A senior Scottish policeman has called on the government to further look into the prevention of young children playing adult-rated games online, after the unfortunate incident of a thirteen-year-old boy cutting his friend’s throat following on from a game of Gears of War 3.
The incident happened on 14 April 2012 when, after some heated gameplay of the popular Xbox franchise, the two boys fell out and argued. The accused lad (who is already a father, I might add) attacked his fourteen-year-old victim from behind while he was on his way to another house, plunging a blade deep into his throat; the cut was so bad it exposed the his windpipe and required twelve staples to close up. The accused was then heard to say “Don’t die” before calmly walking off.
Brian Docherty, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation has been quoted as saying: “These games are rated 18 and shouldn’t be played by children of this young age, but online gaming may be outside their parents’ knowledge. We need to look again at what we can do to stop this.” When Microsoft was asked about this they pointed to the Xbox 360’s parental controls for online content, urging people to use them if they were worried about the issue: “We have some of the most robust parental control systems to empower parents to decide how their children play and communicate. We have the greatest sympathy for the victim and his family.”
So the debate continues on: do violent video games generate violent behaviour? We may never know for sure as for every bit of research saying it doesn’t there’s another saying that it does. But one thing is for sure, and that’s that young children should not be playing mature rated video games.
