BANGKOK, Thailand - An obsessive player of Grand Theft Auto has confessed to robbing and murdering a taxi driver here while trying to re-create a scene from the controversial game, according to Reuters. In response, a Thai video game distributor has stopped sales of the game, which has been criticized for depicting such violence as carjackings and drive-by shootings.

The murder was described by a local Thai official as a 'wake-up call for authorities.'

'This time bomb has already exploded and the situation could get worse,' Ladda Thangsupachai, director of Thailand's Cultural Surveillance Centre, told Reuters. 'Today it is a cab driver, but tomorrow it could be a video game shop owner.'

The unnamed 18-year-old high school student faces death by lethal injection if found guilty of robbing and killing the taxi driver with a knife this weekend. He was arrested after he was caught trying to steer the cab backward out of a street here with the wounded driver in the backseat, according to local newspapers.

This is not the first such incident involving the popular video game. An Alabama lawsuit filed in 2005 claims that the game led a teenager to kill two police officers and a 911 dispatcher.