Slashdot Mirror
BBC Argues Games Don't Cause Violence
RandBlade writes "BBC News has an article on the argued link between violent games and real violence. It examines both scientific evidence, different theories and the facts in order to conclude 'that it is trite and irresponsible of ill-informed commentators to claim that games like Grand Theft Auto are central to terrible crime.'" It's good to know that gamers are not all killing machines lying in wait, or that E3 is not the most potentially dangerous convention ever.
I can't agree with their conclusions. Three days after I bought Thief: The Dark Project I was out shopping for a blackjack, dark cloak and rope arrows.
The rope arrows were a bit hard to find..
Trolling is a art,
Of course games dont cause violence. Man do I want to kill those people who think it does....
considering most people that live the "Grand Theft" lifestyle probably never even SAW a PS2! ...they are way too poor and screwed up. GTA:VC is mostly a hollywood-syle diversion for spoiled little middle class kids...who wouldn't have the guts to walk down the streets depicted in the game anyway!!!
Itchy and Scratchy and Marge already covered this:
Meyers: I did a little research and I discovered a startling thing...
There was violence in the past, long before cartoons were invented.
Kent: I see. Fascinating.
Meyers: Yeah, and know something, Karl? The Crusades, for instance.
Tremendous violence, many people killed, the darned thing went on for thirty years.
Kent: And this was before cartoons were invented?
Meyers: That's right, Kent.
-- `Smartline', ``Itchy and Scratchy and Marge''
"These media types make us out to be dangerous, violent, ready to snap and kill people on a daily basis; which is just a damned, nasty lie - I haven't killed anyone in weeks."
violent games and the statistically insignificant, high-profile gamer-related violent crime are very popular scapegoats.
think of the children! especially the ones we don't want to take responsability of raising!
Scientific theories and evidence have never been any good in convincing the hysterical please-think-of-the-children crowd. These people have already made their minds and nothing will change their position.
The owls are not what they seem
Ever thought that the game wasn't the cause of your problems but just a way for them to come out?
The problem is that some people can be easily influenced, that on itself is a problem, subjecting such kids to mushroom policy isn't going to help....
Jeroen
Mushroom policy: Keep them in the dark, Feed them shit and chop their heads off when they look up.
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
The people you kill in videogames are not real.
The danger arises when something goes wrong in someone's mental development and that person comes to believe that people's lives *in reality* are worth nothing, just like in videogames.
This "sliding" of definition (imaginary people = real people = ok to kill) is NOT caused by videogames. Someone who is mentally unstable enough to kill over a videogame would be triggered as well by violent movies, books or his own violent mental imagery.
You often hear people claiming that games/films influenced their actions but at the end of the day its a cop out for taking responsibility for their own actions.
People have been taking inspiration from Art for years - whether film, books, or in more recent time you could claim video games. No one forces people to read these books, watch these films or play these games - they choose to. If someone decides to go nuts, its their own personal decision - a game doesn't make that decision for them. Now the manner in which they go nuts - thats a different story.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
C'mon. If you're a gamer, Linux is the last platform you look to, right after Windows, consoles, handhelds, cards, dice, and watching paint dry.
"Social, cultural, ethical and neurobiological issues remain in ... a tangle ... Before such accusations [terrible crime] are explicitly made, more credible work has to be done in this area. Scientific conclusions may well remain elusive for decades."
... Asimov's Foundation?
More credible work? Maybe
How far can psycho/socio metrics go?
-kgj
-kgj
Umm, i'm not really sure about that.
I'll probably get blasted for stereotyping here, but many of the "hardcore" linux users and programmers i've observed don't seem to really see the point of/don't want to play video/computer games.
I think that's one reason why some people can't fathom somebody staying with Windows - Linux may rox0r in almost every other way possible, but when it comes to just being able to grab any old game off the shelf and play it, it's just not there yet. Some people just aren't willing to give that up, no matter how bad Windows' other faults may be.
Games do not cause violence but they do desensitize children to violence and they don't take crimes of violence serious. When they play wrestling games they usually will imitate the wrestling moves and hurt someone without realizing it.
