More like "Teens blame GTA in the hopes of getting off scott-free by blaming their idiotic behaviour on a game".

I learned how to make Molotovs the old fashioned way, a book. GTA IV does not have any tutorials on this and it seems this is all a load more FUD to try to either make GTA IV the scapegoat for all the world evil or it's a cunning ploy by the kids in question to absolve themselves of the responsibility and pass the buck to the video games industry. The bible bashers of middle america will love this because they can blame all their woes on Rock Star rather than taking responsibility for their poor parenting.

Poor little tykes. Let astray by the Evil PC Gaming Corporations!

this is just showing a worrying trend for scum bag's to do something bad get caught and blame GTA because the media love to go on an anti-gta warpath.

Never mind the fact the game doesnt teach you to make petrol bomb's, never mind the fact actual contruction of petrol bomb's is depicted in many TV shows, movies, book's or who know's even just plain creativity.

No its all GTA aparently. So if GTA never exisited these kids wouldnt know anything about petrol bomb's or even if they did they certainly wouldn't know how to make the. Right what ever.

Never mind the fact that these kid’s were in a gang, you know those lovely group of guy’s who help old grannies, wash your car and don’t kill each other in the streets oh wait that the boy scouts.

Lock the Scum bags up with the pedo's, file shares, and murder's and throw away the key.

Of course they were going to say that.

There has been so much propaganda by tree-hugging lefties each time these games come out about the "somebody think of the children" aspects of the game, that when these little shits go bad, of course they're going to be sneaky enough to do it under the guise that "the big bad game that everyone is saying will send kids bad sent us bad, so it's the games fault not ours"

They claim that they learnt how to make molotovs in-game. Well, I've played a good number of the GTA series from original to latest, and unless I've missed something (as pointed out) there are no "build your own" sections of the game (other than taking truck to guy who'll rig it with semtex).

But of course, the media are clammering for these stories, so everyone wins (except the car owners): the media get their "we told you so" story, the kids get to be bad with a ready-made excuse, the lefties get their extra nail in the coffin of freedom (ironic really, that the socialists want to put so many dictatorial controls on us).

Here's the newsflash though. Molotov cocktails existed before GTA. Search for Molotov Cocktail online and I bet there are hundreds of sites with recipe lists (am not gonna confirm that while sat at work tho!).

Oh, and kids were bad more than 10 years ago (i.e. pre-GTA).

Back to blaming internet, television, witches, false gods and having 5-knuckle shuffles for all the evil and suffering in the world, then.

I remember using Molotov cocktails (napalm) in the classic 2D game Worms, I suppose that'll make me want to ninja rope around in real life before dropping banana bombs on unsuspecting people.

We used to just go around chainsawing people to death. We had a choice of blaming Doom or Texas Chainsaw massacre, whichever one was in most disfavour at the time.

These days it's all GTA GTA GTA, where has all the choice gone?

...these people are clearly unhinged to begin with. GTA4 is an easy target to pin the blame on. In the 1980s we blamed the movies, and now we blame GTA4.

I play this game frequently, and I have no desire to torch cars, or take out pedestrians with a handgun.

How about authorities tackle the route cause instead of banning a legitimate (and somewhat fun) product.

Paris, because she enjoys cocktails - just not Molotovs...

I remember 'experimenting'* with petrol bombs when I was about those kids ages.

This was way before GTA mind-you, should I blame it on Horrace Goes Skiing instead?

*- Though we were very careful to never damage anyone's property.

I mean it couldn't possibly be the fault of the parents that bought their under age child the 18+ game ?? Any child/minor that blames their violence on a video game should be ignored, as they shouldn't have been playing that game in the first place. Its the parents responsibility to make sure that their children are playing games that are suitable for them.

If the parent is unsure about a games content then they need to play it themselves before letting the child see/play it. If the child is not responsible enough to realise that a game shouldn't be copied in real life then they shouldn't be playing that game.

I wonder if these same parents let their children watch Jackass or similar and then wonder why they break their limbs jumping out of trees, MTV get away with putting a 'do not copy' disclaimer on that show.. Surely the 18+ certification on the video game should do the same thing ?

The onus should be on the parents to be more responsible for what their children are doing, and also on the computer game shops to sell rated games only to people of the correct age.

It should be treated the same as alcohol if this carries on, that a shop keeper cannot sell a game to a person under the age limit of the game, and cannot sell it to a parent if they suspect that it will be played by someone under that age limit.

Game manufacturers are doing everything possible to make sure games are played by the correct audience, the parents and retailers need to do the same.

"Teens admit to playing 18 certificate game while underage: Parents up before beek on charges of irresponsibility and criminal negligence".

If only....

A petrol bomb is nice and simple, a bottle full of petrol with a rag in it. Molotov's are petrol + <Redacted :) > mixed up with a rag in the top.

Molotov's are much nastier!

If they're going to claim they learnt to do it from GTA, they should expect to be dealt with the same way. Get more than a "3 star" rating, which I would assume would be the fire-bombing of their 3rd or 4th car, and the police would turn up and riddle them with bullets.

What did they expect? That's what happens in the game. Then they could reload from the last save-point...

Flame icon, for obvious reasons.

Molotov Cocktails...

Fire-bombings...

Georgia...

Sounds like even the Russians got their initial bombing co-ordinates from Wikipedia and these poor kids are just the scapegoats!

Not doing too well recently...

