The Anders Breivik trial for the mass murder of 77 kids last year at a summer camp in Norway just got underway. The trial opened with prosecuters displaying a large image of Brevik's World Of Warcraft Avater. There are suppossedly statements posted by him on WoW forums prior to the mass murders that point to his plans to kill. But one can't help but wonder that in light of the fact that he admits to the murders, and irrefutable direct evidence and wittness testimony proves his guilt, that the government is using the WoW image as an opener to somehow impune his predisposition to murder as evidenced by his participation in ,"Violent Video Games". Not that old assertion again...  I wonder if the prosecution played games as children with toy guns, watched James Bond movies, played with toy soldiers? Why aren't they also killers? Are we to assume that 12 million WoW players are now deadly time bombs of death? I am an old guy, retired military. I will tell you some things you don't hear about games. They keep your mind young and quick. They keep you in touch with what young people think about the world around them. They keep your reflexes nimble. They entertain. I have a friend, also a vet, who suffered some cognitive problems as a result of an explosion, and his doctor "RECOMMENDED" video games as a type of therapy to make his mind work. Stand by for incoming.

He is insane and living in a crazy dreamworld. He believes he is one of the leaders of a new order and some organization that only exists in his head. People like that are dangerous. But it makes no difference if they play video games or whatever they do.

If the government acts only based on "I was playing WoW and i felt like killing  in RL" then they (the gov) need some replacement. That murderer could have been a baseball player for example, and think taht he would want to know what it feels like hitting a head instead of a ball.... He is just a psycho, he massively murdered alll these peeps so he should be dead by now, not in jail nor dealing with government that is looking to justify WoW for the incident, and much less he shouldnt be in a mental psychiatry facility. Period

" Live by the sword, die by the sword "

I've been playing heavy FPS since 1999 (Unreal Tournament Series, Quake Series, Battlefield Series, Call of Duty Series etc). I probably have well over 1,000,000 player kills under my belt. However, I wouldn't harm a single hair on anyone's head IRL.

People who go off the deep end are either mental to being with or have been experiencing a huge variety of negatives their entire life.

Originally posted by rojo6934

If the government acts only based on "I was playing WoW and i felt like killing  in RL" then they (the gov) need some replacement. That murderer could have been a baseball player for example, and think taht he would want to know what it feels like hitting a head instead of a ball.... He is just a psycho, he massively murdered alll these peeps so he should be dead by now, not in jail nor dealing with government that is looking to justify WoW for the incident, and much less he shouldnt be in a mental psychiatry facility. Period

 

" Live by the sword, die by the sword "

Different organizations and people are using him and his crazy crimes as an excuse and blame it on things that are in no way related to the crimes. Such as WoW or games in general. Clearly because they never liked "violent computer games". And now they think they have a golden opputunity to do something about that.

IMO, taking advantage of a tragical event like that for political reasons is morally wrong. And people doing it are not much better than Breivik himself.

well, Anders said, he was playing WoW for about a year 24x7. so he lived in this virtual world more than in RL, at least for a certain time. and his actions or behavior in this virtual world are of relevance.

he also said, that he used the game Modern Warfare in order to practice how to kill lots of people as fast as possible. this is of relevance, too. i saw the speech this morning live on TV. my understandning was not, that the prosecutor said: WoW makes killers. video games have been just a big part of his perverse dreamworld he was living in. when the judge asked the prosecutor, if Wow is a killergame, he said someting like  "not really, even if violence is possible".  

but i am afraid, that at the end the press will write: WoW makes killers, like all games including Hello Kitty Online do. and they will unfortunately find politicians listening to them even if they understood nothing. but they do everything in order to become re-elected.

but i doubt at least here in in Germany our politicians will start any attack against the internet at this point of time. the new party "The Pirates" is already at 13%, which is earthshattering if this holds until next years federal elections. it could become a roadblock in our parliament for the established parties. so they will avoid everything, which leads to more people voting for the pirates, because free internet is one of the only clear things, this new party stands for.

He is insane and real life for him is also a virtual world. And I believe he was insane long before he ever played a computer game. Its possible playing computer games made his psycotic problems worse. But I dont think so.

