@ Shoehorn:

The reverse is opposite

Was that intentional?

I'm going to say it again. Grand Theft Auto has points. No, it's not the "OMG my score is 12524935823452" kind of points, but they ARE points.

They're a score, as I've been able to find, that is derived from your accuracy, kills, money, and destruction. It may be only 1 point per kill, but most "score" driven games out there are based on multiples of 100, or even 1000 for their basic value. And very, very few of them peak with a rating of 'Godfather' at their topmost value.

No, gamers may not care about their GTA score/rating, but it is there. To say it isn't is just ignorant. Yes, it's just as ignorant to think the presence of this rating, or the game itself, is the root cause of violence. That doesn't change the fact they're right on this one, small facet.

Thank you, Jeffy. I now do.

"’80s and ’90s, you didn’t have video games, you didn’t have the violence in the media, you didn’t have the Internet."

You didn't have teh internetz back in the 40s and 50s either. Or the middle ages for that matter. But look at how many people died back then.

@Dun1031

"Violent Movies:
Predator, Running Man, Red Sonja, Terminator, Total Recall. The list goes on and that is only one actor."

How dare you forget Robocop!

So we didn't have video games or violent media until the turn of the century?

GTA awards points for killing cops and prostitutes?

The internet is the breeding ground of gang violence?

So many things wrong so little time.

How fortunate for our ancestors that violence was invented after the year 2000 along with games and movies.

Conclusion: another village politico talking out of his arse. What's new.

@E. Zachary Knight

Regardless, that remark about how video games and the internet is corrupting the youth was uncalled for.

I fully support what L42yB says.

couldnt have said it better

Yet again using any excuse to avoid putting the blame on parents, the real reason for the gang problems out there. They never spend time with their kids, so they're spending time with people who know will be around, whether they be good or bad. That's why you have so many teen pregnancies because of parents not teaching their kids about safe sex.

Thank god thats the only ignorant county in this state

Gang violence was at its' peak in the 1980's and has gone down since then. How about they actually do something, like give DC more money to create a better community and that way the violence doesn't spill in Maryland?

You're actually punished for killing police in GTA, after all if you manage to survive long enough they send SWAT after you, then the Army. Having police chasing your ass everywhere you go is tough enough, but when you get helicopters and SWAT teams shooting you with machine guns and the Army trying to run you down with tanks. I wouldn't say it's actually much of a reward.

Anyway, I don't bother taking anyone serious anymore as soon as they claim you "score points" in GTA.

Also, I like how they make it sound like you're forced to do all of that. Killing police, beating hookers, attacking civilians, etc. It's all optional. Stealing cars for the most part can be optional as well, though some missions require it. But still my point stands.

Also, if the FBI reports/studies are correct then violence was obviously worse back then since they've said it's been on a decline for a while now, at least among minors.

Yes, sure... Let's completely disregard drug trafficking, turf wars, and using youth groups to recruit new members. A videogame caused all these problems. Right.

Back in the 80's and 90's, they had a different boogeyman; it was called gangsta rap.

If there weren't videogames in the 80's and 90's what the hell was I playing?

Note to law enforcement:
Stop blaming entertainment, get off your asses and do your damn job...and get your facts about games and the internet straight while you're at it.

"In the ’80s and ’90s, you didn’t have video games, you didn’t have the violence in the media, you didn’t have the Internet."

Firstly, this person needs a history lesson. Secondly, are we to assume that no crimes have been committed in the '80s and '90's? Sorry Dan, but you fail.

Does this idiot remember New York City in the 70's?

this guy obviously never heard of this game then:

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

"In the ’80s and ’90s, you didn’t have video games, you didn’t have the violence in the media, you didn’t have the Internet."

Did this guy just wake up from a 20-30 year coma? Someone should tell him the story of Pong, the legend of Pitfall, and the history of Missile Command.

Never mind. I now know they never existed, he just told me they didn't. Forget my memories; they are merely implanted in me by the evil and vile video game industry to make me defend them.
Or not.

