back to article Online gamer murders rival clan member

A 33-year-old Russian gamer from the city of Ufa was killed by a member of a rival online clan after virtual violence provoked a fatal real-life scrap, Russia Today reports. The victim, named only as Albert, was a member of the "Platanium" clan in the unreported game (possibly Lineage II). His group was mostly made up of …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Title required

    These people would have serious problems without games... sad when they give JT et al more "evidence"

  2. TheHempKnight
    Pirate

    Obviously...

    someone seems to think that respawn is possible in the non-virtual world too...

  3. Steven

    Daily Mail

    Oh dear, is it time for this again?

    Once more for those who are too thick to realise it:- GAMES DON'T KILL PEOPLE, crazy people kill people.

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Huw Jenkins
    Coat

    Nothing worse...

    ...than being camped...

    They should be ashamed of themselves!

  6. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Stop

    @ Steven

    Is the article blaming computer games? I don't see that being raised here; but pot, kettle & black sprang to mind when reading the word "thick" in your post.

    Why does the guy who commited the murder have to be "crazy" as you put it? Truth is you don't know what his state of mind was, or what his motivations were - so until you do eh...

  7. paul

    @ Gavin

    I think you find that games do not in fact actually kill people.

    I agree that guns do kill people but this is due to the fact that they fire bits of lead at the spead of sound.

    but games on the other hand are not exactly classed as a weapon that can be used to kill.

    hehe

    but seriously i would say that a vast majority of the world play computer games now days and watch violent films but its still remains a fraction of people who feel the need to kill.

    I beleive that games contribute in no way to a persons real world actions.

    if you cant dertermine whats right and wrong then i dont think quitting gaming would prevent you from wanting to kill someone.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Gavin Taylor

    Don't be an idiot.

    They arranged to meet in real life, to have this fight. Both of them are (or were) idiots. The influence of the game is moot. Should we ban every form of human contact "just in case" two people don't get on ?

    If someone went on a killing campaign (of random strangers) after playing a game you might be able to say the game had an effect, but when 2 participants in the same game decide to meet, the game is irrelevant regarding the future actions of the pair. Unless they both had BFGs of course !

    Besides which, experience in playing frogger helps one to cross the road these days :p

  9. Neural9
    Paris Hilton

    @ Aristotle & Gavin

    Yes, crazy people kill people. Regardless of someones state of mind, you have to be pretty f**ked up to kill another human being. So yeah, in my mind, crazy people kill people. if you'd like to tell me otherwise, I might just watch the Stranglehold advert and come round and shoot your ass, John Woo style. Don't worry though, I'm a perfectly sane person, I just have an issue with my state of mind today.

    Paris angle for the belief that there is any sanity left in a person that kills another person.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Huh?

    RE[Oh dear, is it time for this again?

    Once more for those who are too thick to realise it:- GAMES DON'T KILL PEOPLE, crazy people kill people.]

    No your wrong, Its GAMES DONT KILL PEOPLE, Crazy kids whos retarded parents buy them adult rated games do.

    See the twist? Games for adults are fine they shouldnt be banned and blamed for anything, This is the thing though, So many people buy/make avalible these adult rated games to kids and even infants its a joke (yes my brother in law thinks its ok for my nephew(6) to play CS:S) It makes them think guns are ok, that knifes are ok, that killing someone is ok, thats what needs to be tackled enforcing the ratings on the games and educating people that an 18 rated game means 18, Not blaming us gamers and taking away our games.

    We had Sonic and Mario when I was younger, not Quake 4

    But I do eat a lot of pizza, and like gold rings......Ill get my coat

  11. Liam Johnson

    @Gavin Taylor

    Perhaps I am misjudging you, but you seem to be implying that if games do ever prove to be dangerous, then it would be correct to ban them. You similarly seem to be all for the bad on guns.

