In an interview with the Telegraph, New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione has launched an attack on violent video games, saying that kids emulating what they see in console games and in the movies is one of the leading reasons for a rise in knife crime in Australia.
"How can it not affect you if you're a young adolescent growing up in an era where to be violent is almost praiseworthy, where you engage in virtual crime on a daily basis and many of these young people (do) for hours and hours on end," he said.
"That's not going to affect the vast majority but it's only got to affect one or two and what have you got? You've got some potentially really disturbed young person out there who's got access to weapons like knives or is good with the fist, can go out there and almost live that life now in the streets of modern Australia. That's concerning."
"You get rewarded for killing people, raping women, stealing money from prostitutes, driving cars crashing and killing people."
Most people in the comments seem to disagree with him – it always happens when a story like this goes mainstream and I'm sure the Telegraph are loving their new members from around the world – but he contradicts himself and that's the problem. He say's that it's a big issue and then says it wouldn't affect the majority. If the problem is that the vast minority is already twisted, violent video games aren't going to change very much. They'll get their ideas from the internet, TV programs, books or pretty clouds in the sky. They're twisted, that's the point.
Responses from both psychologists with a knowledge of video games and from Australian journalists have been overwhelming, with both groups rubbishing the claims. Editor of IGN Australia Luke Reilly said: "No video game that rewarded players for raping women would ever pass through the Australian Classification Board in a million years, and no video game console manufacturer would allow such a game on their systems."
"It’s an ignorant myth that these games exist on Australian store shelves. They do not. In 2006 this country banned a video game for promoting illegal graffiti.