For the last time, GTA does not award points for killing cops or beating prostitutes. The vast majority of games do not award points. The closest most games come is experience points, game money, or skill points. Its been a while since I played a game that counts a score for the sake of a score. Maybe we should make a PSA informing the general public that killing cops in GTA is a bad thing in the game.

If I remember correctly, gang violence reached record highs in the late 80's and early 90's. Thus the creation of extreme drug posession penalties putting away gang members for 5-15 years. Could the possible return of gang members to the streets after long incarcirations because of poorly designed criminal proceedings play a hand into the problem? Or the fact that once you get outside of the pretty tourist areas of DC, it turns into New York, circa 1970? No, social woes, a flailing economy, a cutback on after-school and cultural awareness programs have played a far, far bigger hand in this than some digital bloke running around a mock city who HAS THE OPTION to assult prostitutes to get the money he paid them back. At the same time, there is a penalty incurred, the all knowing police are now looking for him a little more actively, unlike your police department which is apparently too concerned with putting together little shindigs where they feed uninformed bull to citizenry that you encourage to 'brainstorm' about ways to be better neighbors. A simple suggestion, how about being better informed police officers? If your entire department believes that video games are the reason these kids are joining the gang vice the incentive of getting filthy rich off of stolen goods and drug money then mayhaps the problem lies not with the people, but with the law enforcement?

@ tony selby

Police never drop money though if I remember correctly, so they can't claim that you gain anything, positive anyway, from police really other than maybe a weapon.

O.o?

Are we talking about the same 80s and 90s? I wanna know where this person lived, because obviously they were living on another planet or Bizarro World.

"In the ’80s and ’90s, you didn’t have video games, you didn’t have the violence in the media, you didn’t have the Internet."

This comment right here makes any point they were trying to make invalid. I was born in the 80's and as a two year old was kicking ass on my grandmothers 2600, in the 90's I was surfing the internet and watching violent movies and TV shows. I doubt that GTA has anything to do with the Gang Problem, lack of parenting and positive role model in the gang members lives yes I can see that being attributed to it. But video games?

The heck, there was a whole bunch of violent movies and the like back in the 80's and 90's. Hell, when I was a kid (in the 80's) I was afraid of CABLE TELEVISION because I was worried about the bloody movies some stations tended to play randomly ._. .

(I should mention that I've always been a bit of a wimp. Ha, ha. And when we actually got cable, there was fun to be had. I just avoided scary movies.)

(In Grand Theft Auto, you score points by killing cops, stealing cars and beating prostitutes. In the ’80s and ’90s, you didn’t have video games, you didn’t have the violence in the media, you didn’t have the Internet. It creates a lack of respect for life and makes violence acceptable.))

*Slams on brakes*
WHAT?!

You ingorant little TURD! Not only have videogames existed in the 80's and 90's. They also existed in the 70's as well. They were not just invented! In fact videogames was one of the piecies of technology that was born from World War Two.

Tennis for two anyone?

- Warren Lewis

I LOL'ed. Classic! Points? That was so 1980's. In fact, we perveted gamers just count dead hookers instead of points now, right?

Points. Anytime a critic of video games mentions points, they are operating under a nostalgic sense of loss of their own childhood (under the rose tinted lense of memory), and not functioning in the real world.



This photo sure brings back good memories. I guess soon I'll be blaming wetware for societies ills, and lamenting the loss of 16-bit perfection.

(Although there is an arguement that video games have stagnated, with the only improvements being in the graphics department, but I digress)

Yep, I saw the "There were no videogames in the 80's and 90's" and rolled my eyes. The originals like the 2600 notwithstanding, the NES & Mario/Duck Hunt (where you used a GUN PERIPHERAL) were selling much like the Wiis are now. I remember my parents lucking out and convincing our local K-Mart to hold their last one so we could come and get it. Then as someone else mentioned - Doom, Wolfenstein, etc. (And of course Barneystein..) A lot of the Apogee games had blood and guts (Monster Bash, for one). Sure the violence wasn't as "realistic" but it was still violence. And the 80's was the decade for shock value, I think.

Isn't gang activity tied to low income and poor living conditions? Last time I checked, videogames & the internet aren't really cheap.

