In a surprising and rather reactionary turn of events, many Norway retailers (including the Norway branches of Co-op) have opted to pull violent video games from the shelves in reaction to the Anders Breivik murders. These retailers have banned 51 titles including everything from Modern Warfare 2 to bizarrely enough World of Warcraft. Some things to note about this ban – it’s not government based. These bans are at the discretion of the retailers. Secondly, these bans are not permanent. Retailers will “carefully consider when the time is right to sell these games again”.
As most of Breivik’s “manifesto” has been proven to be plagiarized, I personally believe that retailers reacting in this fashion offers Mr. Breivik too much of a platform, building a case that the video games were the cause of the violence, not the deranged psyche of Mr. Breivik.
But what do you think, readers? Do you think this was the right thing to do?
