See, Rock Band is all about bringing people together, not tearing families apart. According to documents filed in LA County Superior Court and reported by TMZ, Teddy's 18-year-old daughter Taja claims that he spent a major portion of December 23rd "stomping, punching, and bashing" she and her older sister. Taja stated that at one point the singer "lifted a Rock Band guitar and threatened to kill person(s) w/ it." I think we can all agree that's not how a Rock Band controller is supposed to be used.

Domestic violence is a terrible thing, and shouldn't be treated lightly, so I don't want to hear anyone in the comments section suggesting the singer should learn how to swing a real guitar instead of screwing around with a plastic one.

'Blackstreet' Singer Accused of Rock Band Attack [TMZ - Thanks Stacy!]

The skippable scene of terrorist atrocities in Modern Warfare 2 first came to light via leaked footage on YouTube early yesterday. News travelled quickly, however, with an AP report dropping yesterday afternoon, distributing the news to just about every news organization on the planet. Word obviously reached Australia, prompting Australian Council on Children and the Media Jane Roberts to call on the Australian Classification Board to reconsider the MA15+ rating the game received, which is the highest rating given games in the country. Reconsideration would effectively ban the game from release. Roberts claims that even with the MA15+ rating, the game would still be readily available to children.

"The consequences of terrorism are just abhorrent in our community and yet here we are with a product that's meant to be passed off as a leisure time activity, actually promoting what most world leaders speak out publicly against."

Do not read on if you wish to avoid Modern Warfare 2 spoilers.

Here's the report regarding the offending scene filed by the Classification Board that accompanied the MA15+ rating decision.

"Several civilians are shot with blood burst bullet wounds; civilian corpses are strewn across the airport floor, often in stylised pools of blood; injured civilians crawl away with lengthy blood trails behind them."

The report goes on to mention that you cannot inflict post mortem damage on the civilians, and that all other missions of the game will result in failure if a civilian is shot.

Activision released a statement to Kotaku yesterday regarding the scene, explaining that it was "meant to evoke the atrocities of terrorism."

Back in Australia the debate rages on, with Nicholas Suzor, spokesman for the lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, using the situation to call for a R18+ rating for games released in the country, while rejecting the idea that a video game could foster terrorism.

"Films often show the villain's perspective and, by doing that, they get across the character's story and the heinous nature of people who carry out atrocities. Games, too, are becoming more expressive, and are telling more involved stories. We may make an argument that these sorts of topics are not suitable for children, but I don't at all accept that it is unsuitable for adults."

The Classification Board cannot review its own decisions, so anyone interested in getting the rating reviewed will have to apply directly to the board.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is slated for Australian release on November 10th.

Outrage as terrorist game lets players massacre civilians [The Sydeny Morning Herald - Thanks Ted!]

A team of U.S. and European researchers found that, even though players spent less time looking at them, ads associated with violence were more memorable than ones not. The test subjects played a racing game (named AdRacer, pictured above) in which the goal was to run over targets on a road course. Ads were displayed as billboards on the roadside. When the targets became pedestrians, running over them spattered blood all over the screen.

Now, the utility of this memory association has its own costs. Namely, what happens to a Dr. Scholl's or a Betty Crocker when they're the hit ad in Manhunt 5. Certainly an advertiser could expect some controversy if not only their brand was associated with a nasty-violent game, but was deliberately (warning: corporate word alert) leveraging the violence for extra (incoming buzzword alert) mindshare.

An Advert for In-Game Violence [MIT Technology Review via Game Politics]

While the show will tap mentally rickety individuals who say regrettable things like "Grand Theft Auto is the worst assault on children since polio," it will also feature illustrative charts and graphs, as seen in this newest preview for Thursday's episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit!

Armed with a handy visual aid in this snippet is Chris Cooney, who drives the point... somewhere with his "Fire Triangle" diagram, complete with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold imagery for maximum scariness.

Can't say that Bullshit!'s one of my favorite shows, as the episodes I've seen haven't left me feeling that much more informed, but this episode should be interesting. Check your local listings and all that.

Bullshit! [Showtime via GameStooge]

The 2007 beating death of Zoe Garcia, 7, was described by prosecutors and law enforcement in Greeley, Colo. as a reenactment of fight moves from the Mortal Kombat series. Roberts and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Heather Trujillo (Garcia's half-sister) were supposed to be babysitting the child. Instead the two kicked, hit and slammed Trujillo's half-sister to the floor. Garcia's aunt and stepmother later said they believed that Roberts made up the Mortal Kombat alibi, and that video game violence was not the issue here.

