Slashdot Mirror
Looking at Video Games and Violence
rootrider writes "Mark Rahner of the Seattle Times has written a great article discussing the recent trend here in the US to outlaw the purchase of violent video games by minors. I'm sure articles have been written in the past that refute the idea that video games lead to violence, but this is the first mainstream article I've seen that details the issue and does it well." The trend isn't really that new. In the past, Ozzy Osbourne and Dungeons and Dragons have been favorite scapegoats, and when I was in high school it was gangsta rap music. I can't wait until we can attribute violence to the nightly news.
PVP comic strip from yesterday
Won't someone PLEASE think of the children!!!!
Behind most "well meaning" laws designed to protect children, is a facist who simply wants to limit your freedom.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
infuriated Slashdot reader takes sniper rifle and shoots clueless politicians.
Can I blame Denis Leary now?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Will kids be forbidden to download it?
What ever will happen to our Government's new military recruiting tool?
(I suppose they'll go back to talking to real life recruiters and finding out.. oh nevermind!)
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Can you rap, Cowboyneal?
Well, if you put it like that... I could probably get into a game where I get to slaughter, dismember, torture, eviscerate, perforate, electrocute, vaporize, annihilate, massacre, butcher and really badly hurt spammers... know of such a game?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I was looking through some old stuff the other day when I came across some AD&D manuals, etc.
Whilst browsing, I came across one of my old characters, a cleric who had chronic gastric problems that would most likely be fatal. I remember having that hobbled priest when I was 15, and thinking about how damn unlucky I was to have to play a virtual cripple.
Ten years later I was diagnosed with chronic ulcerative colitis (a bowel disease similar to Crohn's disease), exactly what that cleric had. And, similarly, my situation deteriorated over an 18-month period until the day came when I had to choose between major surgery and certain death - a seemingly obvious choice but one which was still the hardest decision I've ever had to make (believe me, if you're ever in the same boat then you'll understand why).
Now, I'm not saying that AD&D ruined my life, or that playing it cast some wicked curse on my life. But I do think that, any day now, I'm due to find a ring of invisibility, boots of speed and a +3 vorpal sword, and when that day comes, I'm gonna kick some major ass.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
right.. and they didn't perform jackass stunts before that show came out.
My favorite was the kid who was suspended for pointing a chicken wing at a teacher in the cafeteria. Suposedly, the chicken wing was shaped like a gun.
we bombard them with this dreck day in and out (and I'm not just referring to MA games, but all the other pointlessly violent garbage that Hollyweird shovels down our throats by the truckload), it seem to me to be rather obvious that this will have an adverse influence on their perception of violence.
(anyone who has spent five minutes in an Electronic Boutique knows that the average age of a video game purchaser is less than 28)
Alas, your overwhelming anecdotal evidence trumps our woefully inadequate extensively researched statistics and scientific studies. We might as well just give up now, because we've already lost.
Mystery Science Theatre 3000 meets Dark Dungeons
This is just plain ignorant. You know, real people do get killed by busty women flipping upside down and spinning their legs like a pinwheel of death. A friend of mine died that way.
Just as tragic, I had a [different] friend who was trapped in a giant maze, pursued, and eventually devoured by a giant yellow blob with an enormous snapping jaw.
I don't ever want to hear you minimize the evils of video game violence again, understand?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!