Surely the 'B*stard' that caused this crime is the kid who attacked his sister? No-one else. It's amazing when a society absolves you of all responsibility for your actions if you can find a suitable scapegoat. Obviously Irrational are completely guilty given the massive crime wave caused by the millions of copies sold... oh wait, that's not happened has it? Jack and the boy's parents are obviously desperate for some media attention/ royalties from scare stories and it's sick to turn an act like this to your favour.

I'm always amazed by the influence games have on kids. A 6 hour game can have a greater effect on a child then 15+ years with his parents. It just makes such valid, logical sense that the game and not his upbringing gave him these behavioral problems. Besides if he is old enough to play the game how can it have any negative effects on his behavior.

I am actually saddened by this, I am shocked that anyone takes this child's word seriouslly. What he said would be like if a murderer said "I hear imaginary voices in my head that tell me to do horrible things and claim to be the voices of important historical figures or divine beings" It's pretty obvious that if he is able to describe it like that, he knows full well what he is doing. Second of all the parents hsould be ashamed, I doubt they really believe that, and if the ydid why are they not mortified that they were such horrible and neglectful parents that their 17+ years of raising this child was overridden by a short game? Lastly Jack Thompson is a virus feeding off the sorrow and loss of others to further his ends. I'd say more about the obvious lies he's told to make himself look better and the crimes he has been charged with, But I'd like to waste no more time on this parasitic sub-human sorry excuse for a living thing.

Anyone who thinks videogames DO NOT influence behavior is an ignorant to the truth and is a seriously closed-minded fool. Any sensory input has the ability to influence the behavior of the subject, especially when the subject enjoys and interacts with that sensory input (i.e. videogames). I am an adult gamer and I've played since I was 7 or 8 years old. I will be the first to admit that videogames have influenced my behavior, especially when I played them as a child. Frustration would lead me to anger and aggression (it didn't need to be a violent game, Super Mario Bros. frustrated me enough to yell and scream at the TV like a moron). It's not a question of proof, the answer is clear and simple. Stop ignoring the truth and trying to pass off the multiple acts of violence that stem from videogames as absurd. This is an influenced behavior, pyschological studies are not hard science and will not give the "scientific" proof that you all want. Adult gamers that scream and rant about how videogames don't affect them or others need to step out of their isolated box, open their eyes, and look at the reality of the situation. The bottom line is that videogames DO affect and influence the user. As for Jack Thompson, yea, Jack is taking flak and he tends to be over-the-top but he's doing something that none of you douchebags are doing, standing up for human rights and putting responsibility back where it belongs, on the game developers, producers, and retailers. That is where the first, second, and third responsible parties lie. The forth is the child and her/his parents. It's time to start doing things the correct way and put responsibility it back where it belongs.

Excuse me, Conscience, maybe I'm just a "Douchebag" but this still leaves the question, why am I not strangling my little sister? Everyone who says video games do invoke violence forgets one thing, why am I not out there slaughtering people because I forget I'm not in a game? How can you sit there and say video games influence you SO MUCH that everything your parents told you and everything they did is made completely irrelevent? How can you sit there and say they are so influential that the develepors are more at fault then the hcild himself when I, a person who plays video games ALOT yet has never ever killed someone or "Forgotten he wasn't in a game", am staring you in the face? Let's pretend that it only influences some people, well only very few (Honestly not even you can claim that they influence most or all considering the extremely small amount of murderers who claim they do compared to the extremely large amount of video gamers) So? Does that mean that the rest of us sane and responsible people whould be deprived because some psychotic murderers get ab oner at the sight of the master chief caveing in someone's skull? Also I'd like to point out that at no point in this game does anyone get strangled.

This is horsesh*t. ANY person influenced enough by a game, TV, book, movie whatever ALREADY had mental issues. I'm sorry. That's the reality here. It's not the games fault. Millions of other people enjoy various forms of entertainment every day and don't do anything remotely like this. Why? Because they are mentally stable human beings. So what's up with these people trying to blame it all on whatever form of entertainment happens to be the latest thing to blame? An unwillingness of so many people today to take responsibility for their own actions. Plain and simple. Noboday wants to take responibility for anything anymore. You've got all these social experts saying it's ok that you murdered, it's ok that you committed some crime, it's not your fault. Game made me do it. TV made me do it. Devil made me do it. Ugggh.....

Nluvnit is correct, taking responsibility for ones own actions is a huge part of the issue. This is also my point toward the developers, producers, etc.

Wow, ^^ i can't believe that people actually think the developers of these games are responsible for this idiot's behavior. The game did not pop out of the screen and strangle this teens sister, no, HE DID. It would be like watching a movie u love and ur sis comes in and changes the channel... do u go an strangle her? C'mon people this is a obvious tactic by family to get blame off their 17+ teen... which u'd think that at 17 he would know how to control his temper.... If u know u can't control ur temper, then don't play... don't go blaming the developer for ur dumbass choice.... IDIOTS ! ! ! !

I LOVE RAJAT BECAUSE..... I DON'T NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Jack is so determined to take down 2k games that he apparently overlooks the fact that this kid has some major mental and emotional issues that should be addressed. Instead though, Jack seeing an opportunity to push his own agenda is blaming video games for brainwashing this poor innocent lad to strangle his sister. So I guess all you psycho murdering rapists out there who aren’t man enough to accept responsibility for your actions and instead claim that a video game made you do it. Don’t fret, you guys can always depend on Jack Thompson having your back.

Are you kidding? Developers, producers, and retailers are more responsible for the actions of a child than his parents? What odd world do you live in? You are saying that <10 hours of gaming can so drastically have changed this kid to become a killer? That brief span of existence overwrote 17+ years worth of parenting? Perhaps you should go check your "psychology" books again, because that's just not how it works. Jack Thompson isn't standing up for anything other than getting attention, and making a buck. He hasn't actually proved anything, and he hasn't ever won. That should tell you something.