MonkeysKickAss
I am emotionally in favour of the notion that games do not influence real life behaviour. The article, however, is mostly fluff. There is no concrete backup for any of the statements made. I remain unsure as to whether (and if so to what degree) games role playing can bring out violent behaviour.
the big problem is no one wants to take responsibility for their actions, and some parents don't want to take responsibility for not teaching their kids well. The easiest thing for these people to do is blame someone else....and video games are just really convenient.
A Smith & Wesson beats four aces -- Murphy's Law of Poker
In fact if you read the article, the author only takes the controversial stance that more study is required, and no conclusion can be reached yet.
Basicly the guy says that there is no clear winner in the evolution vs enviroment debate. Then he uses Canada and Japan, where violence in games is common but murder is much more rare than the US, as an example to counter the situation in the U.S. It's a much more reasoned article than the sentationalistic headline would lead one to believe.
Download my free songs!
The Beeb's argument is based on the assumption that kids don't play M-rated games just as they don't see R-rated movies. I think that's completely false. For one thing, any parent that shares the common Slashdot opinion that video games don't negatively affect youth should have no compunction against buying M-rated games for their kids. Add to that the large number of clueless parents that stampede on malls in the winter, buying games willy-nilly, and you have a problem.
I think M-rated games don't influence adults negatively, but kids, with their growing, unwrinkled brains? I think there's a problem, or at least I suspect there could be one, and don't want to risk having to deal with the resultant society after the experiment's over in 15 years.
I'd imagine you meant BBC.
:)
I'm sure BCC has something to do with email, but I could be wrong.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
I've herd these arguments all my life and I just have one question. What video game did Hitler or Stalin play ?
There is a well-documented connection between actual guns and violence. Yet many would prefer to regulate simulated guns and simulated violence.
Despite studies of this nature, I worry that there will continue to be resistance (in the Western US at least) to *any* type of regulatory initiative directed at actual guns, no matter how reasonable.
Its also troubling because regulation of simulated violence presents a greater burden and risk to principles of free speech and expression --- without any corresponding social benefit except for those who object to the content of the games being regulated.
I'm laughing at clouds.
"If computer games had affected my generation as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
Solitare for years. No violence to date.
> I was once a fervent KILLER in 3D on-line multiplayer blood&splash games. And let me tell you - it DOES influence you. Negatively.
Yeah, now you're a Slashdot poster!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
People said the same thing about "The Turner Diaries" (a novel about a racist White resistance bombing a federal building with a truck full of manure-based explosives in order to provoke a race war).
"There's so much comedy on television.
Does that cause comedy in the streets?" -- Dick Cavett
It's reporters might discuss the issues but the BBC itself is not putting forward any of it's own ideas.
Can't Slashdot distinguish the message from the messengers ?
It seems a bit narrow minded just to look at violence really. What about other skills that may be gleaned from games. Is spatial awareness genetic or the result of playing games? How about risk management, resource management and decision making?
If someone is of a violent disposition, then games will satisfy their need for violence to a degree, although you cold argue that they won't be fully satisfied until they experience violence in real life. After all, computer games never give you a full experience - people who love football will much prefer to go out and play football than stay in an play FIFA Soccer 2004.
Extrapolating it from games and violence a bit, the BBC also has a story about porn sites. In the same way maladjusted people view violent games as somehow approving of violence as a whole, immersing yourself in websites that promote strange fetishes is likely to have an affect on your wellbeing, maybe even taking you to a point where it's ok and perfectly acceptable to do things that don't fit in with the rest of society; murder, rape, violence, stealing cars etc...
Ironically, for me, violent games are a way to let off steam. I'm sure if they were banned we wouldn't see a drop in violent crime, school shootings etc. But for me, I'd have to look for new ways of letting off aggression and anger after a bad day at work, or whatever...
In the words of the very funny British "executive transvestite, thank'you" stand-up comedian: " They say that guns don't people, people kill people- but I think the gun helps, y'know?"