Trujillo got an 18-year suspended sentence and six years in a youth offender program as part of a plea bargain.

Man in Alleged 'Mortal Kombat' Death Sentenced to 36 Years [Rocky Mountain News, thanks Jason B.]

Police in Waukesha, Wisconsin report that two brothers got into an argument on Sunday over whose turn it was on an unrevealed PlayStation 2 game. The brothers allegedly got into a fist fight, which lead to one brother strangling the other. The one being choked pulled a knife and cut at his assailant's hands, after which the knife changed hands and one stabbed the other in the chest. The stabbing (as opposed to stabbed) brother then fled the scene, walking to the hospital to add frostbitten toes to his list of wounds.

That's an awful lot of fuss over a video game. Damn crazy kids, right?

The brothers are both in their 30's.

Luckily none of the wounds suffered during the incident were life-threatening, so we don't have to feel bad about imagining this same exchange going on between Harry and Lloyd of Dumb and Dumber fame.

Police are recommended charges be brought against the brothers. I am recommending a two-player co-op game and an extra controller. The Christmas spirit is alive and well in Wisconsin, ladies and gentlemen.

Fight Over Video Game Controller Leads to Stabbing [MSNBC]

Roberts and his girlfriend Heather Trujillo, Zoe's half-sister, were both charged in the incident, in which Lamar allegedly acted out moves from the Mortal Kombat series, using the seven-year-old as his opponent. Trujillo was sentenced back in July, receiving an 18-year suspended sentence and six years in a youth offender program as part of a plea bargain.

Roberts had previously plead not-guilty to the charges in August, but has now entered a guilty plea in advance of the scheduled January 12th trial date. Instead he will now be sentenced on January 16th.

Man pleads guilty in 'Mortal Kombat' beating death [Rocky Mountain News]

According to prosectors, Petric, 16 at the time of the shooting, was forbidden to buy Halo 3 by his parents, Mark and Susan Petric. The teen snuck out to purchase the game anyway, and was caught by his parents upon his return. The game was locked up in Mark's lockbox, along with a 9mm handgun.

Mark Petric, a minister at the Life Assembly of God in Wellington, Ohio, testified that soon after on the evening of October 20th, 2007, his son entered the family room with a request.

"Would you guys close your eyes," Daniel Petric asked. "I have a surprise for you."

It was then that Daniel Petric allegedly shot both of his parents in the head, killing his mother instantly. Mark Petric survived due to the timely arrival of his daughter and her husband, who had arrived to watch a Cleveland Indians game.

It's just an amazingly heart-wrenching story, made even more so by the following exchange between father and son related by Mark Petric during testimony:

"Dad, I'm so sorry for what I did to Mom, to you and to the family," Daniel Petric said, according to his father. "I'm so glad you are alive."

"You're my son," Mark Petric responded. "You're my boy."

Lawyers for the accused delivered a brief statement at the opening of the trial, explaining that their client had be under a large amount of stress after being homebound for a year due to a snowboarding accident with nothing to do but watch television and play video games.

I really don't know what to think about this case. The parents were doing what I always suggest parents do, monitoring their son's gameplay and making sure he doesn't play what they don't approve of. Sadly in this case it backfired.

Without knowing more about the family - specifically about Daniel Petric - there's no real way of knowing why this happened. I suspect the boy's lawyers might have a point about being homebound for a year, especially if Daniel was an active teen, as the snowboarding incident seems to suggest.

It's a tragic story that really leaves me with conflicting emotions. On one hand, the fact that a teenager can feel so entitled to something that he'd kill for it worries the hell out of me. At the same time, the fact that the father can forgive him for what he had done is a strong testament to the power of both family and forgiveness. Interpret it how you will.

Daniel Petric killed mother, shot father because they took Halo 3 video game, prosecutors say [Cleveland.com]

Investigators are still trying to determine the initial cause of the violent brawl. As a precaution, earlier today Chongqing city police ordered security inspections of all internet bars and game centers in the area.

Five killed in fight at video-game centre in south-west China [Monsters and Critics via Game Politics]

The judge later said that the video game ban was included in his probation for the teens because he wanted to mirror the sentence imposed in a previous judgment in the case.

A group of teens broke into a house in Edmonton last December, vandalizing the home and then grabbing the family cat and placing it in a microwave. No one tried to remove the cat as it screamed in agony for 10 minutes, according to the newspaper.

