After Sandy Hook And Virginia Tech, I’m Done With Violent Video Games

I think I am done. I have been an avid gamer since I received my first system—the then-just-released NES—when I was six. From the moment I picked up the light gun and downed my first duck, I was hooked.

For nearly 30 years I have squashed anthropomorphic mushrooms, cleaved zombies, and eviscerated the avatars of faceless gamers from around the world. I have no interest in any of that now. Not after Friday.

By Jeremy Norman

[Snookies12]

Oh look, more Kotaku...

[iamnsuperman]

I hope you read it. It isn't about you and everyone should give up gaming because of a tragic event. It is more about someone's feelings and connections to tragic events

"My decision to give up violent gaming is based upon self-preservation. No longer does a game provide an entertaining release. Instead it simply opens old wounds."

Kotaku is just being the open forum for this guy to write (he isn't from kotaku)

[kingjoker34]

But you cant expect people to actually read articles anymore!

[caseh]

Whats next on his agenda then? '

I'm not going to watch NASCAR/F1 because of one too many highway pile-ups?'

[MmaFan-Qc]

and Hitler was inspired by classical music?

....blame the holocaust on richard wagner.

"I’m Done With Classical Music"

[rainslacker]

If that's the case then he should probably give up on games. I mean if you don't get enjoyment out of it then it defeats the purpose, and I don't begrudge him that. However time does heal old wounds. Taking a break can put things back in perspective.

I personally mourn what happened, just like any tragic event like this, but I also know that it wasn't my doing and put the blame solely where it lays, on the shooter. To that end I'm not going to change my habits when they aren't affecting other people. This guy is no better than a terrorist, and to change our way of life because of his actions is not the way to remain independent and proud. If anything it makes people like him believe that they can achieve something by being complete douche bags.

[Campy da Camper]

HiphopKotaku.

[Dark11]

Vote this site now .. and i hope to see it , get's banned from N4G.

[akaakaaka]

Just look at it..
http://m.youtube.com/#/watc...

If you can't accept the true and don't understand what this video explains, then keep living in your beautiful fantasy world ..

I hope some of you wake up..

[OccludedGamer]

You clearly don't wake up, if you actually believe that then you are suffering from some serious sleep deprevation.

[akaakaaka]

You are the one who is believing something and can't accept the true even if is proved ..
Keep living in you lil fantasy, if ut helps you to sleep fine good for you..

I live the true, I don't believe ..

[Wolfbiker]

You do realize how ridiculous the parallels are you're trying to make right? I'm pretty aware of many conspiracy theories but man this one is a stretch.

[Bigpappy]

This tragic and horrible killing had nothing to do with video games. The happen because a young boy had an odd appearance and maybe found it difficult to fit in with other. His mom made things worse by home schooling him, instead of working with the school to re-introduce him to his classmates in a way that focused on his strengths. They could have tried to explain any oddities in a way that the other can empathize and not thing of him as weird. They would have gotten used to him if it was handled right.

The hapless mom then surrounded him with powerful guns an took him to the shooting range. There is even talk about her threatening to have him committed. Why would people skip over all of this and blame the video games? Game are an outlet from really. They kept him sane for most his life.

[Smokeeye123]

I totally agree, I'm never going to watch any violent movies, shows. Never again play any violent games, or read any violent books. I won't think to listen to any music with violent lyrics.

Seriously though, Newtown was a tragedy, but people get shot every day. Being a little puss and writing articles about how violent media is somehow creating deranged killers is facesmashingly stupid.

[wsoutlaw87]

What happened in newtown is absolutely devastating. I live a few towns over and its just horrible to hear about. I have no thoughts about it when playing video games though. Video games are video games and they dont make me think about real life events. When i shoot someone online im not killing a person im just beating them at the game. For me its just not relatable to real life events, so the tragedy doesnt change anything.

[rainslacker]

Your right, your playing a game, and your beating another person at a game. You, and a vast majority of people, know where that line gets drawn and can make that distinction.