The power of Christ compiles you.
A Random Blog
Like so many things out there that people try to link to certain behaviours there is a certain amount of truth to it.
Be it music, TV, games, whatever, they all have some effect on most people and more of an effect on others. So if someone has tendencies towards violence then violent games may help fuel that fire. Not that they wouldn't be violent without the game, but the game probably doesn't help.
I remember my teenage years and I remember thinking that such-and-such doesn't effect me. However, looking back I can see that certain things helped justify unhealthy behavious and so I continued to do things that ended up hurting me in the end. Again, this is not to say that I would not have ever done anything like that anyway but having those fuels definately made it easier.
It would be better if people could take notice of what effects them and not do those things (be it alcohol, violent games, whatever). But people are just too stupid to do that so maybe we do need rules. Isn't that why we have laws in the first place? Too many stupid people.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
in other news: BBC Argues Open Source Fanatics Cause DDOS & Virii :)
... *its* own ideas rather.
Our actions are based on two things. Genetics and experiance. So to those who say that violent games do not cause violence, then what does? Was that person born evil? I think the relationship between violent games and violence is like the relationship between carcinogens and cancer. Think of it another way.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Actually when I read your post, I found myself in it. I have been using linux exclusively for more than 4 years(for both work and home). I am very happy with it also. I just can't stand windows. I used to wonder why people(even slashdotters) would stick with windows ? then I realised that there was something wchich I never go after and for these people its something without which they cannot live. Its GAMES. This is the single most important thing holding many people from migrating to linux IMHO. I have not played any game for more than a minute ever in my life. I am not underestimating games. I am just saying that there are people like me who love linux and spend their life with it without playing any game.
http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
There's a powerful argument at the end of Grossman's On Killing that it's not the violence itself that's a problem, but how it is presented.
The games that are actually dangerous are those in which are realistic enough that there is no doubt that it's human beings that you maim or kill, but at the same time depict those human beings as not really human, thereby introducing a conditionned psychological distance between the player and potential victims.
95% of people have an ingrained resistance to killing other people. You have to artificially condition them to get them to shoot at people. Until this was acknowledged after WWII, only about 10% of soldiers actually shot their guns at the ennemy. Modern military (infantry) training is intended to counter that ingrained resistance, and is pretty successful at it - in VietNam, the "shooting rate" was over 90%.
That's why Western-trained troops regularly trash opponents with similar equipment but different training: a Western-trained 30-man platoon will typically have 27 shooters, while its opponent will most likely have only 3 or 4, giving the Westerners an actual 9:1 fire superiority every other thing being equal.
Some games (eg, Doom and its offsprings) operate in a similar fashion to military training/indoctrination, but without the control features inherent to military training, and are thereby dangerous.
See www.killology.com
The person who modd'd me down is indicative of the BBC mentatlity that filters "news" through its left-leaning prism. Anything that contradicts that prism is attacked. Not even the PM of Britain is safe from those attacks, so I certainly don't expect any better.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I just have to say, that I agree...
...
.... ..
... and after playing GTA I won't beat up grandpa for his pickup or beat up hookers for their money ...
Ratings on games are important imho, yes a 5 year old might think that grabbing someone out of a car and beating the person with a baseball bat is cool after playing GTA, but I do not think that a grown up is really inspired that way by violent games...
I am a fan of Silent HILL, Fatal frame, and many Rainbowsix3, GTA, and many FPS shooters and fighting games, and I feel the gaming violence entertaining.... however I think it settles down my agression/violence, not improves it
Yes after playing offroad fury, I ride my ATV/Bike aggressive in the woods
Yes after playing Silent Hill 3 for 4 hours in the dark I have the tendency to scare my wife just for a laugh
NO after playing Rainbowsix-3 I won't get a sniper rifle and start playing jungle fight in my neighborhood
If someone is dangerous, they will get more violence influence from any Hollywood movie, from any local horror-video-rental place.
