Of course going out on a school shooting can be directly related to playing a game which has no guns involved.

Well, hope he turns out alright.

Fuck the media. Right in ear.

Pardon my vernacular.

It was the other kids turn.

Jesus, now they are reaching.

some "friend" he has... Here's my question. Why wasn't this gun locked up and where are the parents? I noticed they didn't mention whether the kids were supervised or not

What age rating is God Of War in the US?

I blame the current administration for this travesty. Whats more likely going to cause this, playing a game with no guns, or the Vice President shooting his friend in the head during leisure time activities...

@robokasey: That's not the point. The point is the game was present. That obviously absolves anyone or anything else of responsibility.

Honestly, even I am getting sick of the tag on of video games to news stories like this. There are several different things that could have happened. I personally had a friend who was shot at this age. The reason wasn't because of any maliciousness or anything like that. Rather they decided to play with the gun of one of the kid's parents. The gun backfired and unfortunately killed one of my best friends.

rather than include the incidental detail of the video game, what should be included in the story are the details that are more directly linked to the cause of the shooting. Had the kid grabbed the gun because he was pissed his friend was beating him at the game, then fair game talking about the game. If, however, they just decided it would be cool to play with the gun and it was an accident (as happened with my friend) then the game likely has very little to do with this story.

unless he chopped of the kids head with a sword that is chained to hie flesh... i don't want to here how it is video game's fault

@Kenji-sama: "Fuck the media."

Agreed. Let's see them tie a gun related death to a video game that doesn't have any guns in it whatsoever.

It's funny, I threw a pie at someone playing Toontown Online, and the media was just as mad.

Must be a pretty intense game if you don't notice someone loading a gun right next to you.

comment

So let me get this straight if you play videogames your going to get shot in the head? I mean what the hell it's just as if they want to point out videogames cause this shooting.

@Rebelphoenix83: I shouldn't be laughing but that just made me laugh my ass off.

@dead_red_eyes: My thoughts exactly. This one should be good.

@HawaiianActor: edit*
hie=his
here=hear

sorry for the double post

Maybe if the boy took huge blades on chains and gouged the other kid's face off... but this just doesn't work.

@dashyt2dafulliz: The idea that violent media leads to aggressive behavior is not so much based on the idea of direct modeling. This was the old theory that guided this research. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, it doesn't work all that well because the behaviors done in real life rarely mimic the behaviors on the screen.

Rather it's that the person watching/playing the violent media is frequently being barrage with aggressive scripts and content. This makes aggressive concepts more readily available in memory (AKA hostile cognition). People with higher levels of hostile cognition are going to be:

1) more likely to interpret other's behavior as spurring from hostile intent,

2) more likely to expect others to respond to their actions with aggression, and

3) more likely to use aggressive behaviors to resolve conflicts.

Of course, this does not mean that you will see such extremem levels of violence from playing one simple video game, and the game play is not the sole contributor to the outcome. There will be many factors that contribute. Frequent violent game play and violent media consumption is just one risk factor. When it is present with other factors (violent/aggressive parents and other models, aggressive personality, etc.) it can lead to such extreme events. But again, to be clear, the game is not the sole factor.

@NeoStarr: That's the thing, it was probably already loaded and sitting next to them. It also probably wasn't the only one. I mean, I don't mean to rag on Texas, as most of the state is quite nice, but c'mon...it's Texas. ;-)

Seriously though, 100% of the blame goes on the parents. Aren't ALL three iterations of God of War rated M also? Why the hell were they even playing it?

As a Texan I find that most Texas shootings are the result of Texans.

How were they both playing this game? It's a one player game, is it not? If that's the case, the shooter likely wasn't even involved with the game, and shot the kid over something else. Likely something teenage and angsty.

Hmm. Being a teen, you'd think I knew something about angst, but I guess not.

I hope the kid will be ok, but this media feeling the need to mention video games like it caused the incident is ridiculous. Soon it will be Picross' fault.

did God of War seriously needed to be mention in that news report at all? Even if they were fighting over who got to play the game, I don't see how the title has any bearing whatsoever...

