Normally, I would agree with you that some of these videogame trials are unfounded. However, in this case, I don't believe they are blaming Halo 3 any more than they are blaming snowboarding or staph infections.

In fact, the boy didn't even play the video game -- he was just denied the ability to play by his father. I haven't heard any news report about the trial blame playing violent videogames for the shooting, it just happened that the refusal to allow him to play Halo 3 was a catalyst to the murders. I think a lot of the reports would be similar if he had been denied the ability to play Stratego -- it's just something that happened before he shot his family.

I'm not siding with the prosecution here, but I'm also disagreeing with your (and many other game sites') interpretation of the prosecutor's comments about the facts of the case.

I think the thing is the Prosecutions use of the word violent to describe Halo 3.

Yeah, the game revolves around shotting things, but there is a difference between real world violence, and something you see on a screen.

The prosecution would not have said "the militarist game Stratego" they would have just said Stratego....

i agree with Dr teeth to a degree. Halo is known by quite a few non-gaming people. many of which know it's violent. the prosecutors reminded everyone of the violent aspect as well. i dont think it whether he did or didnt play Halo that day, but that the prosecution is trying to shine light on that he wanted to or regularly plays violent games. trying to show that the guy has violent "tenancies" "evidenced" by his taste in games. which really should hold up in court.

Whoever wrote this article is an idiot.

Blame the prosecutors? Why, because he used the word "videogame"? Try reading the whole thing:

"He was homebound for a year with nothing to do but watch television and play video games."

That, to me, sounds like they're building a case for Daniel suffering from "cabin fever" and simply snapping under it all. Mind you, that's bullshit too.

Sometimes people just do bad things. It happened before music, before movies, before games, and it'll continue to happen, cos thats just how people are.

http://www.uuddlrlrba.co.uk/node/266

Well, at least the prosecutors (whether they're blaming Halo 3 or just mentioning it in the chain of events) have proposed pre-existing conditions that caused him to snap that have nothing to do with video games. They didn't say "he plays Halo 3 so he shot his parents" but rather he "had been under great stress because of a snowboarding accident that resulted in a severe staph infection".

It could have just as easily happened that he got furious when Dad refused to let him have an extra bowl of ice cream and so shot his parents. I don't think the prosecutors are pushing video game playing as a direct cause.

However, the media will interpret it as such anyway, because that's the cool thing to do. I've been playing video games (of one sort or another) for 25 years, so I must be a psychopath waiting to happen! Oh noes!

Tom, I wouldn't call the prosecutors "desperate." First, they likely have very good physical evidence, and aren't trying to build a case solely on the buy's motivations for shooting his parents.

Second, the quote you included isn't even from the prosecution, it's from Daniel Petric's defense lawyer.

"Daniel's lawyer, James Kersey, gave a short opening statement. He said his client had been under great stress at the time of the shooting because of a snowboarding accident that resulted in a severe staph infection. It left Daniel with such severe spinal damage that the slightest injury could leave him paralyzed.

"Daniel was homebound for a year with nothing to do but watch television and play video games, Kersey said."

I'm not sure what happened when you edited the quotes, but the Plain Dealer text quoted in your article refers to Petric as "their client." The defendant is not the prosecutors' client.

So I don't know what happened there, but I think you owe the prosecutors an apology!

Ack, thanks for catching the quote misattribution. My bad. Is it a good enough excuse to say all lawyers look alike to me?

Also, I do think it's fairly desperate to posit a videogame as a motive for murder. Maybe "desperate" is a bad word. Far-fetched? Silly? I guess as a prosecutor, they don't want a motive that makes sense, so "desperate" is probably the exact wrong word. But what struck me was that they seem to be the ones who introduced videogaming into the case. And it is worth noting that the content of the game *isn't* being blamed. So there's that.

Anyway, good comments all around. Thanks guys, and thanks Bruce for catching my quote error.

I love the word 'ken'.

I blame natural selection. Even Frankenstein's monster didn't try to kill his father. Although, the doctor did try to give his creation a brain. Maybe if the father in this case had followed suit.