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GTA Blamed for Graffiti
Voodoo Extreme is reporting on a group of Greensburg, PA boys who went on a Graffiti spree and then blamed it on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. From the article: "The boys range in age from 12 to 14 and are charged with institutional vandalism, criminal conspiracy, criminal mischief and desecration of venerated objects." Is it just me or, um, should 12 year olds not be playing GTA?
then the only real solution is a government ban
Oh yea, great idea, cuz the government ban on various drugs has been so successful.
No the real answer would be to stop having stupid children that are influenced by stupid crap and start putting them in jail for crimes they commit rather than allow them to blame games. Its not like the only exposure to grafitti is GTA. Its like commercial advertising, they can't sell you something you don't already want. But they can influence your descision to go with something you may otherwise have passed on. These kids are probably hoodlums with or without GTA.
"We can no longer live as rats... we know too much." -Secret of NIMH
Is there one single reporter out there who is also a gamer? If I was a reporter I would go interview the parents. So, you bought this game for your children? Do you rent adult movies for them too?
New at 10: Parents buy mature and adult video games for their children, then blame the game companies when their kids make mischief.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
"Is it just me or, um, should 12 year olds not be playing GTA? "
Well if the kids are that stupid - what are the chances their parents understand a "mature" rating?
the only real solution is a government ban
Sure, because we all know that there wasn't a drop of alcohol sold or consumed in the US between 1919 and 1933. (Feel free to correct my dates, I didn't thoroughly Google before posting.)
I never thought I'd see anyone on Slashdot saying (loosely translated), "The US government should force more control over our every-day lives. That would make things better." Not that I agree with all the anti-government fanboyism running rampant around here, but it's a well documented fact that such restrictions as you propose, mandated from on high, simply do not work. All it does is put a greater workload on our already insufficient law enforcement departments.
http://publicvoidlife.blogspot.com
It's true that kids can be influenced, but so can everyone. If we want to say that kids cannot be responsible for their actions, fine. Then we must hold the parents responsible. You cannot blame a game that is designed for the 18+ crowd and shouldn't even be sold to minors.
Why do people think they can blame their actions on somthing or someone else? The only thing that made those kids pick up a can of spray paint are their own minds. Even a 12 year old knows graffiti is vandalism and they know it's wrong. Society needs to stop allowing people to scapegoat their actions. We are responsible for the things we do. Were these kids going to jack cars and run people over, maybe grab a flame thrower and torch cars and then get away with it by blaming GTA. Nobody is responsible for their actions anymore, aw jeez McDees made me fat, Smith and Wesson shot my face off while I was cleaning my loaded gun and Jack Daniels made me beat my wife.
piss off
It's not GTA's fault, but I think it's naive to not realize that the media people are exposed to does influence them. Since it's obvious that corporations have no responsibility nor desire whatsoever to maintain any kind of moral standards which might be detrimental to their profitabilty, it's up to others to mediate the development, encouragement and access to questionable content of this nature.
The reason GTA is so popular is because people have a secret desire to be anarchistic. The game gives them an excuse, and makes some, usually those on the bottom rung of the intellect and discipline ladder, emboldened to actually do some of these things in real life.
So what do you do? Blame the crappy kids' crappy parents? IMO, ironically, the parents are probably crappy parents because they too, have been influenced by the media, led to believe they have to work harder and make more money in order to be happy, therefore they spend less time with their kids and don't have a clue what they're doing. It's a vicious cycle, all perpetrated by peoples' overexposure to media.
Ok, so graffiti didn't exist before GTA came out? If it didn't or it wasn't a problem, then they might have a case.
Graffiti has been a problem for decades. To blame it on a game is as ignorant as it is outrageous. I remember when some kid shot up his school and the media was all set to blame that on video games. The problem isn't the games, it's that the world that the games are based on (real-world) sucks.
Murder happens. Vandalism happens. Playing a game that incorporates this and then going out and doing this stuff doesn't make you any less of a murderer or vandal. These kids will most likely get sentenced as is proper in PA law.
