Chinese News Claims 80% of Violent Prisoners Were Gamers

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Chinese News Claims 80% of Violent Prisoners Were Gamers



A report by China's state-run news organization has linked online gaming to drug use, teenage pregnancy, and murder - claiming that as many as 80% of violent criminals turned to crime thanks to their videogames.

Between beating kids to death at internet addiction camps [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96234-China-Imposes-New-Restrictions-on-Online-Games], you might almost be forgiven for wondering if the Chinese government has something against online gaming.

The answer, of course, would be yes - even as regulators crack down on some of the country's most popular online games, the official state-run news channel has aired a program accusing the games of being the root of... pretty much all of society's ills, reports Yahoo! News [http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20091225/tc_pcworld/chinablamesonlinegamesfordrugsmurderteenpregnancy]. A China Central Television (CCTV) program titled "Confession of a Murderer -- Focus on Pornography and Violence in Online Games (Part Two)" that aired last Thursday focused on the confessions of a prisoner at a Beijing juvenile detention facility who says that the murders he committed were out of a desire to obtain phat lewtz in an online game.

"He himself killed five people, and the reason he took the path to crime was addiction to violent online games," claimed the program, further going on to report the dubious-sounding statistic that "up to 80 percent of the violent criminals in the prison turned to crime because of online games." The key phrase there, of course, is "in the prison." Because certainly there's no way that talking about the statistics of one particular prison could ever result in skewed information.

Other CCTV reports have blamed games for a variety of social ills, echoing fears from Chinese parents that the games and social networking sites are interfering with their children's schoolwork - which, to be fair, may be the case. But it's a bit harder to believe some of the other claims, like blaming online dancing game Audition for influencing a 14-year-old girl to start having sex with people she met online.

Then again, considering the slightly-infamous WoW epic mount prostitution [http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/nyc/308349637.html], maybe that one's true, too.

(Via Gamepolitics [http://gamepolitics.com/2009/12/28/china-continues-war-games-news-show])

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Frizzle

New member
Nov 11, 2008
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Man, China could be so helpful to the world if they just quit being so xenophobic in their government. Is it really that bad that other countries have influence in yours? If so, why is McDonalds there?
 

LockeDown

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Sep 27, 2009
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China's just mad because the only games they've turned out have been cheap knockoffs, like Dobi Dobi Star and World of Fight.
 

dalek sec

Leader of the Cult of Skaro
Jul 20, 2008
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Furburt said:
I don't trust the Chinese government on anything else, so I won't trust them on this.
This, I don't trust those bastards when they spew out information like this.
 

Daye.04

Proud Escaperino
Feb 9, 2009
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Well, no wonder 80% of all prisoners are gamers. When it comes to being able to blame it on gaming, 80% of everyone in the entire world is a gamer. Just because you can find a link, doesn't mean it's the reason. But by all means. If the government in China wants to ban games, it's fine by me as long as it doesn't affect me. Although I'm fairly sure it will somehow
 

Icecoldcynic

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Oct 5, 2009
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I don't really think it's that surprising considering how popular gaming is in china along with the rest of asia. It would be like saying 80% of violent criminals in the west have seen a sports game.
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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Booze Zombie said:
Didn't the Nazis say this, only with Jewish people?
As guilty as I feel drawing connections between gamers and holocaust Jews, this wouldn't surprise me.
 

2012 Wont Happen

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Aug 12, 2009
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Disaster Button said:
"Socialist Restrictions"?

Isn't that an oxymoron?
People do lots of things in the name of socialism that are indeed fascistic. See- former Soviet premier Stalin.
 

benbenthegamerman

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May 10, 2009
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Beaten to death... for walking to slow at internet addiction rehab? what the fuck china, what the fuck. Just... what the hell is wrong with you?
 

Swaki

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Apr 15, 2009
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80% of us will commit a murder tonight, i wont tell if you guys don't.
 

Superior Mind

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Feb 9, 2009
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Gotta love statistics. Did you know that 100% of violent criminals are regular users of food? This clearly draws the line between food consumption and violent crime, if we are to stamp out violent crime once and for all food use must be carefully regulated.
 

escapefish

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Nov 9, 2009
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...and not only that
80% of violent prisoners also eat, drink and sleep on regular basis
that should really make you thinking
 

Raptorace18

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Dec 3, 2009
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Come on people this is china we're talking about: the nation that believed they could quadruple their steel production using home made furnaces.