On Sept. 4 two other teens who pleaded guilty to killing the cat were sentenced to one-year probation, including bans on playing violent video games. The inclusion of a video game ban, seems to be an unusual measure.

In general, youth court probation orders are meant to promote long-term positive growth in a young person, Easton said, but he declined to comment on what it means to have Alberta judges include video game bans in such judgements.

"The recommendation didn't come from us," he said. "That really is something that you'd have to speak to psychiatrists or psychologists about."

Requests for comment from the medical officials who recommended the original video game ban were not returned Monday.

As disturbing as this case is, it sounds to me that adding a ban on video games serves almost as an excuse for the teens involved. Why probation at all? Often violence towards animals is a predictor of future, more violent acts. There is certainly stronger evidence tying animal cruelty to future criminal behavior than there is tying video game playing to it.

Video game ban in teens' plea deal [Thanks Steve]

The study found that children who played violent video games were more aggressive than those that did not, even taking into account children who were aggressive in the first place. The odd thing is the results were determined not so much through observation, though comments from parents and teachers were taken into account, but rather by asking the children about their own aggression levels.

The three groups of students involved in the testing consisted of 181 Japanese students ages 12 to 15; 1,050 Japanese students aged 13 to 18; and 364 U.S. kids ages 9 to 12, with initial information gathered in three different ways. The U.S. students were asked their three favorite games and how often they played them. The younger Japanese group was polled on how often they played games from specific violent genres, which included adventure...probably one of the least violent genres out there. The final group of older Japanese children were gaged on how often they played versus the violence levels contained within their favorite genres.

See any massive holes in the study so far? How about relying on children for accurate, truthful answers, or the fact that they are assigning violence levels to game genres?

The only way I see we'll ever get a truly accurate report on this subject is to find a child somewhere that they have no exposure to violence in television, the news, the internet, etc., expose that child to violent video games and then see what happens. Unfortunately that child is in the 1950's, and by now is probably a scientist somewhere doing violence studies because the world is a darker, grittier place than he remembers growing up.

To CNN's credit, they do offer an alternative viewpoint in the form of one Dr. Cheryl K. Olson, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and the Media at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Cheryl argues that the label "violent video games" is too vague, and that researchers need a strict definition of said term as well as what constitutes aggressive behavior before any study can truly have merit.

"I think there may well be problems with some kinds of violent games for some kinds of kids," Olson said. "We may find things we should be worried about, but right now we don't know enough."

Violent video games linked to child aggression [CNN - Thanks David!]

The game awards points (for) creating as much as crime and destruction as possible in a city.

That's right, Mail Online. You forgot to mention the cheat code you can only acquire by eating a live baby. I had to do it twice, because I forgot to write it down the first time. Man those babies are filling. I'm getting rather tired of seeing these stories. We need to call for a global ban on stupid children. They're a menace.

Teenager torches cars after watching Grand Theft Auto video game [Mail Online]

"The statistics for knife sales are encouraging but it's still disappointing to find some shops not on board with this issue especially bearing in mind the media coverage on knife crime in recent months...And we're disappointed that the games sellers concerned don't seem to have taken their training on board or recognised the fact that these games are given a high age rating for a reason."

Personally I think the statistics better reflect the public's perceived threat of their children playing with knives versus their children playing violent video games, but I'm known to be a bit biased. I'm just glad that we're all sensible enough to see a headline like this and not associate violent video games with knife violence.

"As for violent video games, I believe they must have a detrimental influence on any children who play them and I would not be at all surprised if there was not a connection with the knife crime issue. Everyone who sells these games must take extra care to ensure they only sell them to those who can legally buy them.

Okay, all of us except for Councillor Michael Leaves, Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Environmental Regulation in Plymouth. Luckily for us, in the UK your importance and influence lessens the longer your title is.

The news is far too cluttered lately with stories about violent video games and knives, so I for one am glad they're starting to combine the two. I look forward to reading about how easily children can get their hands on the materials to make a dirty bomb and Grand Theft Auto in the near future.

Shops Caught Selling Violent Games And Knives To Children [This Is Plymouth]

"She just knew, from playing 'Grand Theft Auto.' She saw on there that when a car rolls over, it can blow up. She knew that could happen to us"

I know, I had to make sure the story was true as well, going so far as to call the story's writer, Craig Wieczorkiewicz, to verify the details. "It's amazing the sort of information that comes out when you ask the right questions," he offered, after I commented on the rarity of such stories.

