I want to preface this with the fact that I do think that the Wichita swatting incident was a heinous crime and that those involved (both the hoaxers and the intended victim) were truly despicable people each in their own way.
That said, at the end of the day, the life was lost not because gamers were being violent due to a violent video game. None of the gamers involved so much as ever saw one another. Instead, an entirely innocent third party individual got erroneously targeted by a known type of hoax and, upon moving his hands wrong, was shot by a law enforcement official.
This was intended to be a case of gamer-on-gamer harassment over something that likely was spurred on by events in a violent video game (which is woefully common, though rarely to this degree). But the only violent act committed was by a police officer. And that's an important distinction.
(I assume we can elide the Jacksonville event as that happened during a Madden tournament; unless we want to make the case that football is more like Grand Theft Auto than it is baseball...)
That said, at the end of the day, the life was lost not because gamers were being violent due to a violent video game. None of the gamers involved so much as ever saw one another. Instead, an entirely innocent third party individual got erroneously targeted by a known type of hoax and, upon moving his hands wrong, was shot by a law enforcement official.
This was intended to be a case of gamer-on-gamer harassment over something that likely was spurred on by events in a violent video game (which is woefully common, though rarely to this degree). But the only violent act committed was by a police officer. And that's an important distinction.
(I assume we can elide the Jacksonville event as that happened during a Madden tournament; unless we want to make the case that football is more like Grand Theft Auto than it is baseball...)