Russia Considers Crackdown on Violent Games

[Andy Chalk]

Russia Considers Crackdown on Violent Games

Russia is considering a ban on Manhunt and other violent videogames in the wake of a Moscow shooting that left six people dead.

30-year-old Dmitry Vinogradov killed six of his co-workers at Russian pharmacy chain Rigla last week, reportedly after his romantic advances toward a female colleague were spurned. Rigla reps said Vinogradov had "never shown any signs of psychiatric instability" and he'd also passed checks on his mental health as part of the process licensing him to own firearms, but he had reportedly been drinking for five days prior to the attack and posted a "misanthropic manifesto" on Russian social network vKontakte [http://vk.com/id108446090] just hours before the rampage.

Even so, it soon came to light that Vinogradov was a fan of the infamous Rockstar classic Manhunt [http://www.amazon.com/Manhunt-Playstation-2/dp/B0000A8VBZ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1352759438&sr=8-3&keywords=Manhunt], and that was enough to lead politicians to call for a ban on the game and for stricter controls on all violent videogames. United Russia Deputy Sergei Zheleznyak called on Roskomnadzor (the Federal Surveillance Service for Mass Media and Communications) to ban the game outright, since its availability to children through the internet is against Russian law. Franz Klintsevich, another United Russia Deputy, supported the initiative but went even further, calling for "bloody games in general" to be restricted.

Russia is a little behind the times on this one; Manhunt is one of the most famously controversial videogames of all time, but it's also been kicking around since 2003. But the nation has also spent the last couple of decades grappling with rather more pressing problems than videogame ratings, so while conversations about age-appropriate gaming may seem old hat to most Western gamers, it's one that Russia is yet to have.

Vladimir Burmatov, the First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education, called for an "interdepartmental commission" to supervise the sale of videogames. He also said that violent videogames were a factor in Vinogradov's decision to carry out the attack.

Sources: GamesIndustry [http://english.pravda.ru/news/russia/09-11-2012/122755-violent_computer_games-0/]


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[Shaidz]

The Russian government needs to listen to Movie Bob: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/6101-On-The-Subject-Of-Violence

 

[Albino Boo]

Your think there is going to be debate in Putin's Russia, where have you been for the last 10 years?

 

[The Cheshire]

First: Let's ban violent videogame.

Next: LET'S BOMB DA SHIT OUT OF CHECHNYA.

 

[Shaidz]

Your think there is going to be debate in Putin's Russia, where have you been for the last 10 years?

Hmmm...you have a point -_-"

 

[Tanis]

Stalin didn't play Manhunt and, under his rule, more people were killed than HITLER.

Huh...

 

[sethisjimmy]

Games don't cause violence, this guy was likely attracted to manhunt because he was an already violent minded-person.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Why not ban guns rather than digital media? The government licensed him the means to kill 6 people and it's the fault of a game? I don't understand why civilians need guns nowadays anyway.

 

[Hazmattuxedo2404]

yeh because violent video games are the biggest problems in Russia today. How about they concentrate on being able to feed the people in the country side or I don't know bears lets just blame bears makes about as much sense to me. Get the bears before a guy watches nat geo and mauls a toddler.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Doesn't Russia have a huge skinhead problem right now.

Why is banning Violent video games Russia's number one problem

 

[LazyAza]

Man kills people, clearly socially unstable and mentally unhinged. The cause? pressed buttons on a piece of plastic to make polygons move on a screen for too long. MAKES SENSE!

Blows my mind that these kinds of stories still happen, are these old tired sad politicians still so inept and ignorant that the only way they can "accept" random mass murderings is "oh well clearly modern media is to blame".

I really hope our generation doesn't grow up to blame whatever new form of media exists 20 years from now on some crazy idiot deciding to shoot a bunch of people. Perhaps not allowing crazy idiots access to guns would be a good place to start.

