Manhunt has been withdrawn from the Dixons Group shops, and Game after a drug & Manhunt adict (not mention in the linked article, but was in the Metro) mugged someone, saw the blood and got carried away.
What a joke.
[quote][20:18:09] * changes topic to 'another juvenile retard ruins video games for us all in the UK, good going, stupid fucknut… ’
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Games dont create serial killers, games create creativity. It gives another way for a serial killer to kill. It doesn’t make em killers. I think so anyway…
So theres no need for Game, Dixons and all that lot to take Manhunt of the shelves. Infact, im going down to WHS Smiths before they take it out of the shelves and buy it.
DP
[quote]Games dont create serial killers, games create creativity. It gives another way for a serial killer to kill. It doesn’t make em killers. I think so anyway…
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Sounds very much like the parents of the murderer are using the game as some sort of justification. i.e. our son wouldn’t have done that if it hadn’t been for the game. Which is obviously rubbish.
You’re right that games don’t create serial killers, but if I recall (correctly) a couple of years of psychology that I did at university, repeat exposure to violent images will have an effect if you already have a propensity for violence.
Anyway, I could care less if they pull Manhunt off the shelves. Last review I read implied there was very little positive about the game. The killing isn’t a means to an end, rather the end itself (I haven’t played it so, of course, I could be wrong). The one I’m waiting for is GTA: San Andreas. Tongue-in-cheek violence baby, yeah!! ;D
This must be a very big set back for RockStar as the UK is a big market for games, and removing their games from influencial places is a big hit to take financially.
Withdrawing games from Game for being too violent is a load of bullsh**. I bought “State of emergency” which is meant to be an 18 when I was 16! and the guy didn’t even look at me to check my age! So really, if the serial killer bought it from Game, i wouldn’t be surprised.
DP
[quote]This must be a very big set back for RockStar as the UK is a big market for games, and removing their games from influencial places is a big hit to take financially.
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Unfortunately, there’s a couple of games studios who continue to do moronic or morally reprehensible releases and advertising just to chase the buck despite the financial penalties. Plenty of games have been released with stupid pointless nudity (I recall a skateboarding game) or violence (can’t remember one off the top of my head, but I’m talking about completely out-of-place, doesn’t-make-sense-in-the-game violence) which would have made more sales had they just been released as normal games. But, presumably, the studio knew the games were crap anyway and just chased the buck.
Sure there’s a heck of a lot of bright people in the industry, but it’s not as if there aren’t any total f***-wits too. Heck, if there weren’t, then reactionary US senators would have nothing to use as ammo to beat us over the head with! 
And we wouldn’t want them poor senators to have nothing to whinge about, and no excuse for over-zealousness, and end up bored and irrelevant, now would we?
You know, that sounds like a pretty convincing argument FOR withdrawing games from Game to me.
Personally, I have little faith in age restrictions anyway, but if they’re manifestly not working then withdrawal isn’t such a bad idea, seeing as they were only released on the assumption that age restrictions would be adhered to.
re: restrictions, there’s so much foolish/prudish restricting that I think many people think it’s a mockery. I recall being prevented from renting Spitting Image collections (very funny current affairs satire for those of you who aren’t in the UK) because it had a 15 tag and I was only 11. Devalues the whole system. If you’d asked me at the time, I’d have been glad that I didn’t see Aliens (18) until I was quite old (about 16), and maybe would have said I wished I’d waited (!) because even then it scared the crap out of me for ages - but with hindsight, I find I was better served to deal with fear at an early age. Contemporaries of mine who had strict parents are now so scared by the thought of walking through certain parts of London late at night that they can’t even consider risks rationally - whereas others like me who dealt with fear at an earlier age know how much you can get away with :).
PS it is well-established fact that people are strongly affected and guided by their surroundings. The average person growing up in a 1st-world culture certainly can’t blame a game at the age of 17 though - IIRC the experimentally-determined ages where people don’t psychologically distinguish are all less than 10 (or at least pre-adolescence), so unless he was a very slow learner or had a very unusual learning background the general feeling is that he was entirely to blame himself.
But when you get e.g. a 6-year-old re-enacting a violent game literally then there’s a genuine problem, because experimental data suggests in many cases the child really would have simply been “accepting the teaching” of the game (but, of course, you can’t prove that in the general case - as JB pointed out, it’s believed that sometimes it will simply bring to the surface something that was already there.)
