[supahoops]

Apparently he tried to "find out if robbery was as easy as depicted in the violent game."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...games.thailand

Video games: Grand Theft Auto sales halted after Thai taxi killing
Ian MacKinnon in Bangkok The Guardian, Tuesday August 5 2008


Distributors of Grand Theft Auto yesterday suspended sales in Thailand after a teenager allegedly killed a taxi driver in a bloody frenzy, re-enacting scenes from the blockbuster video game.

Police who caught the 18-year-old at the scene said he confessed to having planned the attack to find out if robbery was as easy as depicted in the violent game.

Phalawat Chinno, who played the game obsessively for hours every day, bought two knives and chose his 54-year-old victim carefully as he believed he would be too old to fight back, police said.

The secondary school student said the killing was a robbery that went wrong. New Era Interactive Media, the Thai distributors of Grand Theft Auto, which recently launched its fourth edition, has asked shops to withdraw copies from sale and video arcades to suspend the game.

"We are sending out requests ... to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games," said Sakchai Chotikachinda, the marketing director of New Era.

Three years ago the families of two police officers and a police switchboard operator gunned down in the US filed a multi-million pound lawsuit in Alabama against the game's makers and distributors. The victims were shot by an 18-year-old who played the game constantly.

Thai investigators said that Phalawat - who allegedly spent eight hours choosing the pair of knives for the attack - had confessed to being inspired by Grand Theft Auto, which allows players to adopt the role of an urban criminal and engage in often violent and destructive, and sometimes murderous, crime sprees.

"He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game," the chief investigating officer, Veeravit Pipattanasak, told Reuters.

Late on Saturday night Phalawat flagged down one cab, but backed out of attempting to rob the driver as there were too many people around. But he hailed another taxi and then held a knife to the throat of its driver, Khuan Phokaeng, and tried to rob him when they reached their destination in a Bangkok suburb.

When Khuan tried to fight off his attacker with an iron bar concealed beneath his seat, Phalawat is alleged to have stabbed him at least 10 times.

[Br0ken]

Oh man, what an absolute idiot. Is he that detached from real life that he actually wanted to compare a game with it and do something so stupid.

If only he bought The Sims he might have tried to do something with his career, start a family, build a house.

[Tigerblade]

You can't blame the game. These ppl have something wrong in their head to not be able to separate fiction from reality.

Reminds of the time when the original Mortal Kombat was released and we were all going to become blood thirsty killers and rip each others heads off

[daniel_owen_uk]

Haven't we had books with violence in for a while? You don't hear anyone saying, "hang on someone poisoned someone, let's ban shakespeare"

[mark1080p]

I hate this blame culture!!

Cant people realise that he re-inacted the game because - he is CRAZY, not right in the head.

the game sold millions of copies, and millions played without killing.

[Matt_C]

Was only a matter of time...... Hey guys, welcome to my world! The media has been blaming shootings, suicides, school massacre's and ritual violence on music for decades - only a matter of time before it was ported to video games

[Ed the Penguin]

Originally Posted by Br0ken

If only he bought The Sims he might have tried to do something with his career, start a family, build a house.

Shame he didn't download Pain and take some carpentry lessons!

[Lezman]

Originally Posted by mark1080p

I hate this blame culture!!

Cant people realise that he re-inacted the game because - he is CRAZY, not right in the head.

the game sold millions of copies, and millions played without killing.

LOL. That reminds me of this (swear warning):

[/url][youtube]rF4YQZIsRrM[/youtube]

[thewait]

Originally Posted by Lezman

LOL. That reminds me of this (swear warning):

i needed a good laugh haha that was funny.

[Honeysuckle]

Lmao I can't blame him although that was indeed stupid!

I don't play the game at all just multiplayer with friends and I remember the chaos we did when we drove around and stuff ..

So here I come after school driving down the road and the thoughts of GTAIV lingering in my head from the night before.. im like Oh no I better drive carefully before I hit the cars in front of me or run them over

Oh GTAIV is a bad influence lol ~

[Sinzer]

Awesome Chris Rock clip! Funny as!