There are those though that don't know where to draw that line(don't know if it's the case here), and end up blurring the line and take those actions in game out to the real world. It's no different than how movies, comics, TV, or any number of stimulates can trigger something in a person to make them go out and do such a horrific thing.

It's not the media in question that is really to blame though. There are usually a myriad of emotional and psychological issues at play in these people, and they go unnoticed or ignored, as was the case here. At some point in time it just became politically incorrect to just call someone a psychopath, and now it has to be blamed on something. It could be that people feel that if they don't have something to blame then they feel they have some sort of accountability, which isn't really the case.

[wsoutlaw87]

I dont believe the game can cause someone who wants to kill, to kill. They were already a serious issue that wasnt caused or triggered by games. I think its more likely that these crazy people were crazy and then enjoyed the violent games. Every generation has had crazy people and tried to blame it on something in society. My comment however was not about the shooter but the author saying that these real life tragedies make him unable to play game.

[Army_of_Darkness]

So I decided to go brain dead.

[MGSmarioPRO]

This is the kind of people i think will suicide tomorrow like what happened in 2000.
Why people relate everything to videogames? Those guys who kill know how to shoot and bad things happened in their life. You know why we don't have that in Europe or other continents? Because we don't sell guns like grocery. Change the rules of your country and don't blame stupid things.

[Sp1d3ynut]

Yes, because gun violence only exists in the U.S.

[caseh]

Primarily it does:

US Deaths due to Firearms 2011: 8755
UK Deaths due to Firearms 2011: 58

You can multiply the UK figure by 5 to factor in population but thats the difference it makes when you remove the right to bare arms.

[Sp1d3ynut]

He said "Europe or other continents", i.e. the rest of the world, dumbass.

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

I have to admit the day I heard about it I couldn't play any shooting games. Made me think of it even more.

3 days later I want to play killzone.

But what I think about sometimes is what about when games start to look very photoreal and it looks like shooting a real person? That might cause real problems in the media.

[FlyGuyHung]

*Puts Mortal Kombat 9 disc in*

[Alos88]

I wish I understood why on earth he's giving up games here. I mean, is he also giving up violent movies? Violent media in general? Because if he isn't, I'm not sure why he's decided to pick on one medium, as if it's the only one that will bring up these memories.

[MNGamer-N]

Sounds like he's been through alot concerning gun violence, I don't blame him for not wanting to open old wounds, that's his choice and I respect that.

But, I hope we don't start blaming video games for this again, how about focusing parenting and mental health issues people have and instilling quality morals into our children.

[TemplarDante]

*reads title*
Cool story bro.
Im looking foward to the Battlefield 4 beta. :)
P.S, Im a qualified Psychologist, these sites/media/Congress/Oprah/Dr Phil and EVERYONE else are overeacting.

Edit: The fact that that dude in the Sandy Hook incident has a crazy Doomsday Prepper mom and an assault rifle and two handguns that they were encouraged to practice with to prepare for the end of the world (tomorrow for unstable people) SURELY had nothing to do with it... *sarcasm*

Bad parenting will never get the blame. The irony.. the guys calling the shots at congress/media today were the potheads doing drugs, engaging in high risk behavior AND socialised the very youth that commit the atrocities. Dont blame videogames, its 9/10 times bad parenting.

EDIT: I was not saying the reaction to the atrocities OR that people are overeacting to it!!!
IM SAYING Videogames taking the rap for it is OVEREACTING.
That kid was socialised ONLY by his mother. He had a physiological condition to not be able to feel physical pain. Without outside contact, one would over time start to experience various dementias. A report said he used to burn himself with a lighter to try and feel human.
That kid was DESPERATLEY trying to get his mothers attention. He needed serious help. She didnt get him the psychological counseling he needed.
Her ignorance, her stupidity, her bad parenting resulted in those poor babies being slaughtered by that madman.

Did a game convince him to do it? Probably not.
But I would guess intrinsic screaming for help his mother didnt heed to was a factor in it.

