Monday 9 August, 2010

Third and the last time of playing SCMRPG!

I honestly am kind of bored of this game. As I have mentioned last time, everything is so "automatic" that I just have to press buttons and enjoy music playing in the background.

I played the entire game last time so I just decided to play an hour tonight. While I was playing, I thought about two stories that my high school AP Psychology teacher told us:

1. A guy from my hometown (suburbs of DC) was so into the game the Matrix that he once thought he was actually in the game and shot his parents. This was about ten years ago and now he's in jail for the rest of his life.

2. There was a guy who was unable to enjoy his sports life after a major injury, and his church pastor father bought him a game console for him to play so he does not stay home and do nothing. The son then later got into "violent" games (gun shooting, people punching/killing) games that he snuck out to get the new Halo game when it came out. His parents soon found out; however, the son did not really care. One day, the son walked in the living room where his parents were watching TV, and the son shot his dad after saying "Hey dad, I have a surprise for you".

I wonder if there is anyone who was so influenced by SCMRPG! that (s)he started shooting people. The power of media is scary (as I have mentioned before), and I feel like there just HAS to be someone who has been influenced by this game, both mentally and physically. I mean, this game shows teenagers planting bombs in the cafeteria and shooting students around the school campus. I am sure some people have thought about "what if"'s of this - just like what I thought about GTA: SA, did parents sue the game developers for this? I should probably do a research on this..

In this case, what do you think is more likely (and more dangerous) in terms of encouraging similar behavior, a game about the shooting or the shooting itself? I haven't heard about either of those stories your AP Psych teacher told you. Do you have more info?

Yes! For the first story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112800742.html

And the second:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Halo-3-Shot-Parents,news-3153.html

Awesome, thanks!

For the first case, it would seem that the issue was of prior mental illness rather than videogames, tough. Hmmm.