[quote]UK? A Big market for games?
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Yes, definitely. Not close to US, but not far off either. Read some trade mags (e.g. MCV for starters) and you’ll soon start to see the figures.
I don’t memorise the sales share for UK, although they are unexpectedly big, but the big surprise for most people is the division of developers.
Approximately 30% of games are US developed, 30% UK, and 30% Japan (all plus/minus a few percent, but always in that order - US, then UK, then Japan, then … rest of the world gets the last 10%). This has been true for years, although I’m pretty sure that within 5 years it will have changed largely becuase of the influx of Asian games companies (long term investments by e.g. Malaysian govt will have started to pay off by then).
NB in case it’s not obvious, UK developers are the only ones outside the US capable of selling directly into the US market without any localization or re-culturization. This would seem a sensible explanation for the disproportionately large output that the UK manages to sustain.
go back to preschool and learn how to spell before posting on these forums.
Right about now a mod will kick in and delete his post. Because it offended me, and im sure it offends alot of other people here too.
Blah, ive seen Alien when I was like 10 (snuck into the ciname), I tell ya, its the funniest thing ive seen since…Ace Ventura.
Manhunt is a pretty graphical game and it sure does give alot of ideas to a “wannabe” killer. But its not its fault that the parents are irresponsible and have never set the boundries in which the child shouldn’t cross. Children dont grow up all happy and wonderful without outside interferance telling them whats socially acceptable and whats not.
DP
You contradict yourself. If we all know that children grow up unhappy irrespective of parental influences then the authors knew that the parents would not necessarily reign the children in, and hence they had a moral responsibilty to do more to prevent such children playing the game ???
Parents are particularly blind to game violence.
I’ve been in GAME where a child of around 10 has handed GTA: Vice City to his mom, and his mom has gone to the checkout. The cashier said ‘Are you sure you want this, it is an 18’, to which the mom replied ‘Yeah sure, whatever’.
I bet the same mom would say no if her kid put a hardcore porn movie in her hand ad asked for it - its a psychological thing about it being ‘a game’. maybe they think the ‘18’ is just a gimmick?
Anyway, the UK case - the guy was 17 when he had the game so its not quite the same thing…
- Dom
I’m not happy with the violence level in games at all. I don’t even think some of it is appropriate even for adults. When you are surrounded constantly all day by images of mutilation and death it’s pretty easy to become accustomed to it and start thinking it’s normal.
Just show Soldier of Fortune 2 to your granny. Go on.
Cas 
[quote]I’m not happy with the violence level in games at all. I don’t even think some of it is appropriate even for adults. When you are surrounded constantly all day by images of mutilation and death it’s pretty easy to become accustomed to it and start thinking it’s normal.
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That’s the point, nice to hear such statements from you.
Btw in Germany this game has been confiscated accross the country just two days ago. Which actually means the police goes to the stores and removes all copies of that game for all systems (consoles & PC & …).
And you know, once upon a time I’d have had a big problem with that, and complained about fascists and freedom etc. Fortunately I am older and wiser now.
Cas
I decided that age restrictions and outright bans were necessary the day I saw GoldenEye running on the N64. That, for me, was the game that finally breached the realism threshold and changed video games from being just a bit of fun into a potentially confusing influence.
The games industry needs to concentrate more on non-violent gaming, as there’s a huge market there waiting to be tapped. I personally think that games like The Sims do so well because they have so little competition - the genre of games that don’t end in death, destruction, mayhem and humiliating failure is an almost completely unexplored area.
I half agree with you there. Because i find it quite relieving to go play Call Of Duty, or Medal Of Honour and take out all the stress on an imaginary character. Its far healthier than getting it out on people. But I agree with you that it has gone a bit too far. And although im not a big fan of “The Sims”, I do appreciate that type of genre.
DP
Turns out the copy of Manhunt was found in the posession of the victim, not the murderer:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=pub&aid=3918
Better luck next time…
[quote]Turns out the copy of Manhunt was found in the posession of the victim, not the murderer:
(…)
Better luck next time…
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The ban and sometimes also confiscation of the Manhunter game in other countries (New Zealand, Germany, …) isnt’ related to the crime in Great Britain which the first poster and you mentioned.