Mine's the one with the Googel emblem on the back

Can you imagine what they would have done if they had watched McGuyver!!!

So GTA or whatever the dangerous game of the time is, is the new "big boys did it.." excuse.

And Mike, I think you might find it is the Righty god botherers who are more inclined to use this as an excuse than the lefty tree huggers..

involves little more than "get bottle, fill with flammable liquid stuff, stick rag in top to act as wick, leave rag to soak up some vapour, ignite rag, throw". Pretty simple, really.

Not exactly showing them anything that you'd not see on the news now is it? If they'd found a number of spinning bottles after breaking a crate in a back-street with a single well-aimed punch and then used them you could see the similarities.

If these kids are so easily influenced they should probably be locked up, whether they're entirely responsible for their actions or otherwise; they're a genuine and immediate danger to society. Start introducing that angle into legal cases and watch the number of "GTA made me do it, your Honour" cases tumble.

Also, they shouldn't have been playing GTA and probably shouldn't have been buying lighter fluid either.

I dont really get how you could "learn" to make them... you pretty much just have to see one to understand it

In that way I was taught to make them at school in history lessons. Shocking

After playing the game for 15 or so hours straight it's hard to drive normally. I just want to go flat out and run over mopeds!

My guess is that their barrister is advising them to blame their actions on the game (which they were too young to be playing), as a sort of "diminished responsibility" plea. Which sounds like an excellent idea; and surely, if their responsibility was diminished, the most logical thing to do then is to remove them forthwith to the kind of environment where they will never, ever have to take responsibility for any of their actions again.

Dunno what Mike's ranting about socialists for - it's usually right-wing reactionary rags like the Daily Mail screaming about GTA et al.

Second that "learnt from the game" nonsense, though. I've played nearly all the GTA games, and I've never seen anything even close to instructions for making petrol bombs.

It's simple, the game has an 18 certification, blame the fat parents.

Flame, well, it's obvious isn't it?

Just a small point, but most of the propaganda regarding video games and their influence on the children tends to come from right wing bible bashers, rather than left wing tree huggers. Please get your lazy stereotypes correct in future.

Some Mid.Atlantic_Island@nowhere.com was entirely crime free as regards burglaries and robberies but then some fool imported a stack of videos.

Soon they had a crime wave.

When and where was that?

Sociologists are seeing a large rise in the number of children born and raised in trailer parks becoming Mormons as reality changes to accommodate infuriated video gamers insistence that your environment has no effect on your actions.

(yes I know people should take responsibility for their actions and I am sure you all do, but some of you must have worked in a hell desk and realized that not everyone in the world is as bright as you)

That is the FIRST time I've EVER heard the Daily Mail and its readers called "tree-hugging hippies".

You really just wanted an excuse to blame someone with ideals you don't like, don't you? Just like the daily mail wants to blame everyone.

I think you missed the subtle ironic dig at the way certain industries are trying to criminalize file sharing. I don't think file sharing is bad, and my entire prior post was full of sarcastic remarks at the sheer lunacy of the idea of GTA4 being the reason these kids decided petrol bombing cars was fun.

It is little bastards like these that get games banned for everyone else.

"I mean, if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills, and listening to repetitive music" - sorry it is an old one.

their clearly forcing their kids to blacken the name of video games. As it happens I learned to make petrol bombs from the news and I learned to disable nuclear bombs off the internet! How's that for a slice of life?

... Molotov Cocktails from my mum... yep seriously.

But quite aside from that, does anyone seriously believe had these kids never seen GTA that they would not have gone and done something different but equally dumb?

My mates and I when I was that age used to make bombs (again kid you not, custard powder, wonderful stuff) but we used to climb over the wall into a derelict and disused municipal graveyard and let them off in there (well after the first one was let off in the back garden, decided never to do that again).

Obviously in today's freaky everyones a terrorist times kids are better off with Molotov cocktails than bombs (I'd opt for local police and courts over anti-terrorist police and Guantanamo Bay any day) but still, these idiots burned out cars and peoples property... we (my mates and I) disturbed a few dead people and some local wildlife.

Sorry, much as I personally don't like GTA (any more than I like Sims) it did not teach these kids to be malicious even if they lifted ideas from it on how to be malicious.

Paris because she makes me explode.

In the 70s/80s we had proper petrol bombing in Norn Iron.

I guess they must have learned it all from attack of the mutant camels.

It's time to ban VGA cards, we never had sex and violence in the time of Leisure Suit Larry and EGA.

too right MrM filesharers really should get extra time added on

...because I watch MacGyver.

I was nine, but got it from the same source.

Then my Da (ex british army) informed me how they were properly made.

There is no lighter fuel in them, so I don't see how these kids got instructions *from anywhere* for their rampage.

Anyways, immediately after that I was arrested for demolishing my entire school, brick by brick, with a tennis ball.

Y'see, there was this game called "breakout"...

;-)

"Lock the Scum bags up with the pedo's, file shares, and murder's and throw away the key"

are you now putting "file shares" - you mean users of p2p, certainly, because otherwise you'd be in the category yourself - on the same level as homicide, paedophilia and vandalism / terrorism ?

tell you what, since these guys are obviously f....rigging idiots (the molotov bombers, not the 4 groups above), why not solve all the problems of the world at once and lock up any and all idiots ? I might be willing to consider it, but be aware that you'd obviously be included in this category also.

as proof, the words you are looking for are "sharers", "pedos" or "paedos" and "murderers" you fscking idiot.