    You seem very keep to jump all over the “Guns don’t kill people argument”, but seem to entirely miss the point by saying “They help”. All sort of tools get used for killing people – are you intending to ban everything? What about self defense??? Any form of self defense naturally has to teach violent attack so the students can learn the defense, so we better ban that too right? What about jogging?? Being fit will make you a better fighter, it also makes you better at running from the police. Let’s ban that too.

    Maybe you should go and see a doctor about your paranoia. You seem to be under the impression that if everything and everybody gets banned, then you will be safe from the monsters under your bed.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Paul :games do not in fact actually kill people.

    Dunno about this, some people get pretty vigorous with those Wii controllers....

  13. Sam
    Coat

    Guns don't kill people

    ..bullets do!

    The Kevlar, thanks.

  14. Louis
    Coat

    "games don't kill people..."

    If we were affected by games we played then the over 30's would have spent a large amount of time in darkened rooms listening to repetitive music and munching pills...

    oh, wait a minute...

  15. Mike Moyle
    Thumb Down

    Re: Huh?

    "See the twist? Games for adults are fine they shouldnt be banned and blamed for anything, This is the thing though, So many people buy/make avalible these adult rated games to kids and even infants its a joke (yes my brother in law thinks its ok for my nephew(6) to play CS:S) It makes them think guns are ok, that knifes are ok, that killing someone is ok, thats what needs to be tackled enforcing the ratings on the games and educating people that an 18 rated game means 18, Not blaming us gamers and taking away our games."

    Possibly true, but irrelevant: 22 y.o. assailant, 33 y.o. vic.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @ Paul

    ***"I beleive that games contribute in no way to a persons real world actions."***

    And I can assure you that that statement is 100% false.

    While not quite in the same league as murder, I have seen plenty of cases of driving games influencing driving on real, public, roads. While your average Ned won't go out and kill someone (deliberately) after playing Manhunt, he *is* more likely to jump in his Vauxhall Corsa, drive like a complete arse (more so than usual) after playing Need for Speed, and kill or injure someone that way.

    Its actually quite profitable going out with a speed camera when a film featuring some decent car chases has been showing at the local cinema ;-)

    And, while a sober, sane, person can play violent games without the need to go out and kill, someone who has necked several pints tends to have a poorer grip on reality and less inhibitions. It doesn't take much to imagine the thrill of administering a virtual kicking spilling over into an alcohol fogged mind and resulting in someone getting a *real* kicking.

  17. Juillen
    Dead Vulture

    Ponder the statistics..

    Alcohol is a major factor in a large number of fatalities per year (approx 8000). A sizeable number are deaths caused by violence, where the aggressor is extremely drunk.

    There were over 400 cases of causing Death by Dangerous Driving in the last 12 months.. And they barely rate more than a blip in the local paper.

    Deaths by assault for no discernable reason than kids on the street enjoy kicking people and running amok are no small figure, yet everyone forgets in a few days (apart from the families).

    Yet one gamer kills one other gamer when nobody can absolutely guarantee it was due to an in game falling out, and it's major news.

    Long and short of it: There are some extremely unpleasant and ever so nutty people out there. Try to "Understand" them as much as you like; they'll still be extremely nasty and unsavoury by choice. Many of them play games. Many don't.

    Don't blame what someone does for entertainment. Blame the person who does the act. No excuses, no attempts to explain it away.

  18. Gabor Laszlo
    Coat

    @ Louis

    Thanks, I was just about to post the same joke. Truth be told, I still regard packing a suitcase as a Tetris exercise. I do think that killing people is bad form though, you can usually sneak by them or incapacitate them. Call me Garret :D

  19. Morely Dotes
    Flame

    @ Gavin Taylor

    "I bet you also spout the 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' argument too... I think you'll find that the gun often helps. :)"

    Non sequitur. Guns do nothing whatsoever without human control. they don't aim, they don't load themselves, they don't release their own safeties, they don't plan to be fired, nor do they do anything else.

