Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation pulls violent games out of state-owned rest stops

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has pulled nine games which it deemed "violent" out of rest stops in four cities along the Massachusetts Turnpike, the Boston Globe reports.

Service plazas in Charlton, Ludlow, Lee, and Beverly, Mass. had the arcade titles removed following complaints from a family who worried that family members of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting could come across the titles (Newtown, Conn. is "within an hour's drive" of one of the stops in Charlton, Mass.). One of the game's in question featured a fully automatic light gun, which players would shoot at the screen, which the complaint argued would be especially traumatizing to one such family member.

State Transportation Secretary Richard Davey said that the decision to pull the games from rest stops was made by subordinates, and never crossed his desk. Still, he agrees with the decision to remove them.

"Bottom line is I think there isn't a person who doesn't ­believe that there isn't too much violence in our society, and games can glorify that," Davey told the Boston Globe. "A video game in a public space could be used by anybody of any age.

"At the end of the day, those games are there to entertain kids, probably for a few minutes, while their parents are resting from a long trip. I just think it makes all the sense in the world to have it be a more passive game."