Let me just make one brief point here: The reason we are seeing this escalation of violence is because the police is acting to tackle crime and pacify areas controlled by crime – and the criminals are fighting back. Rio is facing a now-or-never situation, where the government is aware that a change must be made, particularly for the 2014 World Cup and for the 2016 Olympic Games, which are serving as a major catalyst for such changes.

Let’s not forget that one day after being elected the city to host the 2012 Olympic Games, London was hit by a coordinated terrorist attack on its public transport. Since the UK government is under constant threat of international terrorism, one could argue that the public in general would be more vulnerable to violence in the 2012 games rather than in 2016 games. Drug-lords want to sell drugs; international terrorists want to kill people in the name of their ideology.

Although my first exposure to video-games was to the earlier Atari 2600, the earlier Nintendo handhelds and then it’s Nintendo Entertainment System, it was with computers that I had my experience of really being immersed into the virtual worlds. Computer Role Playing Games were (and still are, in my opinion) much richer in personal computers than they could in videogame consoles. Although the first role playing game I played was Dragon Warrior for the Nintendo, the first role playing game that really made me immerse into the game world was Hero’s Quest I (later renamed to Quest for Glory I). In Hero’s Quest, you play the role of a wannabe hero which needs to do good deeds and save the land in order to prove itself worthy of the title of hero. Instead of simple actions, repetitive battles and linear boring dialogues, I found myself having to type what I wanted my character to do and to say in order to move along the plot. Dialogs were extremely rich, and I found myself really thinking as the character I created in order to advance on the game. I spent countless days (no – months) playing and re-playing the game, and all of its sequels. I was about 12 years old at the time and I remember quite well spending half of my days thinking either about girls, or about how cool it would be to be a great hero like in Quest for Glory.

But perhaps the most influential game I have ever played was the Ultima Series, in which you play the role of The Avatar – a hero from a far away world sent to the land of Brittania to rid the world from evil. Besides complex dialogs and non-linear quests and complex story-lines, Ultima had an elaborate set of principles and virtues which made players immerse into questions of moral and ethical grounds, making the character of the Avatar to lead by example in order to advance within the game.

Playing Ultima through my teens really influenced my way of reasoning. It made me wonder, question and further think on the subjects of ethics and moral grounds, developing in me an interest that brought me in contact with several different beliefs – from spiritual teachings such as Abrahamic religions and Buddhism to philosophical schools such as Stoicism. It made me want to understand how people see spirituality through different eyes, and I came to develop my own set of values and “virtues” that I deemed important for my personal growth and enlightenment.

It is fair to say that, in part, it influenced my ways of accepting people’s own way of dealing with their spirituality and God. Making me believe that

we’re all looking into a prism, but as each of us see it through different angles, we’re seeing different colours. But the reality is that we’re all looking at the same prism *.

* That is, as as long as you don’t try to push or shove at me the idea that the colours that you see are better than the ones I see – we can all be happy.

Being a good cop, being a hero, being the saviour of a land by doing and promoting good deeds to drive evil away… Are those values so démodé? I mean, do I risk being labelled a “f*g” by some 13 years old boy because I like playing games where I’m a good guy? Instead, games nowadays like grand-theft auto promotes no values whatsoever, besides how to be a parasite sociopath. I do believe, based on my own experience and the experience of those close to me who played computer games, that video games DO influence people – perhaps it wouldn’t influence most people directly on their behaviour, but it can definitely influence people on their reasoning, and in their values. Now you combine this with the right set-up: poor upbringing, no job, no money, no future, bad company, depression…

In less than three weeks, there has been news of horrific crimes in Brazil, Greece and Canada in which victims have been mutilated. Call me old-fashioned pansy, but I think we need a stop on the violence-o-metre.