Norwegian Retailer Ditches Games After Shooting Tragedy

I think we all know about the senseless shooting in Norway. But once again, gaming has fallen into the media cross-hairs.

And the reason is due to the fact that the murderer listed "training" in his "manifesto," and that training included Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Therefore, according to a report in Norwegian newspaper Rogalands Avis (as cited by VG247), Coop Norway Retail director Geir Inge Stokke says the retail chain "is temporarily removing" video games "out of consideration for those affected" by last week's disaster. As he said:

"The decision to remove the games was made around the time we realized the scope of the attack. Others are better suited than us, to point to the negative effects of games like these. At the moment it’s [appropriate] for us to take them down. I wouldn’t be surprised if others do the same.

We have to think very carefully about when to bring these goods back. The economy involved is of no importance."

Toys that "look or function as weapons" have also been removed. You can bet that you'll hear more about CoD in relation to the shooting as time goes on. Of course, the anti-gaming activists are using this as ammunition, while those who defend the industry are once again working hard. We're sure you have opinions on the matter but please don't let those opinions erupt in a giant argument.

What happened is bad enough.

Tags: norway, norwegian shooting, norway disaster, norway games

7/29/2011 8:46:26 PM Ben Dutka

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Comments (36 posts)

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Riku994
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 9:49:50 PM
Reply

Maybe CoD will finally be discontinued... XD

4 up, 7 down

FM23
Sunday, July 31, 2011 @ 1:08:28 PM

Pretty sure your a happy Anti-Cod fan...or is that a misguided assumption.

0 up, 0 down

GuernicaReborn
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 9:54:02 PM
Reply

Hmmm... Target doesn't remove all their kitchen knives from the shelves every time a stabbing takes place. Like you said, what happened was bad, but pulling games off the shelf isn't going to help.

Did the gun and ammo retailers pull their stock as well?

16 up, 2 down

Neurotoxiny
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 9:59:42 PM
Reply

At least they're doing it out of tact, GuernicaReborn...

2 up, 1 down

GuernicaReborn
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:16:22 PM

I think it was less tact and more to do with the already negative press that video games get.

What if this maniac trained using paintball instead of video games? I could be wrong here, but I doubt paintball guns would be pulled of shelves like this.

8 up, 0 down

Jawknee
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:04:37 PM
Reply

I hate it when people do this. While I certainly understand the sensitivity of this issue, when people blame "things" for the crimes committed by nutters, it diverts the blame away from the perpetrator who deserves 100% of them blame for his dispicable and evil actions. I remember people were trying to blame Doom when those two nuts shot up Columbine Highschool. I think it comes from an inability by some to see evil for what it is. There always has to be an explanation. Some times people are just sick and evil. It's like Batman trying to understand why the Joker does what he does. There's no understanding people like that. They just like chaos.

18 up, 3 down

bloody_rootz
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 11:09:59 PM

I could not agree with jawknee any more. Some people are just twisted. The worst part about this massacre is that the Killer can serve no longer then 21 years imprisonment for killing the 90 plus people. Under Norwegian law no person can serve a extended period of 21 years for murder, no matter how many they killed.

So this guy will be a free man when he's like 52. How about they change that law before just doing something so pointless as too just take games off shelves.

9 up, 0 down

AcHiLLiA
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 11:25:22 PM

I hate it when stupid people get strong ideas from the mass media.

0 up, 0 down

Jawknee
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 11:45:47 PM

@Bloody, A testament to how unjust the socalled "leaders of compassion" policies can be. So many unitended consequences. This reminds me of the Scott's freeing the Lockerbie Bomber on grounds of "compassion." Remember he only had "days to live" in 2009? He was seen chumming it up with his pal Qaddaffi just last week. This guy should get the death penalty for what he's done.

@Euro, The guy isn't stupid. He's extremely well read and his English is fanastic for being a native Norwegian. He's just evil and demented. Some of histories most evil human beings were smart people. Just wickedly evil. But I know what you mean.

5 up, 2 down

Beamboom
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 3:14:17 PM

@Bloody: That's not exactly right but it's a very common misunderstanding, even amongst Norwegians.

The 21 years is just the highest "regular" prison sentence one can get "in one go", in addition there is something that I do not know the english word for :D but it basically means that if he is considered dangerous for the society or a high risk of repetition of a serious crime they can continue to imprison him for 5 years at a time, with new consideration each five years.
And *if* he is let out of jail there are additional options to keep him under surveillance. So in effect, he'll never be a truly free man again.

Last edited by Beamboom on 7/30/2011 3:19:10 PM

4 up, 0 down

BikerSaint
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:09:28 PM
Reply

This guy was seriously deranged way before he ever picked up COD or played World of Warcraft.