...all killing machines lying in wait
but some are, so those pesky reporters better keep their mouthes shut.
no really, people that think movies and video games spark violence act like there were no violence before tv and games. This isn't star trek. All animals have some sort of violence built in for survival. If anything, the violence from just watching the local or national news is the one doing the corrupting.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
Comedy certainly causes people to repeat bits of it or to use it as a base for their jokes. Just watch slashdot discussions sometimes.
So why not violence then eh?
Of course if that would really be reliable then we would just show comedy and romance stories and some columbo to remind everyone that the police is always smarter then the criminal and we would have a perfect world. Some playboy to make sure the next generation is ensured. Mmmmm. playboy. Wonder if that one ever been accused of cause teenage boys to become more horny
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Nobody claimed that video games cause all violence, just that they contribute to it, i.e. that people are more likely to be violent after playing video games. I don't have any evidence one way or another on this.
Asbestos can cause lung cancer, but lots of people have died of lung cancer without being exposed to it (say, by cigarettes).
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
> E3 is not the most potentially dangerous convention ever.
No, perhaps THIS is the most dangerous convention ever.
Or, depending on your point of view one of these may be the most dangerous convention ever.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Statistics actually show that people who play violent games are most unlikely to commit violent crimes. Take the two premises: (1) someone who plays violent games will commit violent crimes; and (2) someone who plays violent games will NOT commit violent crimes. I now pull a statistic out of my hat, which will probably be more or less correct, that out of 10,000 people who play violent games only 1 commits a violent crime. That means there is 99.99% confirmation for premise (2), and only 0.01% confirmation for premise (1). So the odds are that premise (2) is correct and premise (1) isn't. Conclusion: someone who plays violent games will very likely not commit violent crimes. Therefore, to avoid violent crimes more people should play violent games.
Yes, I know, this is no way to do statistics. But it actually is the way statistics are often applied in the media to "prove" very simplistic stands.
C'mon. If you're a gamer, Linux is the last platform you look to,...
Can't agree. Linux is very nice for surfing, managing Windows backup, pre[aring Windows installation, reading news,...
The one thing it does not work well for is actually running games. I hope that will change in the future because keeping Windows alive is a pain.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I Do.
I admit I did not rtfa, but I already believe games are not to blame for violence in this country. Why? Well we hear it all the time in the mainstream news -heavy metal music is making kids kill each other, Grand Theft Auto is making kids kill each other, freely available handguns and high-power firearms is why kids kill each other, violence on TV and in movies is what makes kids kill each other, the broken marriages, high divorce rates and single-family homes are robbing kids of the stability at home and thus they grow up insecure and want to kill each other, ......
The interesting thing is this:
- the United States is not the only country with alienated youth, check out Japanese kids (in Japan) or countires throughout Europe. In fact, isn't it part of growing up to be alienated and not fit in? Most of us didn't fit in when we were growing up, but who cares?
- the divorce rate in the U.S. is not the highest in the world, Brittain is higher. But we don't see the Brits killing each other left and right, or blaming everyone and their dog for why the other is so violent.
- mainstream music and movies can't be blamed, because they are ALL available in other countries, and in some cases might even be "taken more seriously" by foreigners who idolize the American way of life, so how can we blame movies, TV and music?
- the availability of guns in this country isn't totally to blame either - look at Canadians, they've got millions of guns throughout the country, but we don't see the Kanucks blowing each other's heads off.
I never really had a cohesive perspective on this stuff until I watched Bowling for Columbine. This is exactly what the movie is about - investigating why this country is so obsessed with violence. The answer, according to Michael Moore (and I totally agree with him), is that we live in a society that thrives on fear.
We're afraid of being robbed, insulted, embarassed... We're afraid we'll get too fat, or get too thin, or be unhealthy about our diet.... We're afraid we won't fit in, or won't get laid this weekend, or can't get a promotion at work, or might get fired, and what the hell am I gonna do when I retire? and how are my kids going to possibly afford college on their own?! and jesus what is up with social security?....
