Spike TV’s “Murder” Puts Video Game Violence Under Investigation
By Jonathan on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 2:46 PM PST In Gamer Life
It’s ironic that this is the first episode of Spike TV’s “Murder” — where real people try to solve staged re-creations of actual crimes — that I’ve ever watched. So I was mighty surprised to find the role violent video games played in the investigation of one episode involving a young girl murdered in her home. The way the reality show is set up is six people are divided into two teams of three and tasked with recovering and analyzing the evidence of an actual crime in order to solve it. This particular episode involved a young girl being stabbed to death while her family slept. Now, this is the sort of show where you can easily find yourself shouting profanities at your TV screen like a football fan whose team is losing badly. But the part that got me most riled up was when one team automatically began to suspect the girl’s brother as the killer, mostly due the violent video games and comics found in his room. Here are some of my favorite, most ridiculous excerpts:
-”This family’s being interviewed after this girl’s dead, you’re going to tell me that this son’s going to be — doo-doo-doo — playing a video game?”
-”A person who can go back and play a video game can definitely stab his own sister.”
-”I think the father and the son are both jacked up on meth and play video games.”
-”Together.”
On the plus side though, this comes from the team you can tell after the first five minutes has seen way too many movies. Later, they discuss how the knife wounds looked “ritualistic” and begin suspecting the son flew into a violent rage after playing video games (because, you know, pagan rituals and video games totally go hand-in-hand — FYI: Lucifer’s got mad Counter-Strike skills). I started applauding after one person finally said, concerning video games and comic books, “That’s just entertainment.”
Even though the producers of the show probably picked these people based on how they guessed they would react — and most likely edited the show to slant it that way — it’s kind of an interesting pseudo-experiment in how the mere presence of violent video games can influence people’s impression of someone. They took one look at the kid’s room and immediately pegged him as the killer. I won’t give away how it turned out, but I will say I was surprised by the outcome.
I want to know what the actual games found at the scene were though. I mean, were they of the gritty, disturbing variety, like Manhunt; or were they the more borderline fantasy kind, like Quake. Or was it Katamari Damacy? I can’t count the number of times I’ve played that game and then gone straight out to roll of giant balls of random stuff.
You can watch the full episode here, though I should warn you that it does contain a lot of gruesome imagery, though not much more than your average violent video game.
Via Game|Life
Jesus Christ, what a bunch of idiots!
Yay welcome to close minded America! I’ll get the popcorn!
w00t. More anti-video game nonsense.
Hmm, I never saw this show either until now. It’s pretty cool, but bashing video games isn’t.
Man I felt sorry for that Chris guy.
And now this kid, on top of having his sister murdered, is going to live with the blame because a bunch of 2-bit guys playing detective thought his hobbies weren’t normal enough?
Was there a show where we get to hear jurors discuss a court case or something like that? Because the two shows are very similar, people make decisions based on evidence, but importantly based on their own beliefs and impressions, even if they tried to be objective as possible or being unaware of their beliefs. and the fact that they already made their judgement is very stupid, a “self-fulfilling prophecy” if you will.
Is that “gruesome imagery” of the faked up staged murder of the show, or footage of the real murder that inspired the situation the contestants have to solve? ._. I refuse to watch if its the latter.
There are some real pictures, but the only things you see in them are limbs (never a body shot) and some blood on the floor. It’s nothing too serious.
I think that people who blame violent video games for murders are ASSHOLES and pieces of SHIT
What gives people the right to blame violent video games and sue video game companies when idiots go on shooting sprees? 
Here’s a thought 
Blame the killer alone and make the killer take responsibility for his actions. Another thing, playing Manhunt doesn’t mean you’re disturbed. I play Manhunt all the time and I’m not disturbed at all. The idea that the game Manhunt is bad makes me 
Judging by how many smilies you use ….. I think that you may in fact be disturbed.
I hate these arguments that video games or violence on TV or music or whatever causes bad behavior. If a parent doesn’t want their kid to play a violent video game, then the parents shouldn’t let the kid play the violent video game.
This kind of behavior is the fault of the perpetrator and of the parents.
How ironic that a guy who plays manhunt is going mad and doesn’t think he’s disturbed!
Hey I never thought that the video games were the reason, my two idiot costars were doing that. Thanks
Chris from the show