That guy would've killed regardless if he had used a video game to train by or not. He just would have found an alternate means to cause all the carnage & 87 lives he snuffed out.

Unfortunately for millions of gamers worldwide, his sick twisted mind has just given our hobby another black by picking video games to train by.

If the retail wanted to do something worthwhile, they should have taken up a collection for the family, or donate to a mentally challenged cause.

R.I.P. Norwegians

6 up, 0 down

GuernicaReborn
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:23:23 PM

Starting a collection would have been a great idea. Anything to help the grieving families, services such as providing grief counseling or assisting with funeral arrangements would help the families, as well as the nation, on their road to recovery.

5 up, 0 down

Milonakis
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:19:02 PM
Reply

It's good he didn't learn how to knife people from 30 ft away when he was playing. Seriously though, how can you "train" to kill people from a game that lacks all sense of reality and nearly all the guns are unavailable to civilians. The only reason I can think of to do something like this is that he was sick of europe having to wait to get catherine.

2 up, 0 down

WorldEndsWithMe
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:21:27 PM
Reply

Overreaction to the extreme, but my Norwegian blood kind of understands. They are a laid back folk.

Hadn't heard of CoD in there though, I heard he played World of Warcraft. But he probably did a lot of things. You just can't lay blame anywhere but on the individual. I'm glad gaming has finally achieved a place where it cannot be excised from society because now I no longer fear the anti game activists. As long as something makes tons of money in an important industry it will never go away.

The gay hate Muslims, there's your reason, go after that.

Can years of imaginary training be put to use? Apparently it can, but it shouldn't be.

2 up, 0 down

Ben Dutka PSXE [Administrator]
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:30:36 PM
Reply

I SWEAR, that guy's resemblance to David Duchovny is freaking me OUT.

1 up, 0 down

Jawknee
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:48:53 PM

I knew it! I knew he looked like some one famous. I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Last edited by Jawknee on 7/29/2011 10:55:30 PM

0 up, 0 down

WorldEndsWithMe
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 10:50:23 PM

I see a very slight resemblance in the eyes.

1 up, 1 down

Ben Dutka PSXE [Administrator]
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 11:38:56 PM

World: Are you nuts? Look at the shape of his mouth and chin.

0 up, 0 down

WorldEndsWithMe
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 5:32:52 AM

yeah maybe you're right, I'm used to old duchovny now as Hank Moody, his less-slackened Mulder appearance that this guy has is changed.

0 up, 0 down

SSRGohan
Friday, July 29, 2011 @ 11:00:06 PM
Reply

why is that loser even getting some kind of article here?? how bout the fact the same douchbag who used microsoft word as his official document program??? f*cking nut job, i blame his parents for bad parenting.

2 up, 1 down

Random_Steve
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 4:33:13 AM

You obviously know very little about this then. I'm not sure how much media coverage there is in the US, but here in Europe it's a huge thing, and I can assure you that it wasn't the parent's fault in any way whatsoever.

3 up, 0 down

StangMan80
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 12:28:41 AM
Reply

This is stupid.
Just like people wanting to take away our 2nd Amendment here in America. You can do this with everything, literally, with books, Nerf guns, you name it. It can be used to "train" or "encourage violence".
The people who do this are not everyday people like most of us, it's people who were bad parented, mad/insane in the head. Go after the parents not of people of criminals of today but parents who think they are doing their job as a parent. Parents are just not parenting these days. It's crazy what kids are doing these days. It sad, really is, because how do you think they are going to parent their children, the exact same way. Parents of today need advice, help.

This is just pointless and ruin sales for the games, that's it. Video games do not make you want to kill anyone, not for real anyways. And you can't train in COD, or any video game for that matter. Games you would use for that just are not realistic enough. And you need to actually get physical with training for it to help at all.
This is bogus.

0 up, 0 down

AnonymousPoster
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 12:32:45 AM
Reply

When 95% of boys have played some kind of violent game, it would be more of an anomaly if he had /not/ played video games.

Blaming games makes about as much sense as blaming movies for having guns in them. We've all seen people get shot in movies, but that doesn't mean we're all running out to shoot people.

This guy was a racist nutjob, nothing more. Games neither put those ideas in his head, nor fostered them. If he hadn't "trained" in Call of Duty, he would have watched military videos on YouTube, or in movies, or read tactics in books, or any of a hundred different ways he could have accomplished his goal.

5 up, 0 down

___________
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 3:40:31 AM
Reply

what for?
i dont see movies, comics, novels and other forms of entertainment being removed.
why do games always have to be the scapegoat?
im really starting to get sick of this games are the work of the devil bull sh*t!
getting even more sick of the games are worse because they have a higher impact because there interactive bull sh*t!
never heard a larger crock of sh*t in my entire life!!!!!

