...it looks like the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik admitted he trained using Modern Warfare 2, and he played WoW at one point upwards of 16 hours a day.
He's a thoroughly despicable (and likely insane) person, slaughtering 77 people last summer in Norway, and to be linked with him, however vaguely, is enough to make me want to go take a shower.
Over here, we got the info on him playing wow and war games pretty much the day it happened...no joke. it was in the media right away. I blogged about it back in July when it happened - it was so disgusting how the usual suspects started their anti-gamer campaigns in the media.
Yeah, his character name was Conservative and he was on a 2nd-on-the-server guild, played mage. Blizzard took down the comment threads where he posted when he quit the game.
Sweet Jesus. I can't stand the immediate linkups in the media of "Oh, they played WoW, that explains why he went psychotic and killed a bunch of people" Nobody seems to ever bring up gaming when you hear of any acts of heroism. For example (I can't find the link at the moment) there's the kid who saved his little sister from being attacked by an angry moose by acting like his in-game characters. He taunted the moose (to draw aggro off his little sister so she could get away, then played dead (Hunter's Feign Death). Heroic act attributed DIRECTLY to gameplay in WoW. Psychotic killer happens to play a video game? Definitely a link. WHAT?!
@Hyperious-- It doesn't shock me, not anymore. Certain people will believe what they want to believe, no matter what logic or counter examples you can come up with.
Think about Columbine. I remember the fallout from that on Goth subculture and Vampire: The Masquerade. There were a lot of things that were bad about Columbine, but those two had nothing to do with it.
WoW isn't going to have that much of an impact from this, nor will video game sales in general, but the gamer stereotype will live on.
Over here, we got the info on him playing wow and war games pretty much the day it happened...no joke. it was in the media right away. I blogged about it back in July when it happened - it was so disgusting how the usual suspects started their anti-gamer campaigns in the media.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who dealt with the fallout from the 80's anti-D&D crusades, this just makes me shudder.
DeleteYeah, his character name was Conservative and he was on a 2nd-on-the-server guild, played mage. Blizzard took down the comment threads where he posted when he quit the game.
ReplyDeleteOh joy. And I can just imagine the reaction in his ex-guild when this hit the fan.
DeleteSweet Jesus. I can't stand the immediate linkups in the media of "Oh, they played WoW, that explains why he went psychotic and killed a bunch of people"
ReplyDeleteNobody seems to ever bring up gaming when you hear of any acts of heroism. For example (I can't find the link at the moment) there's the kid who saved his little sister from being attacked by an angry moose by acting like his in-game characters. He taunted the moose (to draw aggro off his little sister so she could get away, then played dead (Hunter's Feign Death).
Heroic act attributed DIRECTLY to gameplay in WoW. Psychotic killer happens to play a video game? Definitely a link. WHAT?!
@Hyperious-- It doesn't shock me, not anymore. Certain people will believe what they want to believe, no matter what logic or counter examples you can come up with.
DeleteThink about Columbine. I remember the fallout from that on Goth subculture and Vampire: The Masquerade. There were a lot of things that were bad about Columbine, but those two had nothing to do with it.
WoW isn't going to have that much of an impact from this, nor will video game sales in general, but the gamer stereotype will live on.