The State of Violent Gaming

Ownt.com writes "Today we talk with Running With Scissors' Vince Desi of the controversial, recently released gore fest, Postal 2. We talk with Vince about The State of Video Game Violence and his thoughts on the violent gaming, where it's been, where it's going and many other aspects surrounding whether or not games actually 'teach' the players to go... postal."

Comments

More fucking?

[JohnGrahamCumming]

> First let me say that if I thought we could make a game that would
> honestly motivate people to do things in real life, then I would
> make a game about fucking, cause this world needs more sex than
> killing that's for shit sure.

I have no motivation problems in this area.

John.

Re:More fucking?

[Thuktun]

> First let me say that if I thought we could make a game that would
> honestly motivate people to do things in real life, then I would
> make a game about fucking, cause this world needs more sex than
> killing that's for shit sure.

I have no motivation problems in this area.

The sad thing is that (in the USA at least) graphic violence is apparently more acceptable than graphic sexuality. This appears to be exactly backwards.

Re:More fucking?

[tjw]

The sad thing is that (in the USA at least) graphic violence is apparently more acceptable than graphic sexuality. This appears to be exactly backwards.

While playing Enemy Territory (a first person shooter) a few days ago, another player asked me to refrain from typing swear words because his young son was watching. That's not an isolated incident. Many game servers even have mods for censoring "curse words".

If you ask me, the fact that using certain words in your language is more of a taboo than watching animated violence or graphic sexuality is even more sad. Though, personally, I like all three.

I know it's been said before...

[canfirman]

...but parents really do need to take responsibility for what they're kids see/play. At least any reasonable adult can tell the difference between a "make-believe" world of video games and reality. The truth is that kids (especially young ones) will mimic what they see in games/movies/etc.

I could go into the big news headlines of kids killing their sisters with WWE moves, kids with guns, etc., but I'll go with this one:

My buddy has a 3 year old. During the time his wife was away, my buddy would play GTA: Vice City, and his son would watch. The son thought it was cool when daddy "beat the shit" of of other guys with the bats. Well, Mom came home to see her son, and saw her son going to town on his favourite teddy bear with a kid-sized hockey stick. He said to his mom that it was because daddy did this "on tv". (And yes, the son would say daddy "beat the shit" out of somebody on tv.)

Whether you decide to play these games is up to you, but I believe we do have to be careful with our kids. We need to make them understand the difference between reality and fantasy, and if they can't tell the difference right now, then that's a lesson for later.

I believe it's called parenting.