Dont blame games.
Blame his mother ignoring the signs he needed help so she can be a "prepper".
I mean, wouldnt you get your kid help if you walked in on them burning themselves with a cigerette lighter to try and feel human?
It defies logic that his mother didnt get him help ASAP.

[SeraphimBlade]

Yeah, it's not like this guy had a personal connection to shoot- OH WAIT.

Qualified psychologist? If that's your job, I hope you give your clients a little more attention.

[maniacmayhem]

Overreacting eh? A mentally ill man walks into an elementary school filled with 6 to 7 year olds with an automatic weapon and proceeds to kill children and teachers.

When should we NOT overreact?

You are NOT a qualified psychologist, that I can be sure of. And instead of reading the title how about you read the article. Or is that too psychological for you to do?

[TheNocturnus]

They were semi automatic weapons. 2 Handguns, a Glock and a Sig (not sure of model #'s) and a Bushmaster Ar-15. Learn about guns and why they are not evil and you will be a better person. The blame lies on the shooter, not the tools he used.

[maniacmayhem]

@Nocturnus.

Oh okay, *whew*... That makes me feel a whole lot better knowing that these children weren't murdered by automatic weapons but just with handguns a glock and a Sig, all that with a Bushmaster Ar-15.

"The blame lies on the shooter, not the tools he used."

I love this reasoning, blame the shooter not the tools he used! LMAO!
Such a stupid, ignorant way of thinking. How about we take the tools away from the sick and twisted. Who knows maybe that could work too.

[Grimhammer00]

Yeah....the thing is presenting like this on the news aggregator...most wont read it and just be argumentative at best.

Personally, I think that gaming in violent video games serves to de-stress far more than it does trigger crazies. Make no mistake...these killers are already crazy before gaming may or may not trigger them.

The real issue is the access to guns that are used for war.

[GraveLord]

Good for you Norman!
Enjoy your Super Mario 25 and Just Dance 668.

[josephayal]

video games doesn't make you a killer

[kingmushroom]

kotaku is garbage

[coolasj]

It seems like he's just talking about violent video games. Don't play violent video games.
Little Big Planet, Burnout, Journey. There's a wide range to pick from. But, if he's gonna quit cold, good luck with that.

[BitbyDeath]

Not enough mental institutions in the world...

[lifesanrpg]

Kotaku writes lifetime articles and loosely wraps them into games. Remember that "I knew my divorce was coming because of video games" garbage they posted?

Sadly, I gave them a view on this one. I don't necessarily agree with the author, but to each their own. If that's what he chooses to do then good for him.

[brbobcat]

He'd be better off giving up on humanity.

[Mikefizzled]

Gaming, The easy target for all tragedies. Nothing to do with lax gun laws.

[ginsunuva]

Newtown? More kids are killed in the middle east each day than during that event.
But no one cares about the middle east because they're all a bunch of terrorists so it's okay if those children die.
They're probably laughing at us right now.

[porkChop]

I can understand where he's coming from. He's not saying that violent games caused these tragedies, he's just saying that with all the shootings over the past few years he feels uncomfortable and doesn't enjoy playing these types of games anymore. I respect that.

[jeeves86]

I think that one of the textbook symptoms of depression or PTSD is that things that once brought you joy no longer do so. He might say that he doesn't like violent games anymore and has a really great reason why, with a whole article, but to me, it just reads classic PTSD and depression.

The author has a kid, and I get that's something that hits a little close to home for him and it's perfectly natural to want to keep your family safe from harm. But he's going about it in completely the wrong way. In his own words, he doesn't want to have to tell his son why shooting things on television is okay, but doing it in real life is not. That's kind of his job as a parent, to educate his child in that not everything we see is real, it's make believe, and that there's a BIG DIFFERENCE in what's real and what's not.

Just wait til the kid gets old enough to start watching cartoons with people punching each other, or movies with wild car chases, or, Heaven forbid, shooting one another.

If he's not prepared to have these kind of conversations with his son, he'd better get prepared, because the conversation will happen, one way or the other.

[NirvanaInChains]

We wont miss you so whatever. If this guy is Really writing an article like this then who would want to play a game with him.