I just wonder how long it's gonna take for Jack Thompson to jump on this :rolleyes:

steviec

A game that simulates street racing is found in a car involved in a street race. In Canada. When the media say the game may have been an influence thats far-fetched sensationalisation.

Yes, any rational thinker would know the real root of the Canadian street racing problem is American televangelists and liberal gun laws.

BloodBath

You forgot your sarcasm tag stevie. I said it was off topic but tbh how is the game to blame in any way? Illigal street racing was around before NFSU was made. If it had been a copy of the fast and the furious I doubt much would have been said. It's the constant references and suggestions that video games influence what you do in life. The kid shouldn't have been driving the car in the first place. How about pointing the finger at who is really to blame. The kid and the parents. The police are but the media likes to draw attention away from the real problems. It's about time gaming as a whole is viewed the same as any other entertainment market. There have been far more violent and sexually explicit movies than any game yet there is outrage at something stupid like the hot coffee crap in gta san andreas, which is an 18's rated game in the first place. Parent's and the media need to wise up and stop blaming others for their own ignorance.