1 up, 0 down

cthulhu_spawn
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 4:41:20 AM
Reply

he's a right-wing christian fundamentalist claiming part of his reasoning was to make a pre-emptive strike to start a war against what he sees as a muslim invasion of western europe and the world at large. surely by the logic of the anti-gaming lobby then you could also say that the christian faith is as responsible if not more so than the games he plays, but no-one is banning church services ! some people are just wired wrong, and the duchovny-alike nutjob is one of them. I guess its just easier to blame the kick-post that is gaming than admit to the unquantifiable darker side of humanity

4 up, 4 down

Jawknee
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 10:30:29 AM

No he is not. Try reading what he wrote instead of believing the media memes. The guy was far from a Christian. Christianity had just as little to do with his motives as CoD did. Please take your anti-Christian rants else where.

Last edited by Jawknee on 7/30/2011 10:32:35 AM

1 up, 4 down

Jawknee
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 11:36:53 AM

Sorry, it was early and I miss read your comment. Reading it again now, I more or less understand what you are saying. Though if you do read his manifesto, it's clear the guy was just a demented freak and not a Christian.

Sorry again for the misunderstanding.

2 up, 1 down

Beamboom
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 4:37:10 PM

What *I* think is scary, real scary, is that reading the manifesto much of what he writes does *not* look like a demented freaks ramblings, but indeed are reasoning that we hear in everyday life, even from politicians. I disagree that he was "just" a demented freak. Had it only been so well.

His opinions are frighteningly widespread. The opinions are extreme and far right wing, sure, but still, he's far from the only one saying what he does say.
That does of course not mean that everyone who to some degree share his opinions are capable of doing what he did - his *actions* are freaky, but his motivations are based on quite widespread opinions about "the muslim threat".

Last edited by Beamboom on 7/30/2011 4:39:25 PM

2 up, 0 down

Beamboom
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 4:41:57 AM
Reply

This has all to do with tact and nothing to do with bad press (or self promotion).
Norway is a very small country. We are less than 5 mill in *total*. So, everyone know someone who was at the island, or knew someone that had someone close who were there and is heavily affected by it. Many even knew one or more of those who got killed.

As you know WoW and COD are mentioned specifically in the killers compendium, and that particular retailer decided that they did not want to have that box art lined up in their shelves these days.
Please note that "Coop" (despite the name) is not a games retailer but a supermarket chain. Games makes just a microscopic part of their wares, along with toys, clothing, grocery, magazines, etc. So their customers are a much wider audience than just gamers.

It's also worth mentioning that I have not read one single article in the Norwegian press where anyone tries to even remotely blame gaming in general or these titles in particular for what's happened. They are just two of many, many insane details featured in these ramblings of his.

Everything will return back to normal within a few weeks, and the games will return to this retailers shelves too.

Last edited by Beamboom on 7/30/2011 4:59:48 AM

3 up, 0 down

tes37
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 8:16:56 AM
Reply

The idea that murder requires training is ridiculous. Shooting unarmed people is not an act that requires skill.

1 up, 0 down

Skatejimmy5
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 9:15:28 AM
Reply

Coop is just a supermarket chain store anyway. There is no loss involved (regarding the games). They're overpriced there anyway, you're better off going to a real store like EB Games or Game.

I live in Sweden, and my respect goes out to everybody affected by this massacre.

2 up, 0 down

Bugzbunny109
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 2:15:36 PM
Reply

How the hell does COD train someone how to shoot people? COD??!!! I guess they should ban every other media form out there that has anything resembling a gun because it trains people to shoot others. Am I the only one finding this herrendous?

2 up, 0 down

GuernicaReborn
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 5:41:31 PM

I agree. Last time I checked, you don't aim a gun with dual joysticks.

3 up, 0 down

Beamboom
Sunday, July 31, 2011 @ 2:56:36 AM

I believe it has more to do with "mental preparation" than gun practise.

0 up, 0 down

cthulhu_spawn
Saturday, July 30, 2011 @ 4:36:21 PM
Reply

no worries jawknee :-) Point was, whether it was his religous views, mental state, political leanings or what ever else, we as a species need something tangible and understandable to qualify the insanity that fills our animal minds and it's easy to pick on gaming as everyone's favourite destroyer of all that is good rather than concentrate on the real issues. No-one though can blames stores for their actions at this time, let's hope it's kept in context and doesn't lead to more knee-jerk over-reaction in the future though.

2 up, 0 down

BikerSaint
Monday, August 01, 2011 @ 11:34:19 AM
Reply

Norway Massacre:
Expert Says Blaming Video Games "A Certain Type of Racism".

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/norway-massacre-expert-says-blaming-video-games-a-certain-type-of-racism/

0 up, 0 down

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