 

[Baresark]

You have to love politicians. I can't help but feel that people overall misunderstand kids. If anyone has ever seen the original Time Machine, the main character goes far far far into the future. There he finds a Utopian society where violence is unheard of and everyone is young and beautiful. Turns out those pesky Morlocks were eating folks, go figure. But there was a part in the original, where the main character is trying to save these people that followed the air raid signal to go down into the caves. And none of them are fighting or trying to save themselves. So he gets attacked and he starts punching and pummeling them. And it was upon seeing this that some of them started fighting back. But there is this peculiar very short scene in there where one of the guys looks at his hand in a strange way as he curls his digits into a fist, as if this never occurred to them.

That is what politicians think about kids. That they are taught via videogames, television and movies, how to be violent. That they never have machinations that involves hurting other kids or people. But that is certainly not the truth at all. Dan Ariely did all kinds of research on the subject. People think that kids start innocent and are taught methodologies of violence as they get older. So kids are perfect, untouched souls and adults are violent creatures that are forced to suppress their monstrous urges. The reality is much different. The reality is that kids are only innocent in that when they are violent, they do not try to suppress or hide it. The vast majority of adults have learned to suppress or hide their violent urges. But those urges have been with them since they started gaining and understanding of the world. I watched my friends 3 year old daughter take a toy sword and batter his 4 year old son across the face until his parents acted to intervene. This is not a special case of an excessively violent child. This is most children. I am not making a case for kids being evil or anything like that. I am not saying that people as a whole are bad, though some certainly are. But to think that a video game has taught someone or influenced someone to be violent is just a delusion.

 

[immortalfrieza]

*Insert Obligatory Russian Reversal Joke Here*

Everybody is always looking for something to blame when some idiot and/or Sociopath does something awful. The truth of the matter is it's not the violent media, the parents, the environment these people grow up in, the weapons, or whatever other B.S. reason that people always blame for these kinds of things,

it's the person that is responsible for their actions, nobody and nothing else.

There are PLENTY of people throughout the world who play and watch violent entertainment, have access to weapons, have horrible neglectful parents and grew up in a crime ridden crappy environment, and yet they DO NOT kill people, in fact some of them are the sweetest, most pacifistic, and most alturistic people that you'd ever meet, just look up some famous people that have changed the world for the better and you'll find some of them.

 

[KeyMaster45]

Yes, a video game caused his rampage. I'm sure it had nothing to do with him drinking for five days straight like a bad Russian stereotype, or that he worked in the mind/soul destroying industry of retail pharmacy, or that he was rejected romantically by someone, or that rambling manifesto he wrote during said period of being a bad Russian stereotype.

What's that? Did I just hear an objection from somebody in the audience?


Are you saying that despite passing the background checks to carry a gun that he was actually a slow boiling pot of crazy? That the thing to finally break his fragile psyche was being rejected by a woman (or man, the article doesn't specify) and that in his downward emotional spiral he drank himself numb to the point that all of his crazy boiled over into a rage post on the internet? That even after that rage post his unquenched anger and drunken haze combined with his well hidden mental instability drove him to the conclusion that there was truly no place for him in this harsh, uncaring world? That, that revelation caused him to pick up a gun and try to take as many of his co-workers with him as he could including the one that spurned his affection, hopefully going out in a bloody blaze of glory that would at the very least allow his miserable life to leave a stain on the tapestry of history?

Mr. Wright, do you have any evidence to prove this preposterous theory?

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

time to pick up the PEGI, is it russia.

Selling Manhunt to children is sick...

 

[tmande2nd]

Why does the media work so hard to avoid saying that some people are just fucked up bastards?

This guy was one of em.

 

[RaNDM G]

Guys gets pissed off and goes on a shooting spree. Sad fact of life, but it happens more often than not. Politicians won't learn how to deal with the problem if they keep thinking media influence is the one constant in these crimes.

 

[DeliciousTruffle]

This person couldn't help their murderous rampage. Video games made him do it.

Say, what's "personal responsibility?"