Image: Halo 3 by Ian D

I caught sight of this headline link yesterday “Kids (sic) Accidently Kills Self Recreating Halo” shocked, I clicked through to the piece at OMG Halo to find out about this horrible accident. Reading through the information provided I could not help but think it odd that there was a definitive statement about what this boy was doing before he died alongside the claim that he had skipped school and was “home alone”. Whilst wondering how anyone could possibly know what he was doing in the lead up to his accident when there was no one with him I followed the link trail back to the original source, The Watertown Daily Times Online.

Now I’m going to skip the whole why does an 11yr old boy have a gun? thread (even though I would be very interested to know ) and instead have a look at the chinese whispers type scenario here.

In the original article about this tragic accident there is one sentence that mentions the game and I quote:

‘Lee said it appeared, following the department’s investigation, that after playing a combat video game called “Halo,” Nimm took the gun and tried to recreate some of the things that had occurred in the game.’

They are very careful not to make a cause and effect claim and they include the above with other information such as:

‘He had access to the rifle and a magazine was kept somewhere else by his parents. He was familiar with the rifle and had been shooting it a couple of times a month - he lived out in the country, so that was nothing unusual.’

Along with more that suggests that alternative reasons for his death were investigated.

This same story was then reported in various other places in a way that, to me, appeared to emphasise the role of Halo in the incident (although the closer I got to the original article the milder and more accurate the association became).  Now, I’m all for “spreading the word”, or if you prefer, writing for the sake of passing on information - in fact I do a lot of that myself.  You do have to remember though that sometimes, if you’re not careful, when you change the wording to make it more your own you change the meaning also.

My concern is that there is enough negativity in the media about games, particularly violent games (and movies too) without adding fuel to the fire with sensational headlines and definitive statements that lack substance.  In this situation it took a bit of effort for me to get to the original article - only hunting it down because what I read initially didn’t make sense to me - How many people just wouldn’t bother?  People are so quick to judge when it comes to this subject, we need to be careful.

Please, we are only just starting to see some positive studies on games and gaming, I don’t want to see us take one step forward three steps back.

note* I do not at all intend to take away from the real tragedy of this which is the loss of an 11yr old boy. My heart goes out to his family.