Ban all games of violence for children

Publicized incidents (Wikipedia)

Several incidents speculated to be related to video games in recent decades have helped fuel controversy.

On November 22, 1997, thirteen-year-old Noah Wilson died when his friend Yancy stabbed him in the chest with a kitchen knife. The mother of Noah, Andrea Wilson, alleged that her son was stabbed to death because of an obsession with the Midway game Mortal Kombat. She alleged that Yancy S. was so obsessed with the game that he believed himself to be the character Cyrax. This character uses a finishing move which involves getting the opponent in a headlock and stabbing them in the chest. Although Wilson alleged that this was the reason for her son's death, the character Cyrax does not actually perform this move at all. The conclusion of Wilson v. Midway Games, Inc. was, according to the court case report, "Wilson's complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted."[92]

On April 20, 1999, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher in the Columbine High School massacre. The two were allegedly obsessed with the video game Doom. Harris also created WADs for the game, and created a large mod named "Tier" which he called his "life's work". Contrary to certain rumors, however, neither student had made a Doom level mimicking the school's layout and there is no evidence the pair practiced the massacre in Doom.[93]

In April 2000, 16-year-old Spanish teenager José Rabadán Pardo murdered his father, mother and his sister with a katana, proclaiming that he was on an "avenging mission" by Squall Leonhart, the main character of the video game Final Fantasy VIII.[94]
In November 2001, 21-year-old American Shawn Woolley committed suicide after what his mother claimed was an addiction to EverQuest. Woolley's mother stated, "I think the way the game is written is that when you first start playing it, it is fun, and you make great accomplishments. And then the further you get into it, the higher level you get, the longer you have to stay on it to move onward, and then it isn't fun anymore. But by then you're addicted, and you can't leave it."[95]

In February 2003, 16-year-old American Dustin Lynch was charged with aggravated murder and made an insanity defense that he was "obsessed" with Grand Theft Auto III. Long time video game opponent and then-practicing attorney Jack Thompson offered to represent Lynch[96] and later encouraged the father of victim JoLynn Mishne to pass a note to the judge that said "the attorneys had better tell the jury about the violent video game that trained this kid [and] showed him how to kill our daughter, JoLynn. If they don't, I will."[97] Lynch later retracted his insanity plea, and his mother Jerrilyn Thomas commented, "It has nothing to do with video games or Paxil, and my son's no murderer."[98]

On June 7, 2003, 18-year-old American Devin Moore shot and killed two policemen and a dispatcher after grabbing one of the officers' weapons following an arrest for the possession of a stolen vehicle. At trial, the defense claimed that Moore had been inspired by the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.[99]

On June 25, 2003, two American step brothers, Joshua and William Buckner, aged 14 and 16, respectively, used a rifle to fire at vehicles on Interstate 40 in Tennessee, killing a 45-year-old man and wounding a 19-year-old woman. The two shooters told investigators they had been inspired by Grand Theft Auto III.[100]

On February 27, 2004 in Leicester, UK, 17-year-old Warren Leblanc lured 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah into a park and murdered him by stabbing him repeatedly with a claw hammer and knife. Leblanc was reportedly obsessed with Manhunt, although investigation quickly revealed that the killer did not even own a copy of the game. The victim's mother Giselle Pakeerah has been campaigning against violent video games in the UK ever since.[101] The police investigating the case have dismissed any link, as discussed in the relevant articles.[102]

In October 2004, a 41-year-old Chinese man named Qiu Chengwei stabbed 26-year-old Zhu Caoyuan to death over a dispute regarding the sale of a virtual weapon the two had jointly won in the game The Legend of Mir 3.[103]

On December 27, 2004, 13-year-old Xiao Yi committed suicide by jumping from a twenty-four story building in Tianjin, China, as a result of the effects of his addiction, hoping to be "reunited" with his fellow gamers in the afterlife, according to his suicide notes. Prior to his death, he had spent 36 consecutive hours playing Warcraft III.[104][105]

In August 2005, 28-year-old South Korean Lee Seung Seop died after playing StarCraft for 50 hours straight.[106]

In June 2007, 22-year-old Alejandro Garcia from Texas shot and killed his cousin after arguing over whose turn it was to play the game Scarface: The World Is Yours. He pleaded guilty for murder at his trial on April 6, 2011, and will serve 15 to 30 years in prison.[107][108]

In September 2007, a Chinese man in Guangzhou, China, died after playing Internet video games for three consecutive days in an Internet cafe.[109][110]

In September 2007 in Ohio, 16-year-old Daniel Petric snuck out of his bedroom window to purchase the game Halo 3 against the orders of his father, a minister at New Life Assembly of God in Wellington, Ohio, U.S.[111] His parents eventually banned him from the game after he spent up to 18 hours a day with it, and secured it in a lockbox in a closet where the father also kept a 9mm handgun, according to prosecutors.[112] In October 2007, Daniel used his father's key to open the lockbox and remove the gun and the game. He then entered the living room of his house and shot both of them in the head, killing his mother and wounding his father. Petric is sentenced to life in prison without parole, which was later commuted to 23 years in imprisonment.[113] Defense attorneys argued that Petric was influenced by video game addiction, the court dismissed these claims. The judge, James Burge commented that while he thought there was ample evidence the boy knew what he was doing, Burge thought the game had affected him like a drug, saying "I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever."[114]

In December 2007, 17-year-old Lamar Roberts and 16-year-old Heather Trujillo were accused of beating a seven-year-old girl to death. They are said to have been imitating the moves taken from the game Mortal Kombat.[115]

In December 2007, a Russian man was beaten to death over an argument in the MMORPG Lineage II. The man was killed when his guild and a rival one challenged each other to a real-life brawl.[116]

False reports initially claimed that Seung-Hui Cho, the killer in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre was an avid Counter-Strike player. However, police reports said that roommates of Cho had never seen him play any video games.[117] Despite these discoveries, activist Jack Thompson continued to argue that video games were to blame.

