In case you hadn’t heard, back in 2007 a teenager named Daniel Petric, shot his parents point blank because his parents would not let him play Halo 3, with a gun he found hidden alongside the game after it was confiscated. While his father survived the incident, his mother was killed. 

Gamepolitics reported that the judge of that case has found the teenager guilty. Judge James Burge also felt the need to express his feelings that video games are the root of this tragedy.  He believes that Daniel’s addiction to video games acted much like that of a drug addiction, setting off a delusional chemical imbalance where the teen did not know that his parents would be gone forever once he killed them.  The transcript that Gamepolitics put together is as follows:

The Court must enter a finding of guilty on the counts set forth in the indictment. That being said, it’s my firm belief as a human being – and not as a jurist – that Daniel does suffer from a serious defect of the mind.

 This Court’s opinion is that we don’t know enough about these video games. In this particular case, not so much the violence of the game because I believe in the Halo 3, what it amounts to is a contest to see who can shoot the most aliens who attack.

 It’s my firm belief that after a while the same physiological responses occur that occur in the ingestion of some drugs. And I believe that an addiction to these games can do the same thing. The dopamine surge, the stimulation  of the nucleus accumbens – the same as an addiction. Such that when you stop, your brain won’t stand for it.

 The other dangerous thing about these games, in my opinion, is that when these changes occur, they occur in an environment that is delusional. Because you can shoot these aliens, and they’re there again the next day. You have to shoot them again. And I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea, at the time he hatched this plot, that if he killed his parents, they would be dead forever.

But I believe there is hope here. I believe that it will start here and, uh, at some point when all is known about Daniel and what occurred here we will be able to achieve a greater sense of justice.

Source:

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/01/13/judge-comes-down-hard-video-games-halo-3-murder-trial

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