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

Fox News B.S.

[ExE122]

Maybe if he had played violent videogames, maybe he wouldn't have shot students. Perhaps he would've rather gone after terrorists, demons, or evil mind-controlling aliens.

Jack Thompson is just another idiot on Murdock's payroll who talks out of the part of his body that most people poop from. If he wants to start blaming video games, then he needs to be blaming the media (i.e. himself) as well.

While I do think that violent games desensitize us to some extent, I don't think they are at all the cause of the problem. Seung Hui Cho was just another angry kid, as were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They felt cast aside, rejected, and victimized because they didn't fit in with their peers. So took their anger out on the world around them...

Honestly, I'd think being involved in an online gaming community, no matter how violent the game, would've probably helped. Many people (likely the Jim Thompson type) percieve those addicted online games as being anti-social. Yet from what I've seen, most gamers seem have an elaborate network of online friends. This could've given Cho, Harris, and others a sense of community and a place to "fit in" or at the very least, escape from the world around them.

What I do think is a very real and disturbing issue is that they decided to carry out their anger with automatic weapons and how easily they could obtain them. The reasons behind this have very little to do with video games...

I blame selective journalism

[Opportunist]

Will we now hear the big "no connection to games" story on faux news? Certainly not. We won't hear a thing now. Until the next shooting where someone happens to have some game that's considered violent or at the very least somehow controversal, and bang, we'll be bombarded with "games are bad" pseudoinformation for weeks.

What does the average audience get? That every time there is a report about shootings, games are involved. And the immediate connection is that whenever there's a shooting, games are involved (because you only hear of those where some kind of connection can be made). Result? Consult your imagination.

It's not that the news lie to us. Well, not always. But they do something that's about as bad, they select and skew stories. Everything that fits their agenda gets reported. Everything that goes against it is squelched. And of course, if you only hear that A is bad or B is good, you start to believe that this isn't a selected few cases, but that it's the way it is.

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.

And yes, that should be common sense, and probably is on this board. But where else if not in a thread like this would a "no shit, Sherlock" information fit in?

Perhaps he played too few games

[spyrochaete]

I read many of the documents on the Cho repository last night so I can't recall which had this quote, but one of his former roommates said that it was conspicuous that Cho played no video games at all whereas most university students did. This proves nothing but is a possible argument in favour of video games as a way to relieve stress. Of course, Cho had a very abnormal personality so he's hardly a baseline upon which to formulate opinions of average people.

Aside, these documents are a fascinating read. If you're interested in psychology, security, forensics, or criminology you will find much interesting material here.

Re:the same is true for porn.

[MyLongNickName]

From the same study: "Among those European/Scandinavian societies investigated for any relation between the availability of pornography and rape or sexual assault, again no such correlation could be demonstrated (Kutchinsky, 1985a, 1991). For the countries of Denmark, West Germany and Sweden, the three nations for which ample data were available at the time, Kutchinsky showed that as the amount of pornography increasingly became available, the rate of rapes in these countries either decreased or remained relatively level. According to Kutchinsky, only in the United States did it appear that, in the 1970s and early 1980s as the amount of available pornography increased, did some increase in rape occur (Kutchinsky, 1985a, 1991). But Kutchinsky also noted a change in how rape was recorded which could account for the apparent increase in the American sex crime rate."

So, basically, no correlation. With all due respect, your original claim cannot be backed up. At the same time, there is no reason to believe that porn produces sexual assaults.