Also, unless I am missing something, I have never seen much "gang chatter" on the internet. Is this guy suggesting street gangs are just hanging out behind their computers playing games and surfing the internet?

Shouldn't need to be said, but:

Correlation != causation

@ ~the1jeffy

Man, I forgot what a good looking system the Genesis was. I wish more console designs would attempt a look like that.

@zombiepriest

Been living with gang violence for over 20 years out here now, in sunny Southern California. Gang Violence isn't because of video games, TV, rap, the Internet, or whatever else Dan Dougherty can drum up. It also isn't exactly a new problem either. Scapegoating media for gang troubles is the sign of someone who probably shouldn't be "Wicomico County Gang Resistance director".

Too bad this guy doesn't have a book on Amazon to bomb, because the ignorance displayed in this article is on par with that of Cooper Lawrence.

"In the ’80s and ’90s, you didn’t have video games, you didn’t have the violence in the media, you didn’t have the Internet. It creates a lack of respect for life and makes violence acceptable."

What world is he living in? Because I want whatever he's smoking to make him think such bulls^%t is true, it's gotta be the good stuff.

We had every bit of that violence in the media, if not worse. Look at clips of news from the 40's and 50's, they showed the dead bodies after being shot in the head back then. Same issue, different scapegoat.

[...] (H/t: GamePolitics.com) [...]

Like the mobs of the 20's and 30's.. The reason Gangs have the power they do now is because of the profits they make from trading/dealing in Narcotics.

Of course, we can expect politicians to not understand this - as it's already been evident and clear in History that this happens.

We can blame games, rap, TV.. but it's not the real cause. Just as much as radio wasn't the cause of gangs in the 20's and 30's.

It's prohibition version 2 - what do they expect?

I'm typically not one to swear and I haven't read any replies yet but from just seeing that I have only one thing to say.....

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTT?!?!?

You have got to be fucking kidding me!

/facepalm followed by repeatedly smashing his head into a wall.

Crime couldn't possibly be related to the broken school system, police departments trying to boost stats, the failing drug war, or hell even bad parenting, could it?

'In the ’80s and ’90s, you didn’t have video games, you didn’t have the violence in the media, you didn’t have the Internet.'

I guess this guy means the 1880's and 1890's? Thats the only way this statement makes any sense.

@Cecil475: 'In fact videogames was one of the piecies of technology that was born from World War Two.'

Yeah but what other technology also came from WWII? The A-bomb! See a connections? QED. \sarcasm

Ummm..

Nightmare on Elm street, and Friday the 13th.

but he's right.. if you talk outta your ass that is.

Xsorus, it makes perfect sense for him to talk out of his ass seeing as how his head is jammed up there .

@mogbert
No, some 'channels' have porn too, it just depends on what your agenda is.
It's all really serious business.

Imagine the sight of a thousands gamers, all wearing fedoras, standing outside his office and shouting "Liar! Liar! Liar!..."

Violent gangs have been around since the beginning of civilization and they have always sprung from the same well, POVERTY.

However, it is true that current culture popularizes these gangs. So now that rich white kids want to play, NOW it's an epidemic of corruption. Knowing the facts about this subject, you can see the underlying racism. I'm not saying it's overt or intentional, but it is there.

JuryRigged,

The fact that you and others here can make a distinction between Galaga points and GTA points is the entire point! The issue is the ignorant press and civic leaders CANNOT make this distinction. They treat the "points" or "score" as the objective of video games based their dim view of them. This is a a gross mischaracterization of modern games. I'm not diminishing our proud video game ancestry - I'm only pointing out that a lack of understanding is causing these people to place blame where none belongs.

So does GTA have points? Yes. Is the man quoted in the article using the term correctly? No.

I'll concede to that, Jeffy. Perhaps I haven't been fully stating my argument... I think, while the gaming community is willing to go a long way to 'meet' our opponents (and the opposite is not returned,) effort is lost by these empty rebuttals that certain attacked games don't have points. The plain "GTA doesn't have points" shout is a hardly intelligent argument that will fall on deaf ears. It fails to point out that gamers in general do see a difference, if achieving nothing else.

