Spot the difference: The London Evening Standard, whose front page yesterday suggested Grand Theft Auto had inspired London's riots, later issued a reprint binning the game blame reference altogether.
However, the sub-head later switched to: "Children as young as ten hunted by Police". All reference to Grand Theft Auto was also removed from the main story.
The change followed pressure from CVG's own WRONG campaign, as well as other games media and outraged fans on Twitter.
Both editions you can see above are marked 'West End Final'. The Standard traditionally prints two evening editions: West End Final and Late Night Final.
Reports yesterday suggested that a single police officer made the GTA link - sentiments shared by an Enfield resident.
In an online opinion piece, the ES the quoted a constable advising London citizens: "Go home, get a takeaway and watch anything that happens on TV... These are bad people who did this. Kids out of control. When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they're playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves."
No-one else, however, appeared to pop up in support of the video game damning. Wonder why.
Comments
33 comments so far...
JJM-NUKE on 9 Aug '11 said:
W.R.O.N.G has won!!!!!
dpb135 on 9 Aug '11 said:
Is this what happens when no games are released in summer
Seriously, someone needs to sort out these little sh1ts, time to man up Cameron
StonecoldMC on 9 Aug '11 said:
Just wait until they find out that Blizzard will allow them to sell their Loot, legally!
ReaperMan on 9 Aug '11 said:
Seriously though, if you're going to blame a videogame for "inspiring" looting, why not look at State of Emergency?
Blaming GTA is plain stoopid.
AJDarkstar on 9 Aug '11 said:
Hooray! Are people really so dim that they think GTA came before looting?
Moribundman on 9 Aug '11 said:
Its simply a case of them not having much of substance to report, getting a lazy soundbite from a copper, framing and mounting that and putting it on the front page to make an opinion piece concerning last weekend's little flare up. Demonise the video games, why not?
Then they realised about mid-afternoon yesterday that it was NOT just last weekend's little flare up... It was an ongoing state of emergency (the irony) and to simplify the motivating factors and put a neat little bow on it with a reason they absolutely knew to be an ill-informed opinion phrased as an off-the-cuff remark from a put-upon policeman under duress would be very ill-advised.
I think the fact the television is showing how bloody easily and apparently consequence-free adolescent rioters are just smashing windows and nicking stuff is probably MUCH MUCH more responsible for the spread of violence. Inner-city kids in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds see kids in Hackney messing with riot police and running away, or smashing a Ladbrooks window (which seemed to take forever) or walking out of Currys with a Plasma in full view of a BBC crew and they are going to think - "hang about, can they do that?!" its seeing them get away with it and realising that en masse theres only so much the police can control that motivates the little s**ts. Not GTA. The rolling news broadcasters should be more responsible. I'm not calling for a blackout, and they are by no means glorifying it, but their perverse fascination with HOW BAD the rioting is seems to have a worrying "down their throats" effect... At least kids can choose whether or not to watch a violent movie or play Grand Theft Auto. Also if you play GTA or watch Goodfellas you don't get edited highlights of just the worst, most provocative bits of the movie/games events. I think you die enough times in GTA, and see enough people killed in Goodfellas to understand that you don't really want to do what those blokes do. Turn on the BBC, you see a shock pic of a 10 year old getting arrested, but then just endless rolling footage of unchecked mayhem to serve their narrative agenda. Not mayhem/nothing happening/arrests/failed mayhem sequences, but mayhem/mayhem/mayhem. Even porn editors don't just edit pop shots for 5 minutes, but the news guys do.
You'd almost not be aware of the US debt crisis watching the UK news right now.
Its almost as bad as the old ASCII Jolly Roger Cookbook back in the day or whatever which told you exactly HOW to phreak or how to make a pipe bomb "for educational purposes"...
zombiesinmyhead on 9 Aug '11 said:
Well David Cameron has recalled Parliament now, so that'll get things sorted lickety-split!
Its the big society riot squad! Get yourself a shield and crack some heads, Dave!
G_R7 on 9 Aug '11 said:
1 Win to Us! Now lets hit the streets and cave in same chav's heads in so they stop thier rioting!
charliecheswick on 9 Aug '11 said:
W.R.O.N.G FTW!!
Old Skool Gamer on 9 Aug '11 said:
I thought I was in an episode of Bottom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A828XxAJ4Lk
Every time the Tories are in power, the riots start.
StonecoldMC on 9 Aug '11 said:
Do you think we should tell The Standard about Anarchy Reigns? Or would that start another Bandwagon
?
wildhook2 on 9 Aug '11 said:
They had to remove it cos they felt R* could sue them.
Nothing to do with WRONG.
