Violent video game buyback canceled

SOUTHINGTON, Conn. (WTNH) -- A violent video game buyback scheduled for this weekend has now been canceled despite a huge show of support.

"It was truely an avalanch. We were thrilled with the support," said Dick Fortunato of Southington.

It started out as a good idea that went over the top. All one charity in Southington wanted in the wake of Newtown was for children and parents to talk about violent video games in the home.

To get the discussion started an organization called "Southington Offers Services" decided to give out gift certificates to batting cages or bowling alleys to any family who wanted to turn in their violent video game for it to be destroyed. The day after the offer hit the world wide web, there was a world wide response.

"What we didn't expect was emails from Germany, U.K...right over here from Germany, 2 of them. Paris, Bermuda, very supportive," said Fortunato.

The original plan was for everybody to meet on Saturday and bring their violent video game to the old drive-in movie theater in Southington and would have a dumpster there and they were going to crush them all up, have a big celebration and take them away but because of the avalanch of emails they were afraid there were going to be too many people.

They would need crowd control and police officers and that it would get out of control so now they are going to the back up plan. You can go to a website and you can register for the gift certificate and just promise to destory your video games.

"We just said how are we going to control this? It's going to get out of hand," said Fortunato.

So while there won't be a huge media event on Saturday, the group says they have far exceeded their goal of awareness.

"Look we are talking to parents, saying to the grand parents as well and the citizens of this town. We want them to be aware of the presence of violent video games in their homes. Are they looking the other way either because they are busy or they didn't know," said Fortunato.