so i wake up this morning and find out that some wonderful children decided to load up and try to kill some fellow students. they even named themselves after some internet-based game or something like that, but that's my point: these kids (especially according to the media) were trying to do something like in video games. that's a problem...i'm a gamer and now more flak (sp?) will be brought down on the video gaming world. i've been playing them for a damn-long time now and i've never wanted to kill anyone or anything like that. the people that say games make them feel that way are weirdos. there's no rational explanation for that sort of thing...sure they may have been picked on in high school. big deal, so was i....but i never wanted to grab an assload of guns and swords (that's right, these geniuses had swords which they were going to use to highjack a car...wonderful!) and kill to my heart's content. none of the stuff that happens in high school really matters anyway...it's 4 hellish years and then you never have to deal with those people again...that's it, the last you'll see of them. they may have picked on you, but in a few years you'll be out of college working a sweet-ass job doing the things you went to school for and making mad bank for it while those "cool people" will still be going to the local community college and/or working at the local car wash. sorry, that was some personal venting. anyway, i think this latest thing is ridiculous and i sure that the media will blow the whole thing way out of proportion and blame all video games on this occurence.

i think tycho at penny arcade had an excellent view on it:

"...You already know what the media is saying about it, so I don't need to go into that. They're drawing parallels between their activity and Grand Theft Auto. I am making this note because my position of unwavering criticism of media coverage has been amended to include something else: that there are young men stupid enough to emulate these games. I have a very low opinion of high school, and the sorts of clean, effortlessly beautiful human beings one encounters there. I know that it is a source of torment. And I know that your shit is all tortured, because I've read your poems and seen that rendered skull spinning there on your page with the fire on it. I feel it. I was a black coat and some eyeliner away from emulating your existence. But the second you load a fucking weapon, I can't empathize with you anymore. I can't protect you. And I can't defend you."

i completely agree.