GTA IV taken off shelves in Thailand

360 News | The result of crimes inspired by the game.

Rockstar's blockbuster hit Grand Theft Auto IV has been pulled from stores in Thailand, following claims from a teenager that it motivated him to kill a taxi driver and steal his car.

The 18 year old high school student committed the crimes on the weekend, and was discovered soon afterwards with the wounded driver in the backseat. He confessed to his crimes yesterday - if found guilty, he faces the death penalty.

"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," said chief investigator Veeravit Pipattanasak to Reuters. Apparently, the student was an 'obsessive player' of the game.

As a result, the game's distributor in the region, New Era, has removed the game from sale.

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

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15 Comments

Fetidchimp

4 years ago

This is going to become a tried and tested way for people to escape the death penalty, oh i had diminished responsibility as i stopped being a human the day this evil plastic disc came to my house. Anyone that seriously believes that little johnny went from being a nice boy to a homicidal maniac the day he inserted game X in to his machine is probably just lining up an excuse for the day they do something.

So i can expect money to be taken off the shelves also, as i swear i saw some people getting robbed because the others wanted to find out just how much money they did have in their wallet.

Alleged game related incidents per year - 3
Alleged money related incidents per year - 3 000 000 000

My final message to humanity - STOP BLAMING EVERYTHING ELSE FOR YOU BEING A F**KWIT.

TheAnswer

4 years ago

Typical overreaction to someone blaming a game on the things they did, the kid hadn't even played GTA IV as he was wanting money to buy the game. Also I believe the distributors have removed all GTA games not just GTA IV from sale.

genxevo

4 years ago

people buy legitimate games in thailand?!??! thats news to me

i reckon he most probably had a pirated copy, and thats not gonna stop 'black market' sales of the game anyway

Skiller

4 years ago

If they apply this logic to games why dont they apply it to other things? Because it would be completely stupid, if they weren't discriminating against games/gamers then it would only be a few days before we'd see a news story like so:

"And in other news today the US military was banned because an ex-marine went on a shooting spree and claimed he wanted to see if US citizens were as easy to kill as Iraqs citizens were when he was in the army."

It's stupid logic and shouldn't be used.

djrussell

4 years ago

Fetidchimp wrote

This is going to become a tried and tested way for people to escape the death penalty, oh i had diminished responsibility as i stopped being a human the day this evil plastic disc came to my house. Anyone that seriously believes that little johnny went from being a nice boy to a homicidal maniac the day he inserted game X in to his machine is probably just lining up an excuse for the day they do something.
So i can expect money to be taken off the shelves also, as i swear i saw some people getting robbed because the others wanted to find out just how much money they did have in their wallet.
Alleged game related incidents per year - 3
Alleged money related incidents per year - 3 000 000 000
My final message to humanity - STOP BLAMING EVERYTHING ELSE FOR YOU BEING A F**KWIT.

Dude, you took the words right out of my mouth. In fact, i couldnt have said it that good. 100% correct.

AllSchoolGamer

4 years ago

hhmm i must admit at 30 years old i dont care about these things...let me explain..when i was a kid i was a huge horror movie fan and because that was the only thing going at the time horror movies got blamed for all humanities violent tendencies...as a teenager-adult i was a huge heavy/death metal fan and that got the blame for youth violence by the self-rightous...and now it seems games are copping the flack for this sort of crap.

it has always gone on and will always go on...people are stupid and impulsive and when the shit hits the fan it all of a sudden isnt their fault it must been because of x,y or z.

we live in a blamless society where people can do no wrong and it must have been because of the current media.

but yes as someone said before its funny how a little peice of plastic can dictate your actions. perhaps companies like dupont should be held responsible...

i do hold hope that we will, as a species be more accountable for our actions but i dont rekon it will happen in my lifetime

fatgibba

4 years ago

There will always be maniacs, and there will always be people who dont want to take responsibility for what they have done.

