Game violence to blame for rise in knife attacks, says police commissioner

Games have been publicly slammed by a police commissioner in Australia for inciting a rise in knife crime, because they let children act out 'virtual crimes' and earn incentives for violent acts in-game.

Speaking with the Telegraph Australia, New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione stated, "How can it not affect you if you're a young adolescent growing up in an era where to be violent is almost praiseworthy, where you engage in virtual crime on a daily basis and many of these young people (do) for hours and hours on end."

Scipione's statement comes a week after PEGI became official law in the UK, giving parent's clear guidelines on which games are safe for children to digest.

"You get rewarded for killing people, raping women, stealing money from prostitutes, driving cars crashing and killing people," Scipione added.

"That's not going to affect the vast majority," Scipione continued, "but it's only got to affect one or two and what have you got? You've got some potentially really disturbed young person out there who's got access to weapons like knives or is good with the fist, can go out there and almost live that life now in the streets of modern Australia. That's concerning."

What do you think of the above statements? Is game violence an old issue that should be put to bed, or is it still relevant today?