Ultra-Violent eh?

ONE TIME OFFER! PLAY US AND IF FOUR YEARS YOU'LL BE VIOLENT...ER ULTRA-VIOLENT!! YAY OBJECTIVE JOURNALISM!


Wow. You know I really need to stop saying, "Wow" as if I'm surprised, because people will try to make up anything they want when they write a story with an agenda. Don't know if you've heard about the New York Post's article titled, "COLLEGE KILLER CRAZY FOR VID GAMES." It talks about reasons why Stephen Kazmierczak may have shot a number of his classmates at an Illinois University. Understand me, what happened was tragic, but what the New York Post is trying to do is sick. For the first few paragraphs (and let's be honest, thats further than most Americans get with news stories), it talks about how this man played Counter-Srike, which they describe as an "ultra-violent" video game four years ago. Did you get that? Here, check out this quote directly from the article.

"[Stephen] was obsessed with an ultra-violent video game, dormitory mates said yesterday.

Stephen Kazmierczak, 27, played the wildly popular game Counter-Strike while studying sociology at Northern Illinois University in 2003 and 2004."

HE PLAYED THE GAME FOUR YEARS AGO! This is the first time I've heard of someone insinuating that a game played FOUR YEARS AGO influenced a shooting that took place in the present. Why are people trying to be so hard on gaming? I'm sure this "objective journalist" didn't even try to find out how many other people on campus have played violent video games in the past four years. No, that would be fair and totally go against the agenda of trying to make video games out to be the anti-christ.

Why do people in news hate this medium so much? Why not talk about the violent TV shows or movies he watched. Or, here's a new one, see if he's read any violent books that may have been a requirement for one of his classes, or that he read for leisure. No, heaven forbid a book ever gives anyone the idea of killing someone. Loved the Da Vinci code folks. Seriously, if you want to be fair and balanced, be FAIR and BALANCED. If you want to work for a tabloid and make up angles, do that. Don't mix the two. It's disgusting!

-Jeremy aka Adridius

Update: Here's a link to the article:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02162008/news/nationalnews/college_killer_crazy_for_violent_vid_gam_97871.htm

I wanted to put this up here too because this press release needs to get out.

This just in from Entertainment Consumers Association president Hal Halpin:

"We’d like to extend our condolences to the families, friends and classmates of those who were affected in the school shooting at Northern Illinois University.

Separately, we are disgusted, but no longer shocked, to find that anti-game activists are again rushing to conclusions about what drove Stephen Kazmierczak, the clearly disturbed 27-year-old who police say was responsible for this tragedy, to commit such an act.

Blaming video games for the behavior of the mentally-challenged is vile on many levels. And, as Generations X and Y mature, it is extremely likely that just about all of us have played at least one video game at some point in our lives.

Drawing a parallel between games and violence without any substantive proof is sensationalism for its own sake. This is a sad event, made worse by the irresponsible actions of attention-seekers and the media that has given them a platform for their reckless venom."

I concur.