Anders Breivik, the right-wing extremist who has confessed to killing 77 people during a murder spree in Norway last summer, played the violent computer game World of Warcraft nearly seven hours a day for several consecutive months before his attack, prosecutors say.
Breivik, 33, already known to have a long history with the online role-playing game, was particularly absorbed by it between November 2010 and February 2011, when he played for an average of 6 hours and 50 minutes per day, according to prosecutors.
The new evidence in Breivik's ongoing trial was presented in an Oslo court on Wednesday. When asked about his interest in the game by a prosecutor, Breivik angrily dismissed the idea that playing World of Warcraft had any connection to his attacks, according to media reports.
"It is not relevant to this case whatsoever," Breivik said, getting so upset that he threatened to turn off his microphone, according to Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik detonated a bomb in central Oslo that killed eight people, and then shot and killed 69 people attending a youth summer camp on the nearby island of Utoya. Breivik admitted mounting the attacks after his arrest, and used weapons named after Norse gods to massacre his victims.
He has previously stated that he played Warcraft, as well as another "first-person shooter" game called Modern Warfare, for hours daily.
In Warcraft, players assume the identity of an online character to use magic and weapons to battle monsters and other characters and go on quests.
According to prosecutors, Breivik played Warcraft under the aliases "Andersnordic" and "Conservatism."
Norwegian anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen, who was brought in as an expert witness for Breivik's defense earlier this year, said in an interview with the British network ITN that Breivik was apparently unable to separate games from reality.
"He does not seem to be very successful at distinguishing between the virtual reality of 'World of Warcraft' and other video games and reality," Eriksen said.
In a March 2008 post on a web forum devoted to the game, user "Andersnordic" posted that the game had been responsible for making him "300kg, bald and pale," and told the game's developer Blizzard Entertainment, "You'll hear from my lawyer!"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Since when in the **** is WoW "violent" ? I used to play EQ for that much / day and I sure as hell didn't end up doing stuff like he did, and I had more of a reason because EQ was a frustrating piece of **** compared to WoW. It's funny how it puts quotes around "first-person shooter" and just completely glosses over CoD.
"He does not seem to be very successful at distinguishing between the virtual reality of 'World of Warcraft' and other video games and reality," Eriksen said.
People that say **** like that need to die, clearly Breivik has some screws loose, but come the **** on.
from a friend on FB:
Are they actually trying to blame World of Warcraft for this guy blowing up 77 people? If he was so absorbed in to this game than how did he have the time to build the ****ing bombs? And I played more than 7 hours a day at my peak yet I wasnt out burying people beneath my house and chocking bitches with belts. This ****ing story is retarded.
Master Tailor Toprem Spaztastic, level 75 Drizzlecaller of Karana. Member of Clan Ta Veren
It would be hilarious if the media applied the same standards to other mediums of entertainment.
It has just been reported that the gunman was a MOVIE WATCHER! Movies are long videos filled with violence, sex, and offensive materials. The expert hired by the defense team was quoted as saying that the defendant was unable to separate what happened in movies from reality."
I don't think his life and WoW blurred together that much, otherwise he would have stood outside the camp for awhile shouting, "LFM Oslo/Utoya, link achievement". I don't remember there being reports of him ripping cloth scraps and taking change off his victims either.
I want to say people have to be mentally handicapped to believe this rationale, but I feel it's an insult to people that are mentally handicapped. Rather than just agree that the dude was batshit insane, we have to tie it to some stupid thing the person did as a hobby. World of Warcraft has what, 10 million subscribers? If it was the game itself, you'd think there would be a lot more people going on crazy murder sprees.
What is notable is that the defense is trying to use it as their argument, which people should see right through but sadly they don't.
Deflagration - Ungiggity - Jointpaper - Pö - Proctologist - Fantastical - Pandarica WoW - L a s t R i t e s - Firetree Too many to play, too little time to do it.
Also let us not forget that he actually knew how to hold the gun, point it, pull trigger, deal with recoil, actually reload rather than press R... rather than run around avoiding any areas that had stuff on them pressing 1 1 1 2 1 3 11 1 2 1 1 3 1 2 to try to maintain a perfect rotation. And using a gun rather than either sending his pet in or casting magical abilities.
And yeah, the defense is doing this against his wishes - all other news of the trial seems to indicate that his lawyers keep trying things that end up enraging him.
You know ****'s weird when an admitted mass murderer sounds more rational and has a better grasp on the fundamentals of the case than the prosecutors. Do they figure this is so easy, they might as well tack on a little social commentary while they're at it?
chmod said:
I don't want to live in a world where there are no consequences for being stupid. A few thousand years ago these users would have been eaten by lions.
it just doesn't seem to add anything to the widely known knowledge of his playing WoW and other games.
The whole article could have been 2 sentences, one about the prosecutors bringing the subject up and another about how he was upset and threatened to turn off his mic.
That the writer(s) of the article are so clueless about games is sorta funny, I guess.
First off, I agree that WoW did not make him do any of that stuff.
However, WoW IS violent. When two characters swing their swords at each other until one of them dies that is violence. In fact, I would say WoW is extremely violent. The central principle is to kill other life form to increase personal power.
"Injijo invented sitting down. " - Ben Franklin, 1785
Considering his lengthy manifesto, it's kind of silly they're trying to go for insane or 'couldn't separate reality from games.' I'm pretty sure he'd have been much less effective throwing things at people yelling fireball fireball, 'hotstreak!' PRYOBLAST! If they argue CoD helped him train they'd have to explain how he managed to hit anything with weapons that actually have recoil.
"Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves." - Bill Hicks
Considering his lengthy manifesto, it's kind of silly they're trying to go for insane or 'couldn't separate reality from games.' I'm pretty sure he'd have been much less effective throwing things at people yelling fireball fireball, 'hotstreak!' PRYOBLAST! If they argue CoD helped him train they'd have to explain how he managed to hit anything with weapons that actually have recoil.
Well, the mental problem they are saying he has is less "can't tell between reality and video games" and more "values reality less than or equal to fantasy". They almost seem the same, but they are not. And video games don't make someone with this mental disorder violent. The reasons a person like this becomes violent is far deeper than any video game he/she played. Regardless, he needs to be locked up.