I don't live in Wicomico county, but Maryland's had a gang problem long before this. No, the Crips and the Bloods may not have a strong presence in Baltimore, but the MS:13, one of the most vicious gangs, are known to have a very strong presence in the counties surrounding DC for the last several years. So no, this isn't new and it isn't news either.

Rap and violent video games are merely the symptom. Not the cause. Wicomico needs to dig deeper to find the solution for this problem.

So there were no gangs in the 80's and 90's? So the movie Boyz n the Hood (1991) was about a futuristic LA? But I don't remember an internets or video games in that movie...

Speaking as an attorney who actually prosecutes gang members in Maryland, that guy can eat a dick.

There's been a gang problem here for years. The only reason it wasn't more widely publicized is because the politicians sat on it. Now that they can't cover it up any more, their blaming fingers are just twitching like crazy.

Not only did they have violent movies and video games, but they had violent movies about video games. Does anyone remember Tron?!? That was pwn.

Um... Duke Nukem, Doom, Mortal Kombat. Was this person not in the United States for 20 years?

I'm sorry guys, but I feel I may make an alliance with this guy. Only partially.

His comments are greeted by our run-of-the-mill "games don't cause violence" arguments. I've read them a million times, but think that GTA is a game that would appeal to gang member. In the game you play a criminal who, based on the gamer's personality, can do whatever he wants. While most of us may see, say, drive a stolen cop car into the actual cop as entertainment/irony/release/etc. a gang member; who isn't as like us may merely see games as a un-artistic excuse to cause harm without being arrested. Someone with that state of mind may see it as inspiration!

Now, before i'm quoted by Fox News, Jackie Boy, or any other biased attention chaser, I must remind that I too am a gamer, and by God I will stand up if a out of touch lawyer gets his way, and the comments of the un-filled in news man or mr. doughtry are spread like wildfire to the American public (a public who has forgotten to protect the ones they love and leave it to a bunch of old dudes in Washington to do it for them. aka, lazy paranoid twits.) All i'm just saying, that most gangbangers can not be called a gamer LIKE US. (yes yes, a guy who plays a game could automatically call themselves one; but you don't learn every Mario character in history just by playing a demo for Brawl.) That's all it seems to take at the moment; one guy to fuck things up for those who embrace it as a passion and work of art.

And yes, then there's rap. I am quite biased of rap, so i'm really not the most likely person you could quote on the matter. But I believe that rap is more of a factor than games; because it appeals more to these people. I except rap as a art form (well, rap at its core is an art. Most rappers today have no right to be called artists. I'm glaring at you, Soilja Boy.) Rap came from the streets, and the gritty lyrics prove that; and thats what gangbangers like.

I would love to hear your responces. Not only do they give me a warm feeling, I can use any corrections that alot of you sure may spat at me. Spat being the controlling word, i'm sure most of you have already think i'm a twit.

I'm just tired of seeing every gamer on hear automatically post the same comment when someone points a finger at their favorite game. Yes, these things are all old news to us; but not to everyone else in the world.

Wow what idiocy

Doesn't this moron know that gangsta rap first became popular in the 90s and that the first GTA game came out in 1998. And this dumbass is supposed to be a gang expert. If this moron knew anything about gangs he would know that gang violence exploded in the 80s and 90s and it wasn't due to video games or rap music. It was due to the crack cocaine epidemic. In fact you can trace the origins of gangsta rap to that as well. This fool fails on every level. Stop talking out of your ass and actually do some research. Gang violence is down, the only reason we are seeing a slight increase is because all the bangers who got locked up in the 80s and 90s are getting out of jail now.

I wonder what kind of drugs this guy is on? No violence in the media back in the 80's and 90's. Has this guy been living on Mars for the past 600 years?
There has been depictions of violence in the media since the beginning of the printing press. The Holy Bible and Holy Quran contain lots of depictions of violence, gore, death, ect.

@Iumi

i see. A lot of those are tried and true points I forgot udderly. Sometimes I wonder why I even comment at all. Thanks for clearing up my mistakes.

