The Oslo bombing and shootings are an undoubted tragedy. But to call Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto anything less than the plagiarised rant of a madman — and even worse — to use it to try and reverse recent R18+ game announcements — is nothing but opportunism and lazy journalism. But sure enough, the Australian Christian Lobby is back at it, and mainstream media is set to debate the link with video games all week.
Moral panic draws eyeballs and it gets clicks. But here’s the reality.
Breivik was yet another 32 year old who played WoW, and happened to use visiting guilds as an excuse when travelling. That’s a seriously tenuous link to games right there. Seriously, he could have said he was a tourist. A student. A Travelling Wilbury. But check out Google News — you’ll see reports saying WoW was part of his “training”. Huh?
More serious is his rant that CoD: Modern Warfare 2 is a “training-simulation than anything else.” As my colleague Mark Serrels said over at Kotaku: right, and Breivik is also completely and utterly insane. You don’t ban alcohol for everybody because it’s tragically the leading cause of death for Australian teenagers. You don’t over react and start banning cosplay (Breivik liked costumes as you can see above), and you don’t over react and start banning games.
Sydney Morning Herald polls fanning hysteria with loaded questions like “Do you think video games should allow people to slaughter innocent civilians?” don’t help, either.
I definitely wouldn’t suggest that we start attacking all right-wing Christians — but there seems to be a stronger link between Breivik and religious fundamentalism than with video games. Yet the far-right Lobby groups are quick to point fingers. Just saying.
Tune into Sunrise on channel 7 tomorrow at around 8am to see Gizmodo’s own Seamus Byrne discuss the subject further. Live stream will be here.
Joel
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:22 PMIt’s simple really:
If you play a shooting game and feel it would be a great idea to go outside and emulate it, you have serious and deep mental illness.
If you have serious and deep mental illness, you’re going to go outside and shoot people anyway. The game had nothing to do with it, you’re either mentally stable or you’re not.
Molokov
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:22 PMHold on, wasn’t Breivik a right-wing, Anti-Muslim Christian? Surely that means we can tie him closer with the ACL (and Jim Wallace) than with video games.
Danny Allen
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:27 PMThat’s kind of what I’m suggesting ‘ ;)
Dan
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:44 PMI’m hoping Seamus Byrne(Kotaku) brings up that fact in his discussion tomorrow.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/07/sunrise-tomorrow-at-8-10am-seamus-and-the-acl-discuss-the-oslo/
Dan
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:32 PMI say based on this we must ban wow and cod in Australia to prevent the same thing happening here. In fact let’s start by using the Internet filter to ban all wow accounts starting right now….
Cham
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 6:56 AMAnd then, in unrelated news, productivity in the IT sector increased by 4000%
Brad
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 9:44 AMno, CoD and WoW had nothing to do with him killing the people, how is it a training program?? your using a controller not a gun. if anything its just someone that is so hyped up that wants revenge on CoD. Just saying those things so that they are banned. It is a stupid idea to ban Call of Duty in Australia, it is not caused by Call of Duty that he did this, he is obviously a complete sociopath that suffers from mental illness so don’t go blaming a game for making him masacre people.
Paddy
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:36 PMI heard Charles Manson liked Pong.
Damn you, Atari, damn you all to hell!
Paddy
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:37 PMHang on a minute,
Atari means “Prepare to Attack”
I think the link is obvious now.
Carl
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:47 PMWhat car did he drive? Perhaps it was his cologne. What was his favourite TV show? What food does he eat? Blame his parents!!!!
Steve
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 7:27 PMI’d say the same thing if he came out looking like a Transformer version of his car. But the most recent pics suggest he was heavily influenced by MW. He even has the SEAL wetsuit and assault rifle add-ons and shit going on.
I’d be the first to say that ‘it wasn’t the games!’ and I’d say this here with regards to WoW too, plus all the other tenuous links in past spree shooters. But none of them have so obviously emulated a game as this psycho.
Troy
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:50 PMI’m a Christian, I love God, and I love violent video games. I know many others that do. I hate that this kind of stuff gets people hating Christians. Its the fundamental religious nuts that are the problem.
“You don’t ban alcohol for everybody because it’s tragically the leading cause of death for Australian teenagers. You don’t over react and start banning Google Maps, you don’t over react and start banning games.”
Very good point, they can’t just get rid of these games because some people are stupid. Its a link that desperation has made.
typedmillepede
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 9:37 AMI’m in exactly the same boat. It’s epically frustrating to see some extremist guy do the things he did and then go hiding in several camps that don’t advocate the same thing at all! No sane Christian would do what he did, and no sane gamer would do what he did.
To then see the media blow it up and then people eat it up happily is very distressing…
Stefan
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 6:55 PM“Sydney Morning Herald polls fanning hysteria with loaded questions like “Do you think video games should allow people to slaughter innocent civilians?” don’t help. ”
Wow they said that… Christ is no one sane in the mass media industry, I thought the SMH were the more unbiased and equal media outlet. Looks like they’re here to get big stories too. -.-
Steve
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 7:01 PMI love games and have been playing them all my life. Would I go out and murder all these people? NO! Because I’m not a right-wing, fundamentalist nutjob.
