Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

You know, he has been on my list of suspects for a while, but this clinches it:

Schumer is calling on New York retailers not to stock the game or sell it. "There is nowhere that the value of the police force is felt more strongly than here in New York, and to sell a video game that denigrates their value is simply unacceptable," Schumer said. "You certainly don't need a degree in criminal justice to understand that when you make sport of behavior that is dangerous and destructive you reinforce it. The last thing we need here in New York is to reinforce a destructive culture of violence and disrespect for the law."

snip

Not only is Schumer urging retailers not to sell the game, but he is also asking that Sony and Microsoft end their licensing agreements with Eidos. "Little Johnny should be learning how to read, not how to kill cops," Schumer said. "The bottom line is that games that are aimed and marketed at kids shouldn't desensitize them to death and destruction."

Thoug the GameSpot oneliner on the game...

This third-person shooter will let you play as either a cop trying to enforce the law or a gangster trying to make his way up in the crime world.

And I guess Johnny's parents never learned how to read, or they would recognize the GIANT FUCKING "M" ON THE BOX.

Of course, Ars points out that parents are.. waitfor it... willfully neglegent in screening their kids video games!

The study showed that parents were aware of the game ratings, but they just didn't care a whole lot. Why not? Apparently, it's because they don't get the whole gaming thing:

The research showed that parents were more concerned about children spending too many hours playing games, rather than about what type of title they were playing...

Mr Freund suggested that the problem was that parents felt disconnected from the world of video games and so showed little interest in this aspect of their children's lives. "Parents are too divorced from what teenagers play," he said.

Meanwhile, New Scientist tells us, that HEY, a little Quake might actually be GOOD for your kids disposition:

He found that as violence became imminent, the cognitive parts of the brain became more active. And during a fight, emotional parts of the brain, such as the amygdala and parts of the anterior cingulate cortex, were shut down. This pattern is the same as that seen in subjects who have had brain scans during other simulated violent situations such as imagining an aggressive encounter. It is impossible to scan people's brains during acts of real aggression so Mathiak argues that this is as close as you can get to the real thing. It suggests that video games are a "training for the brain to react with this pattern," he says.

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But Jeffrey Fagan, violence expert at Colombia University in New York says the link between brain activity and violence is complex:"The frontal lobe functions associated with violence have more to do with restraint than the arousal to action."

Emphasis mine in both segments

UPDATE:

Joystiq sounds off with more discussion of 25 to Life...

CNN’s Nancy Grace stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. Sadly it didn’t get bitten off. Nope, dear old25 to Life Nancy joined the cause of the month, to add her name to the long line of busybodies trying to condemn 25 To Life.

All this attention about how bad the game is will surely end with the game flying off store shelves into people eagers hands, even if it stinks. (Which being an Eidos title, it might very well.) Nancy Grace, host of the imaginatively named Nancy Grace, stuck her two cents in on how the game is evil etc… *yawn* You’d think these morons would know by now that the best way to guarantee something you hate sells is to get on TV and condemn it. Eidos couldn’t buy publicity like this. Or perhaps that is exactly what they’ve done.

and Tycho just questions everyone's motivations...

Maybe it's just because we've done comics on the topic for nearly seven years, but it's getting harder and harder to understand why violence in electronic games warrants such brazen showmanship. Presumably it's all about the kids, but they always trot out a line of dirty-faced kids when they want to get their own shit through. It's like bringing your son to a restaurant, and then saying it was his birthday so you could get the free Mile High Mud Pie. Maybe he gets a bite or something, but mostly you'd really like to eat five pounds of frozen cake and chocolate ice cream, and there's not really any nobility associated with that.