In June 2008, four teens allegedly obsessed with Grand Theft Auto IV went on a crime spree after being in New Hyde Park, New York. They first robbed a man, knocking his teeth out and then they stopped a woman driving a black BMW and stole her car and her cigarettes.[118]

On August 2, 2008, Polwat Chinno, a 19-year-old Thai teenager, stabbed a Bangkok taxi driver to death during an attempt to steal the driver's cab in order to obtain money to buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV. A police official said that the teen was trying to copy a similar act in the game. As a consequence, officials ordered the banning of the game itself and later the series, which led its distributor, New Era Interactive Media, to withdraw it, including the aforementioned, then-upcoming installment, from shops across Thailand.[119][120][121]

On October 13, 2008, the disappearance of Brandon Crisp and his subsequent death involving, according to his parents, obsessive playing of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has been referenced in discussions about video game obsession and spawned a report aired by CBC's the fifth estate on video game addiction and Brandon's story titled "Top Gun", subtitled "When a video gaming obsession turns to addiction and tragedy".[122]

In April 2009, a man was charged with murder after shooting a friend during a quarrel over a video game.[123]

In January 2010, 9-year-old Anthony Maldonado was stabbed by relative Alejandro Morales after an argument regarding Maldonado's recently purchased copy of Tony Hawk: Ride and PlayStation 3 console.[124]

In January 2010, Gary Alcock punched, slapped and pinched his partner's 15-month-old daughter in the three weeks leading up to her death before he delivered a fatal blow to the stomach which tore her internal organs because she interrupted him playing his Xbox. She died from internal bleeding after suffering 35 separate injuries including multiple bruises, rib fractures and brain damage, which were comparable to injuries suffered in a car crash. Alcock was jailed for life and must serve at least 21 years.[125][126]

In May 2010, French gamer Julien Barreaux located and stabbed a fellow player who had stabbed Barreaux in the game Counter-Strike. The judge at his trial called him "a menace to society."[127]

On November 29, 2010 in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 16-year-old boy Kendall Anderson bludgeoned his mother to death in her sleep with a claw hammer after she took away his PlayStation.[128][129]

On April 9, 2011 in Alphen Aan Den Rijn, The Netherlands, 24-year-old Tristan van der Vlis opened fire in a shopping mall, releasing more than a hundred bullets with a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, killing 6 people and wounding 17 others, after which he also killed himself.[130] A fair amount of attention was given to the fact that Van Der Vlis had been playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and to the alleged similarities between the events in Alphen a/d Rijn and the controversial "No Russian" mission in the game, where the player can choose to (or choose not to) partake in the killing of a large group of innocent people inside an airport terminal.[131][132]

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik perpetrated the 2011 Norway Attacks, detonating a car bomb in the executive government quarter, and then travelled to a summer camp for teenagers, where he proceeded to stalk and kill a large number of people. 77 people were killed in the attacks, a majority of them being teenagers who were at the summer camp. Hundreds were injured by the car bomb explosion.[133] Anders himself admitted in court that he had deliberately used the 2009 video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to train for the attacks, specifically by practicing his aim using a "holographic aiming device".[134] He stated in his manifest that he had been planning the attacks since 2002.

After the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, initial media reports mis-identified the shooter as Ryan Lanza, the brother of the true perpetrator. After discovering that Ryan had liked Mass Effect on Facebook, an Internet mob immediately attacked the game's Facebook page, labelling the developers "child killers".[135] Once it was discovered that it was his brother, Adam, who had carried out the massacre, initial news stories claimed a link to two video games, Starcraft and Dance Dance Revolution, neither of which are on the more violent end of the spectrum.[136] After a UK tabloid claimed that Lanza had a Call of Duty obsession, this was widely repeated across the Internet.[137] Subsequently, a small town near Sandy Hook organized the collection and burning of video games in exchange for a gift certificate.[138] A recent report by CBS claimed that anonymous law enforcement sources suggested a link to video games, which was later dismissed by the Connecticut police, saying that it was "all speculation".[139]

During the May, 2013 trial of Christopher Harris, an Illinois man accused of murdering a family of 5, the issue of video game violence was raised by the defense. The defense claimed that the family was, in fact murdered by the 14-year-old son and Harris walked in on the mass murder in progress and had to defend himself, killing only the teen in the process. The defense called a research psychologist who testified that the teen's exposure to violent video games, along with an alleged history of social, school and family problems, made him at risk for aggression. However, during cross-examination, the psychologist acknowledge having no clinical license, not having conducted a proper psychological evaluation or psychological autopsy and that research evidence couldn't link video games to violent crimes. The psychologist also asserted that even games such as Pac Man could possibly be considered violent video games. Harris' brother testified against him and forensic evidence linked Harris to the homicides. Also suggesting that self-defense was unlikely, the teen had been hit over 50 times with a tire iron. In referring to the psychologist's testimony, one assistant attorney general was hear to remark "The most offensive testimony I’ve ever heard in my life, I think." The jury did not accept the defense's argument and Harris was convicted of all 5 murders.[140]