Games Had Nothing To Do With V. Tech Shooting

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that an inquiry into the Virginia Tech shooting in April of this year has revealed no connection whatsoever to videogames. The shooter's lack of interest in violent gaming was widely reported among game news sites at that time in the year, despite the exploration of the idea on cable television news. The official report, filed with the governor of the state, lays that 'motive' to rest. From the article: "The report, which includes a mental health history of the shooter, Seung Hui Cho, notes that during his childhood he had 'played videogames like Sonic the Hedgehog,' yet 'none of the videogames were war games or had violent themes.' This flies in the face of statements made on Fox TV news by Jack Thompson in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, which laid the blame for the incident firmly at the door of videogames."

Comments

*surprise*

[Itchyeyes]

File this one under 'no shit'. Is anyone even remotely surprised by this?

Re:*surprise*

[MoonFog]

Problem is, off course, that this wont be reported in media. Blaming video games is a much more "sexy" headline than "video games NOT to blame". Its a sad state of affairs..

Can we afford such blindness?!?

[SatanicPuppy]

"(he) played videogames (yet) none of the videogames were war games or had violent themes..."

Jesus, he was abnormal. Why didn't anyone notice this obvious deviation from normality in time to stop his brutal rampage?

Seriously. I play violent games so I don't kill people. As games have gotten more violent, violent crime has gone down in the big gamer demographics...Correlation may not equal causation, but it is nicely suggestive.

Re:Can we afford such blindness?!?

[morari]

Because it isn't politically correct to "notice" abnormalities, let alone point them out or properly treat them.

Re:Can we afford such blindness?!?

[Selfbain]

I hate to break it to you but there are a lot of people that are 'abnormal' that don't go around shooting people.

Re:Can we afford such blindness?!?

[nomadic]

Jesus, he was abnormal. Why didn't anyone notice this obvious deviation from normality in time to stop his brutal rampage?

Multiple people noticed. They intervened, he was investigated by the police and committed for mental examination. The people at his school, faculty, staff, and students, knew he was likely to do something violent. They took every legal step they could.

I know it terrifies people, but in the end there weren't any reasonable steps left to stop this guy. This kind of thing has happened before, and will happen again.

wtf people.

[Pojut]

There was one thing and one thing only that caused this horrible event to occur...Cho was a crazy fuck. There is no reason to dip into his past, no need to point the finger at anyone...it was no one's fault. The ONLY thing that could have been done to prevent this is if he were under lock and key in an institution. Short of that, this was going to happen. Why? Because he was a crazy fuck. In the words of Chris Rock, "Whatever happend to crazy? What, people can't just be crazy no more?"

Look. This is past. Cho is dead, the unfortunate people who were in the right place at the wrong time are dead, let their families and friends mourn in peace.

Re:wtf people.

[spyrochaete]

Don't oversimplify by calling him a crazy fuck. Read some of the materials linked in the description. Having read them myself I really pity Cho. He was socially awkward, moved to America from his native Korea, had no friends, and was devastated when his novel was rejected for publication. He voluntarily participated in psychological examinations and various modes of therapy many times. He lost his only confidant when his older sister left for university. He longed to be normal but spent so much time alone that he didn't have the benefit of society correcting his little inappropriate expressions.

I'm not justifying what he did, and of course I empathize much more with the victims and their families, but Cho's story is sad, not infuriating. No human being is "just" anything. If everyone shared that willful ignorance mankind would have no will to learn about its own nature.

pointing the finger in the wrong direction

[Loosifur]

The bottom line is that people go on shooting sprees because they're batshit. But if you want to make a desensitization argument, I'd look at the news, frankly. Look at an hour of CNN or any other cable news outlet. You'll see much more in the way of realistic depictions of violence than from an hour of Battlefield 2, or what have you. Having grown up watching horror movies and playing Mortal Kombat I can tell you that neither of these things prepared me for seeing an actual dead body in real life, and I can safely say that I would have to be off my rocker to look forward to killing someone.

Re:the same is true for porn.

[MyLongNickName]

Care to cite a source on that? Every statistic I have seen shows a zero correlation, not a correlation in either direction.

Re:I blame selective journalism

[Trepalium]

Be careful when you hear a few stories about something. It could be that you get to hear the occasional stray exceptions instead of the rule, because that's what furthers someone's agenda.

It has nothing to do with agendas. The exception is news, the rule is not ("man bites dog is news, dog bites man isn't"). No, what you should be suspect of is self-appointed experts like our friend Jack Thompson here, who use speculation as if it were well established fact in order to further their own personal crusade.

Society has survived Rock and Roll, television, comic books, Heavy Metal, and Rap, which were each charged with corrupting the youth of the world by Luddites. I'm confident that society will survive cellular phones, the Internet and video games just as easily, and that the Luddite's predictions of doom will be just as false in this matter.

What surprises me most is that the people who grew up with comic books and rock music as the boogiemen-du-jour are failing to see the parallels to these new social trends.