    And since, in addition to guns, people are killed with cricket bats, kitchen knives, common household chemicals, automobiles, ropes, medicines, pipes, hammers, wrenches, random bits of lumbar, rocks, and literally thousands of other common objects found everywhere in the world, it is obvious that, using your logic, the only way once can avoid being killed is to commit suicide.

    Which is why I think you're a brainless git.

  20. Phil

    @Paul

    Not sure what I think of this. A few years ago I would have agreed with you 100% but since then I spent a few years helping run a youth club for 11 to 15year olds.

    During that time I witnessed various kids copying exactly what they'd seen on TV and in some video games (such as whacking someone with a folded chair, while imitating what they saw a wrestler do)

    This wasn't limited to one group of kids or one incident. As a rule though it tended to be the kids that couldn't say more than two words without using the F word, the same kids that seemed to show zero respect for the people running the club (or anyone else). Obviously that shows it's their parents/upbringing thats the real root of the problem, but around half the kids fell into this bracket, and they did seem to be influenced.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Games don't kill people

    Except for the olympic games ... look what happened to Pheidippides at the first olympic marathon.

  22. Owen Carter
    Flame

    The difference between guns hammers cars and games

    As usual the 'You don't blame cars/drink etc.. for all the deaths they cause' mob are out.

    Well, I do, but at least they have a genuine positive benefit too; Make a list of these (such as getting you places, or helping you to forget about the crap some people believe).

    Now consider Handguns, Assault Rifles, Combat Knives, Samurai Swords, and the vast array of other -pure weapons- out there. Please list some real uses for these, apart from hurting people.

    If you can't tell the difference between these two lists, you are not really thinking clearly; Notice how guns and knives used by people with a need (farmers, sportsmen, cooks and builders etc..) focus on function, not menace and concealability. Why are you so keen to defend things that have no other use than massaging the egos of violent losers? Are you an arms dealer? Since they are the only group who derive benefit from this culture.

    People kill People, often because they have a gun and think it's the same as winning the argument.

  23. Bounty
    Coat

    Games don't kill people

    "GAMES DON'T KILL PEOPLE" see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm Apparently in Korea, they do.

    Nukes, hammers, guns, alcohol, water. I'm guessing intent is what's important here.

  24. Timothy
    Joke

    Games don't kill people @paul

    I imagine you could bludgeon to death someone with an Autocad box or even Sim City 3000 box. Break up a CD or DVD, and you now have a sharp instrument.

    Games *can* kill people ;-)

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stranglehold the MMO

    Suck my bullets Chinchenko said boris as he pumped 14 rounds into his assailant whilst attempting a 'slo-mo' twist through the air.

    Oh wrong thread...damn!

  26. Josh

    Re: Obviously

    You mean respawn doesn't happen in real life?

  27. Steve Roper
    Coat

    No respawn in real life?

    Well, according to the Buddhists, you do respawn IRL. You just lose your Spells, Special Abilities, any Items, treasure and XP you've collected, and return to Level 1 when you respawn!

    Mine's the orange tie-dyed caftan with the joss sticks in the pockets.

  28. Mark

    Tribalism

    Anyone think it may be just plain old tribalism, the same thing that has been going on since prehistoric times, ok games and clans in the game may be the excuse this time, but football teams were a good excuse 20 odd years ago. My village is better than your village etc, seems you'll always get some idiots who seem to want to form a group and identity in that group, and some of them use it for violence.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    well

    according to given popularist theory among the government daily mail readers and other t----rs

    I should be

    raping children (I like a bit of the delicious flat chest anime characters I like big breasts too but variety is the spice of life)

    raping and murdering woman (I like a bit of the hardcore pornography)

    murdering people in general (I like the odd bit of FPS)

    and taking over countries (I like world domination games)

    Probably other things too.

    However instead, I'm earning a fair sum as systems person and well respected by all those I know becouse I'm a nice guy who likes to hang out and have a laugh.

    Lineage 2 is a rubbish game.