@Todd
Weren't they playing football on Genesis right before Ricky's confrontation in the alley? See, videogames do lead to violence.

Or is my memory just making that up?

Paulrus,

What you've done is portray how a person with a 'gangbanger' mindset would be attracted to GTA, and use it for inspiration.

What Dan Dougherty said is this, "[Video games, media, internet] creates a lack of respect for life and makes violence acceptable."

He is laboring under the false presumption that media creates real-world violence. What you said is how violent people are drawn to and inspired by such media. I agree with you, and call him an asshat.
I hope you can see the difference.

ignore my previous comment, I got two different riots confused.

and um wasn't the internet created in the 80's?

Dan sounds ready to join the crack team at Fox News to discuss such topics as full frontal nudity in game currently released for children to purchase...

...This week has hurt my head between statements of stupidity and JT refuting negative comments against a game.

Ugh.

I... am... a...
Nightmare walkin'
psychopath talkin'
king of the jungle just a gansta stalkin'
Livin' life as a firecracker quick is my fuse
then dead like a death pact for the colors I choose
red or blue, cuz or blood, well it just don't matta
Sucka die for your life when my shotgun scatters
The gangs of L.A. will never die...

...just multiply

Colors.

Right so by that logic GTA invented the concept of 'gangs'. Completely imagined the WHOLE thing up. There's no way that it could possibly be imitating an already existing gang culture noooooo.

Wait according to wikipedia the bloods and crips both existed in the 1970s and according to every text book ever written organized crime saw a surge in the 1920s (although I'm not sure if you want to relate the two).

My BULLSHIT meter gives that statement a 500/10.

Really either this is him avoiding his resposibilities (it's not my fault it's the game's fault, I can't do anything about the problem when we have these blasted games here) or he's a complete moron.

While we're at it, I now officially blame Max Payne for my addiction to painkillers. ((j/k))

Another case of "a little birdie told me" opinions on video games. I think it's time to shoot all these birdies down, GTA style.

And I am betting that most gang members do not play video games or use the internet. Or stay in much, unless they're out of crimes to do. They are practically vagabonds.

"In Grand Theft Auto, you score points by killing cops...."

Complete and utter bullshit, that completely killed their credibility.

As another resident of Maryland, I also call bullshit. The reason there are gangs in that county (and Worcester) is mostly because the highway to MD's major beach resort, Ocean City, is the artery to Washington DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis. This is a drug route, just like I-95 is a drug route for the entire east coast. The other reason gangs can flourish pretty much everywhere is lack of police presence. The increase in police officers has been a mere fraction of the increase in population.

And just for the record, in 1972 I was 6 years old. Every night the news would show brutal and gruesome pictures of casualties in Vietnam. I distinctly remember seeing people throwing dead bodies on a HUGE pile of bodies. No violent media? please!

And in the year 2000, God created video games, the internet and violence...

Oh My... I've never seen such a misinformed rant of nonsense ever. The problem is that those who hear it are likely to believe it without having a shread of evidence, just like the Fox News/Mass Effect debacle.

-insert sound of brakes locking up-

^My opinion in a nutshell.

Full Disclosure:

This county is on the eastern shore of MD. There are nothing but chicken farms and other agriculture dotting the landscape. Any talk of them on gang violence needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Wasnt the original GTA released in the 90's?

Anywho, seriously, we had much much MUCH worse than the media before the internet and tv... we had the Bible in church. No offense, but that has the most horrible, devious, impossible, bloodthirsty things ever done by man recorded in it, and before tv, we generally believed every word of it, if it were in your religion. Back then, it wasnt saving your soul and being a good person, it was YOU'RE ALL GUILTY OF SIN AND WILL BURN FOR AN ETERNITY IN EVERLASTING HELLFIRE! REPENT REPENT YOU SINFUL PACK OF HEATHENS!!! So there. Learn some damn history before you say things about the past.

lolz....... their stupidity amuses me to no end.... and they should spend the money on promoting peace and stuff instead of going at it with gamers

I feel that PHOENIXZERO's comment summed this up rather well.