So yes, the Grand Theft Auto series can easily become the scapegoat for any number of crimes, but it can also inspire heroism in the heart of a preteen girl with an unrealistic grasp on automobile physics. Of course this will be discounted as a freak occurrence by those that choose to believe violent games cause violent children, but for us the story can serve as an example of video games teaching us helpful, if relatively inaccurate things.

Preteen girl helps family escape crashed vehicle [MyWebTimes]

'This game sounds very unsavoury. I hope the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will view this with concern and decide it should not be granted a classification. Without that it cannot be marketed in Britain. What the rest of world does is up to them. We need to ensure that modern and civilized values take priority rather than killing and maiming people.

Beyer goes on to worry that the game will spoil the family-friendly image of Nintendo's console in the same way that Manhunt 2 completely managed not to. By far the most interesting thing about the Mail Online Article is the title, "Parents horrified as most violent video game ever to launch on 'family friendly' Wii", especially when the article doesn't seem to mention other horrified parents whatsoever. Oh well, it's a start.

Parents horrified as most violent video game ever to launch on 'family friendly' Wii [Mail Online]

Witnesses told authorities that Suarez then put the gun down on the kitchen counter and began saying, "This just didn't happen," according to court documents.

This is similar to the incident back in July, where a young boy stabbed his older brother to death for not letting him have his turn at a video game, in both situation and press reaction. Some of the headlines I have seen include:

Family: Game led to teen's murder - BostonHerald.com
Video game linked to fatal shooting in Brockton - The Patriot Ledger

Just don't be surprised if the major news outlets pick this up with accompanying inflammatory anti-video gaming headline.

Video game linked to fatal shooting of 15-year-old [Wicked Local Brockton]

The book is due out next month, but there's lots of information floating around out there on the new study. The articles are quite lengthy all told, but worth browsing if you're interested in the subject.

Shoot-em Up Video Games - The Cause of Greater Anti-social Behaviors in Teens?; Author Reveals "The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games"; Experts State: Do Not Banish - Instead, Manage Violent Video Game Play [Open Education]

Until now, the most-publicized studies came from a small group of experimental psychologists, studying college students playing nonviolent or violent games for 15 minutes. It's debatable whether those studies are relevant to real children, playing self-selected games for their own reasons (not for cash or extra credit!), in social settings, over many years. But media reports and political rhetoric often ignore that distinction.

So how did the Harvard study differ? They polled over 1200 children between two states, asking them about their reasons for playing video games with an eye on how those motivations were different between different subgroups, such as children that showed signs of attention deficit disorder and depression. The findings indicate that many children see video games as a way to work out their aggression in a safe environment, or to help them feel less lonely and isolated. Poor lil guys.

The book, due out in April, also features chapters about parents themselves, as well as one chapter dedicated to explaining why all of the other studies are inaccurate, looking at how other researchers define aggressions, the games used, size of focus groups, etc.

As I said, I don't trust any of these studies at this point, but if you've got a parent worried about your game play habits or hell - even if you are a parent worried about your children's video game playing, nothing is quite as reassuring as having a big book by doctors on your beside table.

Hit the link below for a full interview with author Dr. Cheryl K. Olson at Game Couch!

Interview: Dr. Cheryl K. Olson co-author of Grand Theft Childhood [Game Couch via Game Politics]

First we have Gaston County North Carolina, where three 19 year-olds went on an arson spree, setting fire to eight cars and one vacant home before the police finally stopped the madness. The reason behind the suspects' burning ambitions? Postal 2. No really, Postal 2.

Police say three Gaston County teens—Sean Jones, David Ellington and Paul Jarrell charged with setting eight cars and one vacant home on fire—got the idea from a video game, "Postal 2".

Then a bit closer to (my) home, we have the Lafayette, Georgia arson at a water-sewage treatment plant. Police are saying that the suspects in the case - two 15 year-old boys - are linked to "a group of teens emulating the violent images portrayed in the movie "Fight Club" and a video game, "Tony Hawk's Underground 2." I know what you are thinking. It was only a matter of time before THUG2 made somebody crack.

In the video game, the mission is to complete what is called a "destruction tour." Characters are rewarded bonuses for destroying or stealing objects. The emphasis of the game is depicted as the more destruction created by the player, the more points he will accumulate.

All I can do here is breath a heavy sigh and point towards the geographic area of the United States map these two crimes took place in. We sure grow 'em stupid down here in the South, don't we?

Blame Game: Cops Finger Video Games in Separate Incidents [Game Politics]

Lupe Fiasco - "Little Weapon" Talks About Video Game Violence & Real Life [GamerTag Radio]