Thailand Murder Blamed on GTA, Sales Halted

Here we go again. An 18 year old in Thailand confessed to the robbery and murder of a 54 year old taxi cab driver, claiming he was trying to recreate a scene from the Grand Theft Auto video game.

Distributors of the game in Thailand are now being instructed to remove the game from their shelves indefinitely it would seem. Sales and Marketing Director for New Era Interactive Media, Sakchai Chotikachinda, was quoted saying:

“We are sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games … We are also urging video game arcades to pull the games from service …”

Police explained that the teen exhibited no signs of mental illness and openly took admitted to the crime citing the game as his motive. According to authorities, the boy stated that:

“He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game …”

He then added that it was not his intent to kill the man however he proceeded to do so once he started to fight back. Currently detained until his trial, if found guilty, the teenager faces death by lethal injection.

A Thailand Culture Ministry senior official stated that this latest act of violence should serve as a “wake-up-call”, urging that authorities crack down on video game violence.

Personally, I think that when the time comes, whoever injects him should whisper in his ear right before doing so — saying something like “I saw this in a movie once and I’ve been dying to try it out!”

Afterthought: What do you think? Is this just another case of a deranged teenager, or are games like GTA to blame?

Source: news.yahoo.com

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  • Threeli

    Maybe we should “crack down” on kids differentiating between video game violence and real violence instead of just taking away freedom of speech? Just a thought.

  • Hunter

    So does this mean if I go out, have sex with then have a double suicide with a 15/16 year old girl after stabbing numerous members of her family, but leave a note saying “I wanted to see if I could pull Romeo and Juliet” that the story would never be sold in this country again?

  • common sense

    gta is deffinetly not to blame if this kid saw a horror movie with a serial killer and said “i wonder how easy it is to be a serial killer” i doubt that they would pull all serial killer movies of the shelves gta has just a bad reputation

  • http://www.ripten.com Wade

    Blaming GTA: Because saying “the devil made me do it,” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

    also, @hunter: well played, sir.

  • needtocontrol

    There’s definitely something fishy about this whole thing. The BBC also has this quote from the police captain…

    “He wanted money to play the game. His parents, who work as civil servants, did not have enough money to give him.”

    So um, they’re blaming it on a game he didn’t have apparently. Aside from that, the guy’s obviously a scumbag, no loss there. Anyway, it’s just Thailand, who gives a crap? Not exactly the world’s biggest games market you’d think. Maybe they should look at how much of a paedo paradise the place is before blaming games for anything. Maybe they’ll blame all that on the fake website in GTA. I can see it now, “Gary Glitter admits to playing GTA IV”. :o)