The GTA angle is just a sad attempt to push a political agenda (far-right tightwads). I'm tired of conservatives thinking they have the right to tell me and whoever else what I should be able to buy. If they had their way, there wouldn't be any games with a hint of violence.
Where would that leave us? I dunno, puzzle/board/card games, I guess.
Tetris and Solitaire.
Yeah.
Right...
These kids are probably hoodlums with or without GTA.
Agreed. People who want to do bad or dumb things will do them no matter what. There was _plenty_ of graffiti long before Pong hit the market and the alleged warping of America's youth began.
GTA didn't make stupid kids vandalize things.
Beavis And Butthead didn't make stupid kids set their house on fire.
The Program didn't make stupid college kids lie down in the middle of a street and get run over.
Notice the recurring theme, anyone?
they can't sell you something you don't already want
You put very simply what is probably going to end up being one of the best points in this thread. GTA didn't make hoodlums, hoodlums made* GTA.
* No, not the programmers (though I don't know any of them personally), the general population craving the "mature" video games and shelling out big bucks for them.
http://publicvoidlife.blogspot.com
Agreed. Stupid Irresponsible parents breed stupid irresponsible kids who need to be punished realistically.
The legal system in the US is an F'n joke. We've got people facing 15 year sentences for illegal downloading while a rapist serves 2-5 years. Where is the logic in that. Who would you rather have on the street, a Rapist or Software Pirate? The choice is clear, our legal system does not consider common sense punishment.
BTW my common sense punishment for these kids would be to kick thier asses.
But couldn't the same argument be made for adult movies that they will get in the hands of kids, so they should be banned? This line of logic can be continued indefinatly. There are many things in this world that are dangerous to children, parents have to take responsibility, end of story.
Personally I know of a woman who rented and allowed their 8 year old daughter to watch "Saw" now thats some sick twisted stuff. Either way I still wouldn't ban the movie, just really really wish parents would use some common sense, but then again maybe this kid has proved they can handle movies like that well. On the other hand noone knows what the long term effects are. So I guess my argument is circular, all this stuff is tragic, but its not new, and we can't just go around banning things we don't like.
I grew up near Greensburg, they're now putting in the largest Wal-Mart in the world there. Not much to do in the area except go to Westmoreland mall. Kids get quickly bored in that area. I wouldn't say GTA: San Andreas is to blame. I'd say corporate commercialism and liability is.
If there were places for teenagers to hangout, like skateparks, there would be less influence to go out and do stupid things. Any time a teenager brings a gun, drugs, or hurts himself on your property, you lose your property to lawsuits. So no one caters to making fun places to hang out, its nothing but people's houses and stores out there. Maybe its like that everywhere now.
God spoke to me.
could be worst... ever talked with a real graffiti "artist" about their "craft"?
They would have you think that they are the great revolutionaries, fighting the supression of the individual by putting their tag everywhere and thus destroying the mindless uniformity and attacking the collective subconscious or some such.
Now admittedly I like some graffiti.... theres some absolutly beautiful peices of artwork that people have illicitly put up in backalleys on walls. Stunning stuff. Of course thats the stuff that doesn't get washed off, because well, it really does make the place look nice.
If this was what they defended I might be with them, but the vast majority is just a bunch of silly words written in paint marker or scratched into a plexiglass bus window. Crap. Nobody appreciates it but them, it just makes a place look run down and ugly.
"Yah I am a counterculture revolutionary because I can write a word in really funked up letters that nobody can read"
At least these kids if they blame it on GTA, probably wont do it again
Dumbasses.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I was playing Mortal Kombat when I was 12 and still I wasn't thinking on ripping people's head apart off on the street.
Articulos para gente geek: Poleras, linux, libros y mas
Here we go.
[ballmer]
Parenting, Parenting, Parenting, Parenting.
[/ballmer]
Plain and simple. If the kids got the game from one of his friends whose parents purchased it for him, then the other parents involved need to get on their case.
