Thailand bans some games in wake of cabbie murder

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 3rd 2008 at 1:30PM }

The Thai government continues its campaign against violent games in the wake of a cabbie's murder, allegedly inspired by Grand Theft Auto. CNet's Thai blog reports that five games have been banned in the country (GTA IV was already pulled by the distributor):

Hitman
300
Killer Seven
Hitman: Blood Money
50 Cent: Bulletproof

The five games are, as Game Politics pointed out early last month, taken directly from an outdated list by Detroit prosecutor Kym Worthy. CNet reports that a conference consisting of government and police officials was recently held to deal with the problem of "dangerous games." Making fun of Thailand's overreaction to the situation would be so much simpler if "Hot Coffee" wasn't still so fresh in our minds.

[Via GamePolitics]

Tags: banning, cabbie-murder, jesada-chandraprasert, thailand

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

riggs @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:32PM

didnt know the spartans took cabs

JonFitt @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:27PM

But if you ask them to take you to the train station, they shout at you and kick you down a well...

MC Double Def DP @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:35PM

I don't care, I'll still make fun of Thailand!

Killjebus @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:37PM

Dangerous games? WOW, this is getting scarry.

So, what about the HUGE child prostitition problem Thailand?

I guess its ok for little girls and boys to be used by westerners for sex and to be treated like a slave, but its NOT ok to harm pixels on a TV screen.

Humanity has a LOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNGGGG way to go b4 we become truly civilized and make it (hopefully) to a type 1 civilization. One things for sure, it will regrettably NOT happen in my lifetime.

So what about books and TV Thailand? Surely there must be some "dangerous" books that need to be burned right?

Jack of No Trades 85 @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:52PM

I swear Killjebus, you and I need to have a cup of coffee/beers sometime. You and I see eye to eye all the time.

Killjebus @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:16PM

BEER!!!! It's whats for dinner, and lunch, and breakfast, and SECOND breakfast.

Where are you from anyhoo Jack?

Me? I am in the Burbs of Chicago

Jack of No Trades 85 @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:27PM

Wichita, Kansas buddy.

DigTheDoug @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:35PM

Make out already, why don't you.

Jack of No Trades 85 @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:47PM

DigtheDoug

Whats wrong with meeting people online and becomming friends?

Believe it or not, but all of the great friends I have now I met online on game blogs & during online game sessions.

Im real good friends with this guy (Johan) over in Europe. We are thousands of miles away & born in different countries yet we still feel as if we are brothers.

Ninjakamster (PS360 FTW!) @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:40PM

Wonderful, all these games taken away from the general population because of the actions of a fucking douchebag.

Nigeria @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:42PM

Thailand is in a state of civil disorder at the moment. People are dying and dodgy businessmen are absconding with £billions. Also, they have real problem with child sex tourism. Concentrating resources on banning video games is an unnecessary distraction.

Ninjakamster (PS360 FTW!) @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:43PM

Videogames always make a nice scapegoat. :(

Nigeria @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:44PM

Also, regardless of the context, it's disheartening to see Killer7 grouped with those garbage games.

Well, Hitman was alright, I suppose. But it wasn't Killer7 quality.

Killjebus @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:51PM

Sex tourism brings in boatloads of money with all of the rich MOSTLY conservative westerners that come here to do the kinds of things to helpless children that they condemn in their home countries. Those pedophile assholes make me sick.

And yes, videogames are the scapegoat for all the world's problem it would seem.

eugene @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:53PM

Are you kidding, it's the PERFECT distraction. First, it plays up the moral issue. Second, it's a clear foreign influence. When things are going shitty, you can always count on the masses to jump on the morality/xenophobia bandwagon.

I mean, countries like saudi arabia, syria and other middle east countries. The vast majority of people live in squalor and poverty while the privileged few race around their streets in audis and ferraris and live in colossal sky scrappers. But the people are content, why? Because their leaders have sold them on the evils of the west.

Look at the United States, a disappearing manufacturing sector, all time high levels of national and personal debt, lower standards of living, diminishing personal wealth and diminishing national prestige... and the people want to talk about gay rights and abortion and illegal immigration.

Sure, those issues matter... they wouldn't be such great distractions if they didn't. But never underestimate the ability of people to latch on to the most unnecessary of things in order to keep from thinking about the truly important and pressing.

Killjebus @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:21PM

Eugene,

Awesome comment. Yes, the lemmings are too easily manipulated by the elite. And thats sad.

Look what the Republicans are doing with this election since the ridiculous selection of Palin.

Abortion and gay marriage. That is all they are talking about instead of the REAL problems facing this country. We are at a crossroads, it either gets better NOW or we will slide so far down the dark path that we will never come back.

theturtle363 @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:42PM

ITT Pseudo intellectual circle jerk

LaughingTarget @ Sep 3rd 2008 6:11PM

Not like Democrats are going to do any better. High corporate taxes are the exact reason WHY the US manufacturing base is vanishing. Hard to compete with places like Ireland and its 10% corporate tax rate when yours is upwards of 40% of income plus payroll tax.

Eliminating the Republicans, Democrats and an income based taxation system will go a long way to fix our problems.

Poisoned Al @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:23PM

I could point out that there's usually a 7 year cycle of boom and bust, and this boom has lasted 14 years due to artificial means. Now everyone is surprised that everything is going to shit when the banks figured out that Billy-Bob wasn't going to be able to make his massive mortgage payments. It's never OUR fault though. It's always the OTHER GUYS fault.

LaughingTarget @ Sep 4th 2008 2:26PM

Which fails to explain a 30 year trend of trade deficites and continual erosion of manufacturing capacity.

Nirolak @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:46PM

Good to hear that Hitman: Contracts is still considered perfectly fine though.

Mr Khan @ Sep 3rd 2008 1:50PM

Killer 7?

Huh. Suda might be pleased that the obscure little gem became so well known

lojusf @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:17PM

WTF, can at least ONE blog get it right? it's KYM worthy, not KIM, not KYN, KYM!

Boffo the Sock @ Sep 3rd 2008 3:05PM

Help me out here. How can it be KYM, but not KYM? Don't try and give me that typographical error nonsense either.

Psaakyrn @ Sep 3rd 2008 9:27PM

You need specs. N != M

Dirty @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:42PM

Most of these games deserve to be banned here too (not killer7). Might I also suggest that they ban Ninja Bread Man.

meist3r @ Sep 3rd 2008 2:56PM

Wow, now the world is safe ... they have banned the five dangerous games out there and now all the kids will be peaceful and forget about their horrid past of drugs and rape.

Thanks Thailand ... I'm looking forward to never visiting your country.

BigD145 @ Sep 3rd 2008 3:00PM

They forgot to kill anybody and everybody that has ever played those games. If people really were thinking about killing cabbies, I'm sure banning the games will make them instantly forget that idea.

Albanian_Killa @ Sep 3rd 2008 4:16PM

Blaming everything on video games, not the fact that some people are mentally unstable should be taken a good look at, and parents should be responsible for what their children do, not let the government handle their job, and ruin it for the rest of the people who did nothing wrong. Way. To. Go.