Game Violence Critics Ignore Community?

Thanks to CNET News for their opinion piece discussing why critics of videogame violence miss the bigger picture. They suggest: "What critics consistently miss is that gaming is very much a social and community activity. This is true every time two fifth-graders rush home from school to play "Zelda" together. But on a broader scale, gaming's socializing effects are even more evident at an event like QuakeCon..." The violent games angle is also discussed intriguingly: "Some research says violent games make kids act more aggressively... But that's what adrenaline does, regardless of the medium.... How that short-term spike translates into the rest of a person's life depends on the socializing effects of everyday influences such as parents and peer groups - including other gamers."

Comments

Video games?

[sparkie]

I highly doubt the video game is the problem. It's the lack of parenting skills involved in the child's upbringing that is the root of the problem. If the parents used the GAME system as a GAME every now and again instead of using the GAME system as a BABYSITTER and actually paid attention to their children, I doubt that the children would become as violent in their teenage years as they are becoming. When I was a kid, my mother paid attention to me. As a matter of fact, she was knee deep in my shit constantly. I didn't have 5 free seconds to masturbate, let alone sit in my bedroom building bombs and amassing guns to go reap some sort of vengence on my classmates.

Re:Video games?

[coryboehne]

An interesting point here is that whenever I play online games(Delta Force, Task Force Dagger for those interested..) it's often amusing to me how such a violent game can be so full of really polite people, as a rule cussing is out of bounds, and whenever somebody shoots me in the head from 1000 meters I tend to compliment their shooting rather than flame them for killing me.. I mean all you have to do is press the space bar to respawn after all... :)

I find it hard to understand that these people who are so anxious to remove games like this from the market don't ever tend to look at facts like these. I feel the freindly atmosphere evolves because you're already releasing all of your anger and stress while playing the game, so you feel much more freindly and relaxed. Just my 00000010 cents.

but it's not about the games..

[gl4ss]

it's about doing the right thing either, it's about doing 'something' for the community or at least appear like you do, and so called violent video games aren't exactly the only thing.

'but, but, but think of the children!' is fairly commonly used phrase to attack anything you don't happen to like personally for whatever real reason. maybe you feel that your sunday reading circle is offended by games or something similar and get twisted in your mind to defend it..

it's not like 'play' violence is exactly new either.. hmm. few thousand years perhaps? wide reading of books(and discussing them) is not that much older thing than vidoegames either, and you don't see that banned.

rock was very 'bad' too few years ago, not to mention rap.

Ah, community...

[ChopSocky]

There's nothing better in life than getting together with some of your closest friends and blowing the crap out of each other.

People are violent. If TV, movies and games cause people to be violent, wouldn't the Romans have been (more) peaceful? Violence is simply systemic throughout human history, it's at our core; it's not caused by or fueled through Man's creations, but by Man himself. Why don't we take a little responsibility for our own actions and stop trying to place the blame on everything else? People have no accountability, they accept no responsibility.

So I'm just going to blame YOU for all my problems now and personally, Slashdot causes me to be violent.

It's always "Guy Things"

[oni]

It almost seems like anything associated with men eventually comes under some form of attack. Yes, I know there are plenty of female gamers out there, but by and large gaming is a guy thing - and I can't help but wonder if this is a motivating factor in the drive to restrict games.

The activities that society values are usually not activities that guys instinctively enjoy. Society wants us to be nice, submissive, drones - to earn our paycheck and keep quiet. But we want to be hunters and warriors. Sometimes I wonder if someone is offended by that desire.

Re:It's always "Guy Things"

[bigbigbison]

Actually it isn't really about it being a guy thing. It is really about youth. Ever since adolecence has come to be seen as a seperate time period from childhood and adulthood, people have been afraid of teenagers and anything associated with teenagers. Rock and Roll, the internet, video games, rap. Back in the olden days all of those mental hygine films that today companies like Somthing Weird video sells that show kids doing drugs and stealing and getting into gangs. It is a pretty well documented thing that every generation people become stressed out about youth cultures.

It's not what you do, it's where you do it

[carndearg]

Top marks to the writer of this article for emphasising the community aspect of multiplayer gaming.

I find myself in a dificult position wrt this issue though because I have experienced negative effects from gaming myself. I used to play motor racing games. A lot. But then I stopped playing motor racing games because I found that my driving was becoming more agressive.

I drove faster, I braked later and took more risks. Quite simply, playing TOCA 2 in glorious high resolution with force feedback wheel and pedals was too close to the real sensation of driving my car on twisty British roads for comfort. I was driving like an idiot and if I'd kept at it I'd have killed someone. When I stopped playing racing games and hung up my force feedback wheel my driving improved.

I've played first person shooters both alone and on LANs since Doom came out back in the early '90s. By the same logic as above I should be a crazed killer by now. But I'm not. Unlike driving a car which I do every day, I've never had to clear out a Martian ore plant of aliens armed only with a chainsaw.

I sometimes wish that the critics could recognise that games are just another recreational activity with all the pros and cons that brings. After all, I dont hear them wanting to ban fencing and they use SWORDS ferchrissakes!!

Re:BEAUTIFUL!

[Alkaiser]

I hate to break this to you...but this has been said before. It's exactly the same thing Ben Stein said while presenting at the IDSA awards at E3 back in 2000.

He was talking about his kid and how he couldn't fathom how people could rail out at these games as anti-social when day after day, his son would be playing these games, and talking about his friends from school who had found this new way to hang out.

Shigeru Miyamoto has already given us the best ammunition to fight back against all this. If you read the book, "Game Over" (which is a decent read, if you can cut through the rampant Nintendo bias.) Miyamoto rsponds to the video games are back for you question by saying, simply:

"Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock and roll."

If that doesn't make anyone talking about the violent effects of games on kids pause and think about that for a second...there's no reason to listen to anything they have to say anymore...reason has departed from their body.