manhunt taken off the shelves

[graham enzk]

Thursday 29 July 2004 01:20pm


Store withdraws violent video game


Retail chain Dixons has taken the controversial computer game Manhunt off its shelves with immediate effect.

The move came after the parents of a schoolboy murdered by his older friend blamed the violent game for their son's death.

On Wednesday Warren Leblanc, 17, of Braunstone Frith, Leicester, pleaded guilty to the murder of 14-year-old Warren Pakeerah in February this year.

Leblanc had savagely beaten his victim with a claw hammer and stabbed him repeatedly after luring him to a local park.

Leicester Crown Court heard that the defendant had planned to rob Stefan.

However, after the hearing, Stefan's mother and father claimed Leblanc had been obsessed by the game Manhunt in which players score points for violent killings.

A spokeswoman for Dixons said: "We are taking it off the shelves with immediate effect."




so do violent games make people violent?

[Rainbow_brite]

no

[WATCHO!!]

yes

[: : Scott : :]

Stuff like this pisses me off so fucking much.


The murderer deserves to rot, as do his parents for making excuses for their dipshit scumbag offspring.


Millions have played GTA, Res Evil, CS, and watched movies like ITC and Battle Royale. We don't all kill people. What next, are they going to ban violent literature?



Actually I might murder a bishop and blame it on the influence of Chess.

[Rainbow_brite]

u r a seriel killer though

[Rebelius]

Hitler Didn't play computer games!
nor did Jack the Ripper
nor did Ed Gein
or most of the other names that come to mind when you think of Serial Killers.

It's just NOT the computer games

[PeteRoe]

It's all in the mind of the killer.

If that person has it within them to kill i nthe first place then it is there forever. A video game will not, in my opinion at least. will not change that.

People are just needing something to blame and games and movies are easy targets.

[Rebelius]

never mind the fact that people have been killing each other for thousands of years.

or the fact that there's loads of footage of real conflicts on the news all the time.

[Rich]

Jello Biafra - "Why aren't there thousands of murderous Slayer fans?"

[Mike - Indi Rev]

Someone on TV today said something really good about this. Went along the lines of: 'If one person in 50 million kills someone after playing a violent video game then we could go ahead and ban violent video games and have everyone pick flowers all day instead. But then if one person gets so bored of picking flowers that they decide to kill someone then should flower picking be banned?'


All aload of nonsense this censorship malarky and people blaming others for their own actions.

[kj]

i heard that Currys and PC World have also removed this game. Its just taking the piss now. Reminds me of the case against the makers of GTA. Did anyone remember watching that documentary about that? I think the case is still going on.

People need to be responsible for their actions, not place the blame elsewhere. They are completely ignoring the fact that instead of blaming the game they should be trying to understand why he committed the murder and what he was thinking. Is there even any hard facts and evidence that the game was the sole cause?

[A Quatorze]

It pisses me off when people use games, song lyrics and violent films as scapegoats for murder.

I've not played Manhunt but a mate was telling me about it, and it is pretty bad. The objective is solely to kill, and you get more points the more brutal the murder. Unlike GTA the weapons involved in Manhunt include glass shards and plastic bags (!). I know that any normal and balanced person, wouldn't go out on a killing spree after playing the game but there are unstable people out there that could get a hold of an ASDA (is ASDA an acronym?) Price bag a lot easier than a hand gun and it's the fact that you control the character in this realistic looking game that, more than any other game I've known of, glamourises violence.

Young kids can get there hands on these games too easily too, and that' s even more worrying. My mum is a teacher in a primary school, and says violence in the classroom is worse than ever. The realism and fun aspect of killing in this game I think is too extreme. Look how many playground deaths there have been this year.

I just think, from what I've heard, that Manhunt is a step too far. I don't mean to sound like a shrivelled old MP, but encouraging violence in a game, to this degree, is wrong.

[Mike - Indi Rev]

Originally Posted by A Quatorze

Young kids can get there hands on these games too easily....................Look how many playground deaths there have been this year.

Surely kids getting their hands on games with an age restriction should force companies to be stricter, not just outright ban a game. And again, surely if CHILDREN are obtaining and being infuenced by age restricted computer games then I think that would fall under the responsibility of their parents to censor what they view/play, not games retailers.

I do however think it would be a good idea to be alot stricter with selling games to under-18 (or under-16s, whatever the restriction is on the game).


I can't remember hearing that much about playground deaths atall.

[6months of evrything]

Originally Posted by kj

i heard that Currys and PC World have also removed this game.

Im sure that they are all part of the same group, not 100% about Currys but Dixons and PC World are.

[Optimus Dave]

Originally Posted by Rebelius

Hitler Didn't play computer games!
nor did Jack the Ripper

wonder why that was.....? you couldve used recent examples!!

but i agree, playing a computer game doesnt fuck you up to the point that you'll kill. people who do that had issues before playing the game