Growing up I did enjoy a good video game, as I'm sure many of us did. At a young age I was entertained by pretty much any style or genre of gaming. Back then, anything was fun. As I grew up I played some violent games in my time, but never considered any of it to be realistic. When you play these kinds of games you have to realise that it's not promoting this behaviour, it's simply letting you experience it so you don't have the urge in real life. I guess this worked for me, but not for Anders Behring Breivik, an extremist who killed 85 young people at a youth camp in Oslo, Norway. David Johnstone says "It didn’t take long for reports to claim that violent computer games were found at Breivik’s house. Nor did it take long for some to use this for their political advantage. However, since Breivik has published a 1500 page manifesto detailing all sorts of things, it is worth looking at this to see what he himself says about games." His manifesto details all of the games he played and basically formulates his plan of attack on all of the people he murdered.
Not all murderers are video game junkies, but it does make you consider how much of an influence these games do have on people. To think - without these games, could it have possibly spared the life of 85 people? Obviously he has issues beyond his own self-control, but it is hard not to think that these games pushed his drive over the line to commit the crimes he did. So I think video games are fine if they are in the hands of the right people. But in Anders Behring Breivik's case, maybe it's not such a good idea.
Reference
http://davidjohnstone.net/blog/2011/07/anders-behring-breivik-and-violent-video-games
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8657475/Norway-killings-The-laughing-gunman-who-shot-85-young-victims-one-by-one.html
Accessed on August 18th 2011
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