But then again, I doubt it would have helped that THIS kind of loon played (admittedly violent) videogames.
Scott
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 8:08 PMI heard he likes wear his collar up as well…
poedgirl
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 8:12 PMGood thing Seamus is going to talk about it, we need a sane voice in amongst the idiots.
Bruce
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 8:17 PMI want to put a ban on Microsoft Flight Simulator because it has been used as a training for the 9/11 attacks.
ba!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 1:14 PMand there was that free weekend of ‘Altitude’ last week..
:|
Dan Miller
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 8:34 PMAnything will and could set anyone off. Hell, even watching the Sound of Music could do it. Look forward to watching Seamus talking about it tomorrow on Sunrise.
Scott
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 8:46 PM“even watching the Sound of Music could do it”.
Yep, that’d do it for me.
Tokyo Funk
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 8:43 PMHe also had military training, there is no way that MW2 could train you to shoot a gun properly. Even the most realistic sim (Arma 2) can’t teach you everything.
He also mentions in his manifesto that he believes he can use video games as an excuse for being anti social. So yeah, he’s just a loser who won’t accept that he is mentally insane.
P3t3
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:55 PM“He also mentions in his manifesto that he believes he can use video games as an excuse for being anti social.”
I think that says it right there, he is using computer games as an excuse. Seamus should bring that up that he is a cold calculating pyschopath that is computer games as an excuse for the crimes he has committed.
Richard
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:56 PMReversing the R18 rating will just mean the games will get M15+ ratings in more cases than most. Generally very few games actually get banned.
If anything this is a good reason for the rating IMHO along with some suitably strict laws to police it.
Graeme
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 10:16 PMHave you had a look at the vote link yet? Despite the very leading question it seems not to be going as they probably planned. I wonder why?
Matthew Duff
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 10:33 PMThe media does not really understand what “fundamentalist christian” actually means. A fundamentalist believes in government and civilian respect + loving your neighbors (any one you come into contact with). This dude is just a nut case, the furthest thing from fundamentalist .
Nathan Carter
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:43 PM“I definitely wouldn’t suggest that we start attacking all right-wing Christians — but there seems to be a stronger link between Breivik and religious fundamentalism than with video games. Yet the far-right Lobby groups are quick to point fingers. Just saying.”
I must have missed the part where Jesus declared “Love your neighbour, but massacre his children and his friend’s children.” There’s no “stronger link” between his religion and his motivation than there is with his gaming life. The man is a clinical nutcase. Using CoD to train and World of Warcraft to cover his tracks is about as sensible as this mental patient suggesting that Jesus wanted him to kill the children of liberal leaders because of the Muslims.
Dave
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 12:20 AMMore Photoshop required!
Smileysmoke
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 11:48 AMHe had +10 to fukwit, and level 36 nutjob.
cant blame games for his chosen path in life.
liam
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 11:36 AMLet’s get one thing right it has nothing to do with violent games, he’s a religious nut job plane and simple so if they want to ban anything ban organized religion that’s the root problem
Dude
Friday, July 29, 2011 at 9:06 AMLol…the correlations between and fundamentalist Christianity and his killing spree are shaky at best. If we are going to start banning political or religious practices because of lunatic rampages let’s start with atheism and evolution…aka – Joseph Stalin, Pol Pott, Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, etc. (who were collectively responsible for over 200 million murders)
I am not advocating these kinds of measures…I am merely ridiculing the thinking that murdurers’ associations should be as critically analyzed as story-searching news agencies gave stooped to
liam
Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 10:50 AMwell thanks to organized religion you have had people murdering in the name of there god for a few thousand years. out of all those names you just mentioned how many have killed in the name of evolution or in the name of no god, none because it doesn’t even make sence. they all killed for there own gain its had nothing to do with weather they believed in a god or not
Rebekah Crozier
Monday, August 1, 2011 at 11:45 AMHitler was a christian although which denomination I don’t know.
Dude
Friday, July 29, 2011 at 9:08 AM*gave = have
Stupid...
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 at 7:53 PMThe most stupid thing that we have done now, is that we have succumbed to what exactly Breivik wanted; fear. We fear that if we play these kinds of games or violent games, we would fall on the same level as this asshole called Brevik. We humans are cowards, and we should learn that he was insane and a psychopath. It’s a whole different thing. Don’t worry people, we won’t be defeated by him! I don’t care if he used these games as his “training grounds”, he would have done the shootings/killings anyway!
Ryan
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 at 9:57 PMBreivik killed more than 70 people. This is a tragedy.
The ACL and Sydney Morning Herald use this tragedy to further their own unrelated agendas – the ACL to prevent an R18+ video game rating, the SMH to get more page views and thus more advertising dollars. This is a travesty!
People are dead, a terrorist killed them. Families are mourning the loss of their loved ones right now. The ACL uses the sorrow and horror of this event to further their own agenda.
So on one side we have the planned horrific acts of a man who would seem to be unhinged. On the other we have the planned act of an organisation willing to use whatever means to push their own agenda.
I’m having trouble understanding why we are not calling for a public apology from the ACL and the SMH for perverting this tragedy to their own agendas.