    Also how is two people in an online game falling out and killing one another any different to two guys in a pub falling out and killing one another?

  30. tim Jones

    @ Morely Dotes

    "Guns do nothing whatsoever without human control".

    Apparently you seem to have a firm grasp of the obvious.

    So what do you think is the purpose of a gun? Just in case you don't know, guns were created to kill. They have no other purpose. A person pulling the trigger may be responsible, but he/she did it with the help of a gun.

    When all is said and done, a gun is just another tool used by people to kill.

    BTW what do guns have to do with this article anyways???

  31. CastorAcer
    Thumb Up

    Re:@Paul by Phil

    I think that you've made an important point. There are two questions here and the 'ologists' investigating this don't understand the differences:

    1/Do games/films/comic books etc. influence the forms of violence used? - Based on your experience the answer looks like 'Yes'.

    2/Do games/films/comic books etc. cause the inclination to be violent in the first place? - Based on your experience the answer may well be 'No'.

  32. Vredig

    gun control

    "Now consider Handguns, Assault Rifles, Combat Knives, Samurai Swords, and the vast array of other -pure weapons- out there. Please list some real uses for these, apart from hurting people."

    They provide protection against others looking to harm people. If anything, look at John Lott's books on the subject. It's indisputable now that more liberal gun laws do not cause an increase in violent crimes, so your point is moot on the subject of guns. On the subject of other "pure weapons", what would be the point of restricting such things as knives. If you can't use a hunting knife to kill someone, with even a little determination, a steak knife would be close to similar effectiveness. They also tie back into putting weapons in potential victims hands. It's surmised that the reason violent crimes drop with more liberal gun laws is that the criminals are afraid of being injured if they attack someone else. In a close situation, a knife can be effective enough to deter the would-be attacker from proceeding. This quote is fairly spot on, by the way: "If you outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have them." Does that idea make you feel safe?

  33. Steven

    @Gavin

    "I bet you also spout the 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' argument too... I think you'll find that the gun often helps. :)"

    Sure it does. But you don't really hear about someone being killed by bits of code flying through the air (even if they are stored on specially sharpened DVDs).

    Example a) Person X plays World Of Warcraft and then sets about slaughtering a shopping centre full of people. Daily Rags suddenly full of BAN THIS SICK FILTH headlines.

    Example b) Person X drinks a pub's worth of beer and then sets about slaughtering a shopping centre full of people. Daily Rags condemn the animal loner, make tentative comments on how drunk he was, condem the culture that led him to drink, but don't actually yell BAN THE ALCOHOL

    It's the person behind the killing that's the problem. They might have watched movie X, played game Y or listened to Satanic Rock track Z and go off the rails. Funny thing is, I've done the same thing and I still haven't felt the need to load up a shotgun and go on a spree.

    Funnily enough, the only thing gaming has done for me is expand my circle of friends (yes, people I've actually met in the real world)and given me a lot of enjoyment. They haven't made me more violent.

    If someone decides to kill someone because of a game, then they're pretty fucked up already - it's not the fault of the game.

    /rantover

  34. Alistair MacRae
    Joke

    On computer game violence

    Games don't teach people to kill, they teach you to loot corpses

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Owen Carter

    Sorry Owen, but I have a major problem with your supposedly different lists. I might have agreed with you a few years ago, but no longer. You see I own 4 “samurai swords” and train with these things three times a week with one of Europe’s highest raking Iai-do teachers. With all that training, I could probably cut you clean in half. On the other hand, with all that training, I am hardly likely to wander around on the streets jumping through the air, twirling a sword around and mimicking cartoon scenes.

    Yet now we have a ban on “samurai swords” because one Crazy Person (tm) kills someone. We have a ban on firearms for a similar reason, which seemed reasonable at the time because it didn’t affect me. Yet it all comes back to Neimoeller’s iconic poem. If you take this sort of “banning culture” to its logical conclusion, everyone will eventually be locked up.

