GTA blamed for inspiring London riots

08 Aug 2011 at 16:02:34 by John Robertson

[UPDATE: Evening Standard print "videogame inspiration" quote but quickly remove the text in question via a reprint.]

Grand Theft Auto targeted as inspiration behind this past weekend's acts of violence and unrest in London.

According to MCV, today's edition of the London Evening Standard is set to claim that the scenes of rioting in Tottenham, Enfield and Brixton over the past 48 hours were "inspired" by Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series.

Apparently, a police office working in Tottenham, along with a resident of the Enfield area, told the paper's reporters of their believe that GTA's content was the "catalyst" behind the weekend's events.

MCV is claiming that a member of the Evening Standard's news crew confirmed the quotes to them today. However, the source also said that edits are a possibility before the paper goes to the print.

Yes, GTA features scenes of criminality, violence and general lawlessness but Cooking Mama shows people cooking and I've never heard anyone claim that that game is responsible for Heston Blumenthal or Marco Pierre White.

As we all know, this is not the first time British papers have attacked the videogame industry. The Daily Mail posted an image of Fallout 3's post-nuclear war Washington DC under the headline "Al-Qaeda's terrifying vision of a devastated America in the wake of a nuclear attack," back in 2008.

More recently others have claimed that the massacre in Norway was a result of "training" shooter Anders Behring Breivik received from playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Above image taken from Grand Theft Auto IV.

Source: MCV

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