Ali_ on 9 Aug '11 said:
Exactly. INstead of sitting on leather benches scoring political points, get the lazy arsed MPs onot the streets, given batons and told to stand outside the local Curries and PC World.
LordVonPS3 on 9 Aug '11 said:
Story pulled? That's just as well then.
I guess it's not really a surprise all this stuff ends up in the papers. After all, journalists may have some education in media studies and / or English (or some other language) and / or some other proficiency, but all humans get things wrong sometimes.
I think it would indeed be a great thing if mags & journals made more of an effort to issue and publicize retractions and corrections. It would surely be worth sparing at least a page of any newspaper just for correcting news - as news and I'd be willing to bet it'd be filled. It could even be the best place to start reading.
How about you take that as a tip CVG? Updating original stories then pointing out & linking to updates and corrections makes more sense than creating a yet another whole new article about a change to the same thing.
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mogel94 on 9 Aug '11 said:
Justice prevails!!!! Except for you know, the riots and all that... but still gaming justice!!!!!!!!
Rob_McBride on 9 Aug '11 said:
Woo but seriously blaming a game has got well old...
Some kid murder someone "its a games fault"
A person guns a load of people "Its a games fault"
A car gets robbed "it's a games fault"
At the weekend I painted my kitchen "its a games fault" I was playing the Sims
murph_77 on 9 Aug '11 said:
First it was music, then movies and now video games. The only people to blame are the parents for these little $hits running riot. There are no values or morales anymore and to think the next generation will probably be a lot worst!
Metatasian on 9 Aug '11 said:
I just saw on the news that a car got stopped by a mob in croydon and the driver and passenger got dragged out and then the car was stolen and set on fire. I wonder where they learned that behaviour! *cough* GTA *cough* Damn video games are f**king up the whole planet!
corkscru74 on 9 Aug '11 said:
Ok so they've retracted the statement that the riots were inspired by videogames but they should publish how videogames could be inspired by the riots.
Think about it! Boris Johnson as an end of level boss? Yes please!
requiem75 on 9 Aug '11 said:
The only thing that caused the riots were chavs thinking that they were Usher and other pop star gangstas. Tea towls wrapped around your head trying to speak like the the guy from balck eyed peas with the bad taste in sunglasses and walking out of your loacal JJB with a new tracksuit is not cool.
GuTTer on 9 Aug '11 said:
Lets all be honest and stop dicking around.
The real reason for the riots is obvious...
It's not GTA, It's not State Of Emergency, It's not even the price of fuel........
Voldemort's back!
GTCzeero on 9 Aug '11 said:
Victory to the gamers! How about a celebratory loot? That's what we do, isn't it?
bogeyb on 9 Aug '11 said:
Boris Johnson as an end of level boss is a great idea. I wish he was in Duke Nukem Forever-so i could throw lumps of s**t at him.
gmcb007 on 9 Aug '11 said:
They whinge about racial discrimination and being treated like low life thugs and so they riot. Idiots.
spam23 on 9 Aug '11 said:
R.I.G.H.T
? ? ? ? Tabloid
Somebody finish that joke for me.
PMIKE5 on 9 Aug '11 said:
B-but you CAN'T loot shops in GTA games.
Am I the only one who knows this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
If anything, Assassin's Creed is more like these looters than any other game. Hoodies who burn down buildings and steal from people. THERE'S your story Daily Mail!
Dajmin on 9 Aug '11 said:
That one's easy.
Ridiculously Ignorant Gamer-Hating Tabloids
I'd have replaced "tabloids" with "tw*ts", but that's just me.
sonic_uk on 10 Aug '11 said:
That's good news (excuse the pun) although I would still demand an apology and acknowledgement of wrongdoing by the "paper" for the damage done before they removed the ridiculous, entirely false, propoganda headline. I guess we wont get one though.
Augustus_aka_AG on 10 Aug '11 said:
I remember the good old days of Pac Man, where all I wanted to do was run around eating fruit and try my best to avoid the ghosts roaming the streets...
shadowblade34 on 10 Aug '11 said:
It's funny becuase me and my sister were coming out from Victoria station, we picked up two Evening Standard's and they had two different front pages. Did they change the page while they were on the newspaper stand?
rbt2 on 10 Aug '11 said:
People slag off The Stun but The Evening Standard has always been a paper only worthy of an arse wipe.
They always give Palace a bad press so therefore they're wankas!
Uberbeeg on 12 Aug '11 said:
By using the logic that computer games cause violence,I can say religion causes Peadophellia.
rbt2 on 12 Aug '11 said:
Can't speak for every religion but it does if you're a Catholic.