    What do you do? Play any sport, have any hobbies??? All it takes is a group of happy slappers to popularize whacking people with [insert your favorite innocuous item] on YouTube, and your nice little hobby might be banned too. Never happen to you? You’re a nice person with standard mainstream hobbies. Well think again. Read Niemoeller poem. It is not a question of if they will come for you, it is only a question of how far down the list you are.

  36. User

    Games are saving lifes.

    Im pretty sure that if ppl werent hanging out in front of their computers all the time, we would have a lot more lethal beatings in the streets.

  37. steve
    Paris Hilton

    Guns don't kill people

    Bullets do. Maybe we should ban bullets?

    Give me a break. If soemone is going to go out and kill someone after they've played a computer game, they would have done it anyway. Shouldn't we ban movies as well? How about music? I know, let's ban all creative thought, that should stop people from killing each other. We never used to kill each other before these things came out. Oh no. Not at all.

    I really need an icon for rolling my eyes far enough that i can see inside my own head. PH was the closest i could think of.

  38. Geoff Thompson
    Stop

    Gun Lobby

    "It's indisputable now that more liberal gun laws do not cause an increase in violent crimes"

    So why are you 40 times more likely to be murdered with a gun in the USA than in the UK?

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Gun Control

    Whilst almost anything can become a deadly weapon in the hands of a trained and/or crazy person (even an eighteen inch zip-tie), the key difference with guns is that they are effective at much greater range than a sword, knife or blunt instrument and require less training and physical capability.

    There is also a big difference in the mental state required for killing someone in a sustained attack at close range with a blade or bludgeon (very few deaths are from a single blow) and for killing someone by pulling a trigger a range of twenty feet or more.

    A crowd of unarmed people can flee from or even overcome an attacker with a knife, but the same is not true for an attacker with a semi-automatic pistol.

    The difference is demonstrated in the attacks at St Luke's Primary School (July 1996) and Dunblane Primary School (March 1996).

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not arguing the same pouint

    One said: "It's indisputable now that more liberal gun laws do not cause an increase in violent crimes"

    Another answered: "So why are you 40 times more likely to be murdered with a gun in the USA than in the UK?"

    Because of the other differences between the countries you can't compare them. I don't know without some sort of citation how true the statistics the first comment is based on are, but if they are true, they're based on differences in gun laws in the same locale, I hope.

    But even so there is a difference between "violent crimes" and "murdered with a gun". It's entirely conceivable that the 39 times you weren't murdered with a gun you either weren't murdered, or were murdered with something else. I imagine it's mostly "weren't murdered", but you could easily have been assaulted.

    What gun ownership does is bring thigs closer to the edge of disaster. If you're "mugged" someone may well end up shot (much more likely to die) in the US, whereas here that someone may be stabbed or beaten (*could* still die). When a violent act occurs it's more likely to involve a gun if gun laws are liberal.

    The US is in the invidious position of having *so* many guns that frankly I'd want a carry permit, and I'd put time in on the range if I lived there. "Outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns" doesn't really apply in the UK because regardless of what the scaremongers say, most villains in the UK don't have access to firearms.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @Gavin Taylor

    Games, drugs and drink are often used as a defence by people who commit crimes.

    They are not reasons.

    A pint of beer did not force you to kill a person. Playing Doom did not make you want to go aout and shoot somebody. Smoking weed did not make you think 'I've got the munchies, I'm going to kill somebody'.

    There are those who say weed makes you pschizophrenic and paranoid, but pschizophrenic people have been proven in the same research to like smoking weed. Such people are often paranoid - and some of them have been known to kill people.

    It's nonsense.

    People do kill people, and try to have the sentance reduced by spouting off about how there were mitigating circumstances, they couldn't help themselves; they just had to do it.

    Utter and total rot - they made the decision to kill somebody and they did it; it was avoidable (unless somebody was trying to kill or seriously harm them or somebody they were protecting).