This man was involved in criminal activity, selling fake diplomas, before he started playing WoW. WoW didn't cause him to be a bad person, he was clearly one already. None of this has a single thing to do with games. It's about a dilusional lunatic who was headed down the wrong road long before he ever logged on to an ingame avatar.

i've been following the trial a bit, and can't believe i missed that, no one is making reports on it anyway, if there was a picture it was probably just to give context to what he wrote on the forums, no one in this trial is saying anything like "wow did it", not even considered, and atleast not even mentioned in any articles by the norwegian newspapers.

Edit 1:

Found one article about it, that he played wow a year as a header, but the article didn't even touch it, was just a attention header.

Originally posted by blood87

i've been following the trial a bit, and can't believe i missed that, no one is making reports on it anyway, if there was a picture it was probably just to give context to what he wrote on the forums, no one in this trial is saying anything like "wow did it", not even considered, and atleast not even mentioned in any articles by the norwegian newspapers.

 

Edit 1:

Found one article about it, that he played wow a year as a header, but the article didn't even touch it, was just a attention header.

My source was a msn story I read yesterday entitled,"Trial Opens With Image of WoW Avater Displayed". You can probably google it with that. It is that caption that got my attention to begin with. Perhaps the spin is from the writer or msn. It is what it is. Make what you will of it.

More then a few articles here in the UK. A couple in the Telegraph and in one of them they  describe WoW as "a virtual world where 10.3 million players attempt to achieve the position of "Justicar" " which apparently was the title this man used ingame.  Many people could care less about that title and many don't care about titles at all. I don't play WoW for some long time now, so I'm not defending the game.  But I think  it's sad to even bring it up like it will explain anything or people will say ah ha! no wonder! No video game caused or encouraged him do these terrible things. They have also stated this will be elaborated on further on in the trial.

Playing WoW probably didn't really help him getting out of the hole that he was in: living in a dirty room with his parents after failing at multiple jobs and businesses. At his age that is frustrating to say the least. At some point he must have flipped and became 100% convinced of his illusions and building on them.

It's a recurring issue: angry males (often without a girlfriend / wife / kids) with a sense of perceived injustice wanting to get back at society / school / family / etc.

DUUDE I JUST GOT 76 KILLING BLOWS IN WOW

NEXT WEEK AT BAND CAMP IMA BEAT IT

Dont kid your selves its all the video game genre's fault! 

The number of times I have seen people threaten to commit a massacre online would drive the human race to extinction if they were all acted upon. 

I remember a girl in the dorm room a few doors down from me in university had parents caught in the middle of a civil war and lost contact with them for a while. What I remember taking from watching her struggles to stay aloof from all the hatred tearing apart her homeland was that hate is a black hole that can suck normal, compassionate, intelligent people down into it.  It also drove home to me how amazing it is that we have these huge societies that *don't* routinely break down into civil war.

So when I look at toy factional violence, whether in sports leagues, Olympics, video game PvP or the eternal flamewars of Star Trek-vs-Star Wars, I don't see it as training for hate, I see it as innoculation against hate, a way for people to experience and understand all the emotions that can lead to a divided and warring society, to be able to recognize the symptoms of being manipulated into hating.

Originally posted by mmoDAD

I've been playing heavy FPS since 1999 (Unreal Tournament Series, Quake Series, Battlefield Series, Call of Duty Series etc). I probably have well over 1,000,000 player kills under my belt. However, I wouldn't harm a single hair on anyone's head IRL.

People who go off the deep end are either mental to being with or have been experiencing a huge variety of negatives their entire life.

That may be true, and I'm not saying gaming motivates killing.

But I see FPS gamers take it a step further and do events in real life with those small plastic bullets rifles, eating real army food, buy everything that fits in those activities such as rifles, pistols and stuff like that.

I always said someday, one of those guys in a frustrated mood will bring a real rifle and start shooting people. Cause they feel strong with that rifle, even if it isn't real. And I don't think it's hard to get a real rifle. You just need some money.

Not saying that gaming could be motivating shooting. But weird enough, some of those gamers truly have a passion for weapons. And you don't have a passion for firearms if you don't secretly have a passion to shoot someone one day.