I find it funny that it is always GTA that is blamed and taken seriously. I could go drive like a maniac and blame any number of games from Burnout to Gran Turismo, or even throw banana skins out the window and blame Mario Kart for my actions. Somehow I doubt that these titles would attract as much criticism.

I wonder if there are any good video game to life experiences, i.e. person successfully removes tumor from patient in hospital after being motivated by Trauma Centre.

Gizmocreative

4 years ago

AllSchoolGamer wrote

I know what you mean. Thats why my guilty pleasure is playing deicide, carcass and slayer on my custom playlist for burnout paradise. Follow it up with the house of 1000 corpses and im a sensible well-adjusted timebomb waiting to go off.

Fetidchimp

4 years ago

fortunately i avoid the guilty part and just get pleasure from death metal and horror movies - 34.

shinhawk

4 years ago

I hate it when the population blames violent incidents on games. I really hate the culprit is a child and games are immediately accused for being at fault when its really crappy parenting. I really have to question when parents are not aware of what their kids are playing. Its not that hard to look at the tv to see what they're doing.

I wonder if people outside of the US know about Jack Thompson and his crusade against video games.

lordofthesheep

4 years ago

"I robbed people of their cars and handbags to see if it was as easy as in those 'stop piracy now' ads." Are they getting banned any time soon?

Lord Haart

4 years ago

Fetidchimp wrote

My final message to humanity - STOP BLAMING EVERYTHING ELSE FOR YOU BEING A F**KWIT.

Amen to that, brother.

That said, I still believe that games are an artform, and that also means they are a cultural influence, for good or bad. While they in no way justify an action, they certainly could speak against it. I'm really a little torn here, since I myself love games, but I also know they certainly do affect the way I think - and this can be both positive and negative.

Of course, it's no excuse for an action - but that's not to say that it didn't influence an action. We all know propaganda affects people, and any meme really can do the same.

fatgibba wrote

I wonder if there are any good video game to life experiences, i.e. person successfully removes tumor from patient in hospital after being motivated by Trauma Centre.

Well, there was an article about a strong correlation between skill with the Wiimote and the ability of surgeons to perform certain procedures.

People tend to forget games are often good things. Maybe if Bush had played CoD4 as a kid and seen the devastation caused by war, he might have thought harder about invading Afghanistan/Iraq. I for one hold many post-colonialist (ie pro-indigenous) ideals as a result of my time with Age of Empires. Portal was an excellent study into the idea of Artificial Intelligence - many games actually warn society about technology rather than embrace it (Fallout, anyone?).

Not sure if playing Tetris helps me pack my bags better though.

AllSchoolGamer

4 years ago

Gizmocreative wrote

AllSchoolGamer wrote

yeah i quite enjoy the stylings of deicide and slayer as well as morbid angel and cannibal corpse....i also recently got my hands on a copy of pungent stenches 'been caught buttering' album which i havent heard in a donkeys age and have been enjoying that on my mp3 player at work.

but generally i enjoy all music cept country and western and a lot of modern top 40 type shite...which seems to be a hell of a lot of african/american music at the moment...though that american boy song seems pretty cool

Benza

4 years ago

Wait wait wait, let me get this straight.

THAILAND is instituting anal retenetive laws to stop people commiting crimes and people are actually suprised?

Isn't that kind of what Thailand does? Fine people for spitting out bubble gum, jail sentences for graffiti that kind of deal?

Dropbear

4 years ago

Benza wrote

They do that here too. (not the bubblegum, the graffiti)

But i'm still left wondering whether we should have an "idiot" test for games.

"What is 4 times 5?"
"umm.... 9?"
"..."

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Grand Theft Auto IV

Pre-order or buy:
PALGN recommends: www.Play-Asia.com

Australian Release Date:
  29/04/2008 (Confirmed)
Standard Retail Price:
  $119.95 AU
Publisher:
  Rockstar Games
Genre:
  Action
Year Made:
  2007

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