Wait, what is wrong with this story? They didn't blame the shooting on video games in any way. They didn't even suggest it. They merely mentioned the two were playing 'God of War'. I'd imagine if they were playing basketball at the time, they would have mentioned they were playing basketball.

This crusade among gamers to react against any negative story with any sort of mention of video games is just ridiculous.

Well, what happened is clear! The kid that wasn't playing at the time was obviously inspired by Kratos' pistols (visible only to him) to instantly become a psychopath, magically produce a gun (since he did not carry one around before he played the violent game) and in a flash, shoot his fellow gamer in the head.

Where did he even get a gun?. Why isn't the story asking where the attacker acquired a dangerous weapon?; he can't even be more then 15 years old.

It must be the asshat parents that bought these mature games, the same parents that keeps the guns locked and leaves the key on the kitchen table.

The boys were also inside a house, therefore houses must be the cause.

If we don't stop these houses from harming our children, then chaos and anarchy wins and freedom dies.

Soon the media will be blaming the parents for not keeping those damned videogames safely locked away while the kids are playing with their guns.

So, first thing's first. After about 6 years of nothing but GTA, Call of Duty and Burnout games, you'd think (according to the media and such) that I would violently disturbed and be willing to kill my own classmates/friends. 18 years old and I still feel fine.

The thing that confuses me the most, however, is that this just might turn into something pretty big against videogames when everyone will be ignoring the fact that a 13 year old was able to get his hands on a loaded weapon.

Besides, if they link this to games, without any proof, it's about the same if they were eating pudding before the accident. Would pudding be held as a gun behavior-inducing dessert?

The first time they mentioned them playing a video game when his friend loaded a gun and shot him in the head was understandable because it's being descriptive in showing what was going on. But to put:

"The newspaper said the boys were playing a video game called 'God of War'."

was purposely done to make this about games.

No word of Jack T. yet? This clearly is just two kids fighting over a game and not the game affecting them (hopefully) since there are no guns in this game.

I've never seen that cover art for the game. Sweet Sauce.

@aurahack: Pfft, everyone knows that a gunfight is a completely legitimate answer to an arguement over pudding...EVERYONE.

@DragonSphere: I agree. Even if they were fighting over who got to play, it's the parent's fault for having their LOADED gun within easy access to children. The media can't blame the parents because they are experiencing too much grief, and the game company is standing with their hands up in the air saying "wtf did we do to get mentioned in all this?!?"

It's a sad story at many levels.

I think the main question to ask is where the hell did the kid get the gun from in the first place?

@T3kNi9e:

Right, because this local affiliate is so clever that they want to drum up news about a "game-related" shooting, only they decide to not actually say it was game related in any way, and instead just throw in a veiled insinuation they found in a Marble Falls newspaper to do the legwork.

That's definitely more likely than this just being a poorly constructed story done by some hacks at a local freaking affiliate station.

This is ridiculous.

@Bishmon: Good point. I suppose that, since most forms of news media are so quick to shovel the blame for tragedies on games these days, any mention of the medium in a news report that covers a shooting or other aggressive act causes a knee-jerk reaction amongst gamers to defend our hobby and ridicule the accuser (or in this case, the reporter). This aggression of ours may be giving us a bad name, and may be making it harder for people to trust us and take our word on the issue instead of the popular media.

@Bishmon: There is no need to throw in "God of Wars". Also to put a tagline, "They were playing videogames" automatically will give a misconception to the non-gamers to consider it like a plague.

I have asked before, How did he acquire a gun?. Last time I checked, the pre-order bonus did not come with a NRA license.

Damn that God of War and all of it's violent gun play.

@Taco Bell™: @Bishmon: Both good points, but I'm sorry, if someone's going to purposely attack anything that I'm passionate about, I'm going to react aggressively. I'll do so in a smart and expected way, but best believe it's going to be aggressive.

