The Blame Game

Tweet

It never fails to make me laugh when people say video games make you violent. As an avid gamer, I can confirm that this is complete hokum. And believe me, I have played some extremely violent games in my time. Manhunt by developers Rockstar, best known for their Grand Theft Auto series, was particularly disturbing simply because it is a game about making a snuff movie. And all Hell broke loose when in 2004, the game was linked to the murder of Stefan Pakeerah. Warren Leblanc lured his friend Stefan to a park and proceeded to batter him with a hammer and then stabbed him to death. And because the police found a copy of Manhunt in Warren's bedroom, that apparently means that video-games are automatically evil! As I said before, I have played Manhunt and while I think the in-game violence is uncalled for and I was unable to finish, it can most certainly NOT be held responsible for Stefan's death. Leblanc clearly had some kind of mental imbalance as the murder was an isolated incident and a sequel to the game was released in 2007. But the franchise most referred to by these scaremongers has to be the aforementioned Grand Theft Auto, a game in which you can perform many different, shall we say, unsociable activities some of which include killing random people on the street, hiring prostitutes, running from the law, blowing stuff up, gang crime and drug dealing. Other good examples include Saints Row, Silent Hill and Call Of Duty. I am a massive Call of Duty fan and play it almost everyday but that doesn't mean that you will find me running around the streets, hurling grenades and shouting 'FRAG OUT', while shooting people in the head. It just won't happen. Because thankfully, the majority of people, can differentiate between real life and fantasy.