  42. steve
    Thumb Down

    Erm, you don't live where i live

    "doesn't really apply in the UK because regardless of what the scaremongers say, most villains in the UK don't have access to firearms."

    As we have on average a shooting every two weeks in the area i live in, i would like to dispute this fact........

  43. George Flecknell
    Thumb Down

    Just a thought for all those games=violence oddballs

    Probably worth ending war before banning computer games.

  44. Liam Johnson
    Stop

    @Geoff Thompson

    "So why are you 40 times more likely to be murdered with a gun in the USA than in the UK?"

    Why are you no more likely to be murdered in Canada then the UK, even though they have as many Guns as the US???

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    gun myths.

    "So why are you 40 times more likely to be murdered with a gun in the USA than in the UK?"

    But much less likely to be murdered with a gun in Switzerland or Canada, both with a high ownership of firearms?

    Prehaps the answer is that gun control is not directly related to gun crime, and prehaps better education in firearms, more effective law enforcement and a less scaremongering media would prove more effective.

    "A crowd of unarmed people can flee from or even overcome an attacker with a knife, but the same is not true for an attacker with a semi-automatic pistol."

    Please explain the 30 feet rule. Unless you're getting under cover from someone with a projectile weapon, the best place to be is as close as possble, to negate their weapon's advantage. Ideally indulging in something that martial artists would term 'Ground and Pound'.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @gun myths

    Of course guns aren't the "cause" of violence; they're just a better tool for carrying it out. There will always be places where the social conditions result in less violence overall; your point about Switzerland is a good one, but I don't think that level of firearms ownership would translate very well to the UK...

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1566715.stm

    As for the "30 feet rule", that applies to someone who is prepared to take on a person with a gun with their bare hands while the gun is still in the holster; in a typical use of a firearm in a crime, you won't see the gun until its already pointing at someone; I don't think you'll find many people running towards an armed assailant.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Irrational arguments

    I don't suppose anyone really believes that people who habitually play violent computer games make a concious decision to go out and ape their on-screen experiences in real life. The minds of normal, sane, people don't work that way.

    However.

    The subset of gamers who play violent games *because* they are violent should be of some concern. Not because they are likely to "go postal", but because they obviously enjoy violent confrontation and may well react violently in a confrontational situation, particularly if their judgement is clouded by alcohol or drugs. The fact that they can 'get away with it' in the game may spill over into their alcohol affected mind and result in a more violent outcome.

    This is not suggesting that violent video games create violent people, rather the opposite, that potentially violent people are attracted to violent games and that frequent exposure to game violence may make them more likely to manifest potential violence as real violent behaviour when their judgement is impaired by alcohol or drugs.

  48. Law
    Paris Hilton

    omg

    Stop comparing guns and games.... not the same thing, unless you launch an old NES game as somebody, then it is more like a blunt instrument.

    Gun are designed to kill people, games are designed to entertain. The fact that people are comparing the two is rediculous. The majority of people can go to the cinema and watch a horror film, a comedy, and even a porn film without murdering, slapping (funny) or raping people.... games are no different, entertaining for most, and a couple of unhinged people around the world will occasionally freak out.

    Cars are transport, but they kill more people per year with tossers behind the wheel than games do - so why are we not ban cars.... or alcohol... or anything else that most find interesting, and a few either over endulge, misuse, or triggers a nutcase to do bad things?

    Games are not the problem, and Im sick of the debate!

  49. Nemo Noone
    Stop

    Wait a minute!

    We're all forgeting WHY the killing occured. Apparently, after losing, they meet up and one killed the other. It wasn't the video game that caused this, it was the guy getting angry because he lost. This kind of situtation could have happened with any form of competition, if it involved the same messed up people.

  50. joe
    Coat

    Let us ban

    guns, games, movies, competitive sports, social nights at the pub, parties at home, etc.... and lead the simple life of old times, where no one was ever murdered for no good reason.

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