I would think anyone would/should act similarly when something they love is bashed consistently and unnecessarily. But that's just my personality..and my opinion.

Of course, nooooo one will blame the parents for letting their kids play a Mature rated video game. I blame it all on the parents for letting kids play these games AND having loaded weapons laying around in the house.

But Faux News won't care about that, they'll care about Kratos and his habit of tearing off medusas' heads.

They were also eating cheetos while playing God of War, and it is speculated that the partially hydrogenated corn syrup initiated a chemical imbalance in the gunman's brain causing him to shoot his friend.

Makes about as much sense.

Guns would of made God of War so much easier... Oh wait, its called Devil May Cry.

What were these kids doing playing God Of War in the first place? I had much better taste than that when I was that age.

@Fyren:

Agreed. If it was as innocent as Bishmon seems to think, they could have easily tacked on "the shooter was wearing a blue shirt", but that wouldn't make any sense to the accusors.

@Bishmon: but if it were basketball, they would not have said "they were playing HORSE with a Spalding"
just saying they were playing video games is one thing, but why does it matter which game it was? if they were playing barbie's horse adventure than they would not have said the name of the game at all. that is the problem

Hey, look! Ac actual story about video games and violence from that affiliate!

[www.news8austin.com]

It has a quote from a psychologist that says violent video games could be a tipping point for prideful, competitive, aggressive kids, and those elements may have been at play in the shooting.

They also include a quote from a designer saying it's the adult's responsibility to prevent their child from even reaching that tipping point, and the article point's out the boy's grandmother, his legal guardian, wasn't around.

And the psychologist goes on to say the parent should talk to their kid about what games they play, and keep M-rated games away from them if they think it's inappropriate.

And the article even randomly mentioned that not all video games are bad for kids and that some can even stimulate learning.

This sort of even-handed approach to the tough, controversial, mostly-unstudied subject of video game violence is sure to cause riots at Kotaku.

@anmkevin:

Again, this is a local affiliate. It's not exactly the height of journalism.

Besides, this is irrelevant, because they've actually got a story up now about video game violence, so we can now see that they don't handle the subject in these sort of nefarious insinuations apparently present in the story Kotaku linked.

@Bishmon: Here is the whole story [www.highlandernews.com] They say the whole thing was instigated by the video game. The grandmother had a gun laying out but it was unloaded.

Its curious that almost all gaming violence crime related news are from sony hardware of software...

Lets just disregaurd all the music that was about murder, rape, and over throwing the government, and the books about how to kill a person.

We see a game THAT is the reason!

If I was to kill someone and news reporters were to go in my room, I could have book all over my floor about how to kill a person, music CDs with bands that support violence. But one look at my game collection and THAT is the reason I killed.

I think that the fact they were playing a game is actually worth mentioning in context, but the report could have been handled much better.

If as well as mentioning the title the reported had bothered to include the fact that the game doesn't feature guns and is rated as not being suitable for under-17s, I think it would just have been responsible reporting. As it stands, it's a lazy piece. It stops short of blaming the game, but the offhand reference--and the fact that given the name and context people reading it will expect it to be a gunplay-heavy military shooter--leaves the insidious insinuation in little doubt.

Lazy, lazy journalism.

It's definitely because of that ending to God of War when Kratos shoots Ares in the head with a Beretta 9mm (SPOILER ALERT). Those damn videogames.

Christ. Thank God the kid lived...

The 13 yearold was prob. a spoiled sonofabitch and shot his friend because he prob. wanted to play. Of course though it was the games fault although a gun was laying out.

ugh...they've got another story out.

[www.news8austin.com]

The kids guardian was the grandmother. She was not present when the kids were playing the game.
Where/how the kid got a hold of the gun isn't at all being released.
It's just "experts" saying that video games can lead to violence.

@graddy: u covered it perfectly

If something like this would have happened in the 50's, rock and roll would have been blamed...

If this happened in the 80's metal or movies would have been blamed.
If this happened in the 90's, Rap would have been blamed.
But since this is happening now, video games are to blame.