Teenager burns peer, blames WoW; WoW incredibly not sued

by Akela Talamasca Dec 21st 2007 at 10:30AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, News items, Opinion, Legal

According to the Beijing News, a teenager was recently hospitalized by another, who set him on fire with gasoline, claiming later to have 'transformed into a Fire Mage' a la World of Warcraft. The author of the referring article has it right: had this occurred in America, Blizzard would have been sued by the victim's parents. Apparently the legal mechanisms for doing this are not (yet) in place in China, so this did not occur.

This is an old, old topic, but since it's come up, I'll throw my 2 cp in. I've always thought it odd that whenever something like this occurs (which is all too frequently), parents and the media are so quick to demonize videogames, yet this behavior has been around since the dawn of mankind itself. Violence in movies is so much more pervasive and visceral than anything you could possibly see in a game, yet movie scenes are very rarely cited as the source of antisocial behavior.

What's the difference? 'Experts' claim that it's the interactive component of games that causes kids to freak out somehow -- that somehow modeling violent behavior engenders a desire to commit similar acts in real life. Yet, if that were true, I'd have gone on a killing spree long ago.

I've been playing videogames since there have been videogames to play. Pong, sure, but also Space War. I've played very nearly every major console system, hundreds of coin-operated stand-ups, and too many LAN parties to count or comfortably remember. I've never even so much as gotten into a fistfight with someone. If videogames were really the pernicious influences they're commonly painted as being, surely I'd have gone off the deep end a long time ago.

No, the true culprit lies squarely in the fact that humans are blame-avoiding machines. No one wants to be held accountable for their actions, if found to have negative repercussions. 'The Devil made me do it' as an excuse, has been around forever. Look at how it works: a kid does something he knows he shouldn't, and when caught, indulges in blaming behavior. The parents, responsible for their child, engage in the same behavior. Guess from whom the child learned it?

I'm a parent myself, and I teach my son consequences, and that it's okay to make mistakes. It's not okay to duck blame to avoid punishment. What's critical is learning from mistakes to avoid repetition. This is the fault to be had in this scenario, not in any external source. Parents, if you want a good society, start at home with your own. And that's one to grow on.

Tags: behavior, blame, breaking, china, fire-mage, pong, space-war, violence, world-of-warcraft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Vort said on 11:28AM 12-21-2007

/agree

Its the responsibility of the parents, not the game.

Don't let games, TV, ect be the baby sitters.

Shinagani said on 12:15PM 12-21-2007

Very well said Akela!

Scopique said on 12:41PM 12-21-2007

Humans aren't BLAME-avoiding machines...they'll cast blame at the drop of a hat. They're RESPONSIBILITY-FOR-THEIR-OWN-ACTIONS avoiding machines.

Sherp of Ahrotahntee said on 4:46PM 12-21-2007

"Violence in movies is so much more pervasive and visceral than anything you could possibly see in a game, yet movie scenes are very rarely cited as the source of antisocial behavior."

Well, not anymore. You don't remember what the news coverage was like when The Matrix came out, do you? People were very concerned that a movie could be both so violent and so popular. That scene where Trinity and Neo take out an entire floor of security guards in slow-mo was replayed over and over.

But it's not news anymore. Eventually, news companies will lose interest in "violent videar-games on the intertubes" and move on.

Matt said on 3:13PM 12-23-2007

i believe that was played over and over on TV due to Columbine...not so much that he movie was popular...

Tuscansalami said on 1:48AM 12-23-2007

Eh, some people are just predisposed towards violence, irrespective of where it stems from the majority of the time. You'll find that they had plenty of other signs in their life that something wasn't quite right well before WoW even came along into the scene.

Besides, the reason that people are so quick to blame video games over something more mainstream like movies is because they want some sort of scapegoat that they couldn't care less about if the industry falls over, because they don't play them. Not their precious entertainment, no way can tv or the movies ever influence anyone. /sarcasm

Jonathan J.B. said on 1:11PM 12-26-2007

I would love to get into a lengthy discussion on this, but instead I'll just say the cold hard truth on the matter:

Whether you want to look at it scientifically or spiritually, there are good people and there are bad people.

There are mentally disturbed people and there are mentally healthy people.

If you are a normal, decent human then you would never burn anyone next to you with gasoline claiming to turn them into a fire mage.

I'm sorry, but even when I was five years old I was watching violent material on television, movies and games... the worst thing I might have ever done was hit my older sister with a stick claiming to have been wielding a light saber. I still knew the difference between right and wrong, on the larger scale that any cognoscente human should. I was never stupid or mentally disturbed enough to light someone on fire or do something that could potentially kill them.

It IS the influence of video games that drives these sick, disturbed people to kill, but it is also TV and movies that drive this fascination as well. Why? because sick, self indulgent people feed the feelings that already exist inside of them. They dwell on these things and want to make them a reality, almost like a fetish. Let's face it, no matter how much anyone wants to deny or hide it, we all have twisted thoughts. We all have an inherit "need" to consume and "take" everything around us. It is the good people that shut out these thoughts. That being said, however, anyone who takes pleasure in the idea of taking something as precious as a good human life should seek mental help.

It isn't entertainment that should be chastised. We shouldn't try to blame these things or the people that create them. There will always be bad people and bad people will always take these forms of entertainment too far. We shouldn't have to censor our human creativity just because there are strange, sick people in the world that would take the ideas too far.

Kes said on 9:01PM 12-26-2007

I have to admit that I do think video games can cause violence... I think you have to play a *lot* though, and especially play games that reinforce evil acts, but I do believe it is possible. It is up to parents to make sure their kids don't play too much, or don't play the worst games. If they have an aggressive child to begin with, they certainly need to pay special attention to what he/she is doing for fun.

And *all* parents need to sit down with their kids and explain right and wrong. I think many parents don't do this because they assume it is too obvious.