This story is fake. Anyone who believes it deserves to be strangled by their little brother.

Claude and Chris McClean: Where did I say that the developers, producers, or retailers made this child kill his sister (which never happened anyway since this story has been debunked)? What I implied is that developers, producers, and retailers need to take responsibility for the content they create because of the influence it can have on a child. Creating a videogame that gives the user a choice between moral and immoral actions should never end up in the hands of a user who cannot even make that correct decision in real life.

to put blame on the developers and producers of this is completely and utterly stupid. thats basically putting the blame on the media outlets we have such as music, movies, etc and saying that they are the reason why we have problems in america. if i do remember correctly we live in free countries and have the right to sell what we please thats within an understandable boundary. the publishers and the ESRB have done their job by giving the game a Mature rating, labeled all of their merchandise properly and distributed to stores. only 2 groups of people should be repremanded for the actions. the first is the retailers. they must do their job and follow what the ratings say on the damn game. if its an M, then anyone under 17 cannot purchase. if its teen, anyone under 13 cannot purchase. not many retailers do their jobs as i remember buying M rated games well before i was 17. but if they do their job then they are out of the picture, but some are too stupid to make the connection that kids buying M rated games is illegal. the second and more important party that should be repremanded is the parents of the kid. it is their job as parents to monitor what their kids are playing/watching/listening to and develop a trust level with their children. by blaming others such as publishers and developers, it puts them out as scapegoats and the parents, who left their responsibility at the table, are scratch free.

Whatever happened to just plain crazy? You do know that there was a time before videogames right? And it wasn't all hand holding and hugging either. People have killed people for all different kinds of reasons. Sometimes they are crazy, sometimes they did it for the military, sometimes they did it for their beliefs and sometimes they did it for entertainment. There are lots of reasons for people to kill one another. I'm not saying I agree with them, I'm saying that people who think the world was a utopia before videogames forgets that there was people who were crazy before the name videogame meant anything. People look so hard for answers are quick to blame anything and everything for an explanation. I just say the kid was crazy, if it wasn't a videogame that set him off it would have been something else later.

I agree with everyone here excep"t Your consciense. I remember when rock and roll was music of the devil that made kids do bad things, then it become scary movies, after that heavy metal and Marilyn Manson, now its video games. I na few years it will be the next new medium that will turn kids into delinquents. People will always want to live in denial and have an easy self blameless scapegoat. Its all BS and people need to take responsibility for their own actions. People do violent things either out of forms of insecurity or mental instabilities. These are bonr out of 3 factors. Genetics, environment and experiences (Meaning events not games, movies or music).

I wish some research would have gone into this story -- KCTV ran no such report, and a quick call to their news desk verified that. I think that's the saddest part of this story.S

It's not the responsibility of the developers to ensure that everyone who buys the game is mentally stable or that their upbringing has been proper. In fact it's impossible to ensure. A movie can trigger something in someone's head that he goes kill someone. A painting can do it. A book can do it. People can freak out just looking at flowers and kill someone. And there is no way to accurately determine each and everyone of these psychos. The developers make a game, just like any other. It's like a piece of art. They sell it to earn their living. People who want to see their work and hear their story buy the game. How the people react to it is their own business. If the game contained some kind of subliminal messaging to make people kill each other then you could say they're responsible, but as it is it's nothing but entertainment. People react to it the way they do because of their own mental and emotional defects, the game doesn't tell them or tempt them to start killing people.

Check yer facts, GS!

“I get really into my games and when Brit’ came over to me to watch TV I forgot I was in a game and accidentally strangled her, ” Sounds like he is mentally ill how can you accidentally strangle someone without knowing what your doing?

You know every single day ppl find ways to blame videogames for all their problems but how the hell do you confuse a videogame with real life.. duh I didnt know I was strangling my sister.. what the hell do you have tv vision or something.. didnt relize you put down the 360controller... and I'm sure he wasnt old enough to buy the game .. unless he was 17 at which point means.. try him as an adult.. dont blame videogames .. and tell his parents to go f*ck themselves for being ignorant to what goes on inside their own house..

Bullcrap!!! You don't even have to kill the sisters you actually have to save them!!! YEah and blame the game for 1 of Millions???? Jack is crazy and an ignorant =D

well well, don't tell me jack Thompson's goin' on a lawfreakinsuit against 2K once again! One in millions, retarded mindless freaks don't need a freakin video game to go on amok...

Response from the author of the blog: First, thanks for even reading the article. What\'s worse than negative publicity (Which I have MORE than enough of. Check out my biggest article about Goatse being on the CNN/YouTube debates) is no publicity. The fact is (heh, \"fact\") that the article accomplished everything it was meant to accomplish. Though I won\'t say the article is fake, I will say that anybody who believed the article also recognized how ridiculous it is that nobody held Sean Connor responsible for his own actions, including his mother and Jack Thompson. I\'m a huge gamer and an even huger fan of Bioshock, some of you express a concern that the Jack Thompsons of this world will use this as fodder, but the fact is that this article actually does more to discredit the Jack Thompsons than it does to support them by pointing out how ridiculous their platform is. And for anybody who wants proof of this, try to find one comment from somebody which argues that this is a good example of the dangers of videogame violence. There isn\'t one. Instead, all of the dialogue created around the article has been defending videogame violence, and thus supporting videogames. Like all my articles, it\'s not the story that is important but the conversations started because of them. And this is no exception. Thanks for reading! Sincerely, Ben Goldman Detales