Obviously, being in the gaming industry, I have a strong opinion about things like this. Usually when an act of violence happens, like a school shooting, people right away blame the gaming industry as the culprit. Not the bullies who teased the child. Not the lack of preventative attention that should've been given beforehand. No, it's always the games.
So when a site feels the need to draw comparisons of real-life actions to actions seen in a video game, it strikes a nerve with me. This, of course, is nothing new. Society always tries to find something else to blame. Before video games, it was music. But when will it end?
The site, which the headline reads, "Virginia Tech shooter influenced by GTA 5, Battlefield 3, and MW3?" is exactly the type of crap the gaming industry doesn't need.
In the article they say, "This has spark a speculation whether Ross was influenced by the recent burst of video games shooters such as Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. His style of the killing is similar to the upcoming Rockstar’s title Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5)."
It makes me wonder, has Myona.com gotten a behind-the-scenes sneak peek at GTA V? Wow, they must be really important. Secondly, I don't recall a scene in Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3 that has you shoot up a cop and a civilian in the middle of the Virginia Tech campus. But even if they had used GTA IV as an example, they'd still be wrong.
Aside from their lack of past and present participle usage, that inference should be criminal. No where, aside from this article that was probably written just for hits and keywords, have I read anything about GTA V, BF3, or MW3 being an influence in this particular case. So where are these speculations? The site claims "We're not just news". That's right. You're bullsh*t, and I'm calling you out for it.
This is a blatant attempt to stir up some controversy that doesn't exist. Wake up people, and stop writing garbage like this.
Until Myona.com is able to back their theory with some sort of supporting evidence (such as Ross Ashley being in posession of those games) they are just maliciously speculating.
ReplyDeleteI have a a blog where I've been talking about the Virginia Tech shooting at length, but I try to be careful and not become overly speculative or publicly revealing with my theories when I dont have enough hard data to back them.
www,bulldogpi.com
I took a quick look at Myona.com. It seems pretty clear to me that the authors goal is to inflame people, thereby to have them tell their friends and family about Myona.com's opinions and rants (ones which I doubt the author really even has). Why? Simple: So that he gets more hits, more website visits, and a higher premium for those ads on his sight. I would either ignore him, or I would contact the advertisers directly (most have a customer relations department) and inform them that you wont purchase products associated with that site. You can even go a step further, blog about the site, and stress to your readership what's going on, and what kind of advertisers would back such a dirtball? Low and behold, after a couple months the site will either clean up its act or disappear.
ReplyDeletewww.bulldogpi.com