And age doesn't mean a damn thing. I was playing Wolfenstein 3D when I was 12, and for all the screaming and ranting of "concerned" groups, I didn't end up a violent psychotic. You can be mature enough at a young age to grasp such concepts as fantasy and reality without difficulty.
I personally think these tools used GTA to avoid getting in any real trouble themselves. Why take the blame for your own actions when [controversial_game_of_the_week] is there to take it for you? Why bother finding the fault in parental responsibility when you can just sue your problems away?
"Apparently so, but suppose you throw a coin enough times. Suppose one day, it lands on its edge."
GTA: San Andreas sold roughly 2.1 million copies in the first 4 days. Lets say in all there were 10 million copies sold in the US (probably a conservative estimate. I can't seem to find solid numbers, even in take2's financial statements)
Now, if 1% of the copies caused people to shoot another person, that would be 100,000 murderers created by the game since its release at the end of October. A crime spree like that would be front page headlines across the country!
So lets say 0.1% of them became murderers. (We're already below the margin of error for most polls and quite a few research studies) That would be 10,000 people out of ~291million (in July 03). New York City had a population of 8,085,742. Assuming an even distribution, that would be 270 murderers in New York city alone, half of the murders for the year of 2004 (which was the lowest rate for the city since the 60's).
Below 0.1% you're no longer arguing statistical correlation vs. causal relation, you're talking about coincidence. Or in this case, the kids blaming their bad behavior on anything but themselves.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
What about Jet Set Radio (Future)? The entire purpose of that game is to paint graffiti. Not only that, but it was out for more than one console making it much more available. It wasn't rated M, either.
People should also stop assuming that these kids bought the games. They aren't out in the workforce making money. Hell, some kids probably grab their dad's copy and play it until he gets home 3+ hours after they do every weekday.
Jet Set Radio would be a much better scapegoat, but since it isn't M-rated and being targeted by mass-media it would be less likely to get them a win. After all, M games are corrupting society so how could something rated for children compell them to commit crimes?
DeMeH?
I just thought they had dumbass parents who don't give a shit about their children and let them play violent video games and run the streets with weapons and spray-paint.
But now I realize, no one can control these children. At 12, they are so intelligent and powerful that parents are helpless to stop them from doing whatever they want.
FYI, there's a 12-y-o under my roof who watches nothing pg-13 or above (because he's obnoxious enough as it is, that's way). He also doesn't buy spray-paint.
Changa hates change.
Things were so much easier when I was growing up. If I shoplifted a can of spraypaint and desecrated the walls of my school it was because I was a dumbass, not because of playing too much Donkey Kong.
In the past, I've figured that the things that go on in GTA are so severe that rational kids won't do them. Carjacking, murder... if a kid is involved in these things, they were probably a bad seed from the start.
But with vandalism...... Well, let's just say that in my old (28) age, I was shocked and appalled by the inclusion of vandalism as a central (read: featured prominently in TV ads) theme of Tony Hawk's Underground 2. Teenagers might have enough sense not to go bust a cap in the ass of some old guy driving a land barge, but then again they might just tag a shop window or slash somebody's tires, figuring that - since it's the most basic motivator of what to do or not do - they won't get caught.
In the process, THUG2's creators worsen the public's perception of skateboarders, console gamers, and game developers.
Now, does this let kids off the hook, saying that they were told to break the windows out of somebody's car because of GTA3 or THUG2? No, of course not. They're just as guilty as they would be in the absence of those games. But in the context of games marketed towards teens - THUG2 is in fact rated T - game designers need to understand that there really may be societal impacts to the things they release. They have a moral imperative to voluntarily limit themselves in order to protect society.
And the ESRB has a moral imperative to make sure that games which prominently feature property crimes - not just violent crimes or drug crimes - are given the M rating they deserve.
The question should be why didn't the parents teach their child gun safety and responsibility before giving them a gun or having unsecured guns in the house. Many of my relatives had guns when they were teenagers, for hunting and plinking. Their parents made sure that they understood that guns were not toys, how to safely handle firearms, and that they were mature enough to be entrusted with a firearm. None of them ever shot anyone or committed any crimes.
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