It just goes on and on, and we finally get to fear over our kids, and that's where all the blame lands on TV, movies, music, and video games. If the average parent would spend real quality time with their kids instead of plopping them in front of the fucking television night after night, things in this country might start turning for the better.
I wrote about this on my blog when I saw the movie a few months ago. For any interested parties, here's a link to The Charlie Rose Show where Michael Moore was interviewed.
I'm not familiar with the "American" news organization.
In America, news organizations are private institutions that do not receive public funding.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members? You covet, but do not possess. You kill and envy, but cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not possess because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you asked wrongly, to spend on your passions.
James 4,1:3
Violence has been around since Biblical times, and I don't think video games have, nor will they ever have, anything to do with it.
Violence springs not from playing, but from unfulfilled desires or irrational fears. If anything, video games provide a healthy outlet for working out aggression in a non-destructive manner. Only someone already mentally ill would fail to see the difference between killing a mass of pixels in a video game and killing in real life.
Video games, OTOH, provide a much needed escape from reality. Much like drugs and alcohol, except that they are not addicting (or only trivially so, compared to drugs such as heroin and alcohol). Furthermore, they don't have the negative effect on health that illegal drugs do. What I find interesting is that no one is mentioning the vast number of kids who chose video games over alcohol and drugs. Doesn't anyone else see video games as a tool in the "War On Drugs"? While it is easy to show a correlation between drug use and violence, no such correlation has been shown for video games.
My suspicion is that the video-games-cause-violence theories come from selfish parents who would rather blame a video game than take responsibility for their children's development.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
"Masturbation does NOT, in fact, cause blindness!"
Story at 11!
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
It does I too have been influenced negatively by the sensless violence rewards for stealing and objectifying women in video games. Just yesterday I stole 100 gold coins stomped on 30+ turtles and ran off with this princess chick...
'it is trite and irresponsible of ill-informed commentators to claim that games like Grand Theft Auto are central to terrible crime...but having said that, BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan has learnt that Tony Blair and George Bush are r0x0rs at Battlefield 1942, so the jury's still out'
BCC: visability challenged Carbon Copy.
It's been my experience that the BBC knows all about these " ill-informed commentators"
For the last 6 years or so the rates of violence in the US has dropped drastically, especially with the 13-30 range, peak age for gamers. Seems like since gaming has really caught on, violence has gone down... veeeeerry interesting, and completely against those idiots who will blame the easiest, largest, and most profitable target.
I don't think arguements such as the kind this article presents will ever convince those in the "please think of the children" crowd. The reason may partly be that they don't care about the facts, but I think the stronger, more important reason these arguements don't work is that the main objection this group has with these games isn't that they really think it will turn everyone into killers. That is just FUD. The real reason is that they have a moral objection to violence in games, and that's not something you can fight with facts. Their perspective is, "How horrible! Why would anyone want to pretend to kill people!!!???". They see these games as being EVIL, and their perception that it is a threat to society is based more on that than anything else. Even if somehow, no murderer had ever played a video game (which would seem statistically impossible), these people would still object to violence in games based on moral and religious grounds.
What are games really? They are practice in a simulated environment. Some games help you practice counting or reading or typing. Other games might teach you strategy. Many of these lessons can be carried over to real life. The more realistic the simulation, more likely the lessons have a real-life analogue. The military plays war-games and they try to make them as realistic as they can. Are they wasting their money?
Gamers generally improve through repetetive learning. But repetition has another consequence. It can accustomize a person to something which is why a patient with a phobia of dogs might be asked to hold and pet a stuffed animal then work up to a live toy breed and so on. Again the closer the stimulus is to the real thing, the more genuine the response is. "Space Invaders" violence is too abstract to worry me, but what about the next generation of kids playing "Natural Born Killer" in 3D on the Playstation9 with neural implants.
And what exactly does practice do for you? It programs your body and mind to react in a certain way without needing to analyze the situation before acting. What will happen when reality and simulation are nearly indistinguishable? Have you ever been so into a movie that your body jumped involuntarily when something happened on the screen? Your unconcious mind was reacting to what it perceived as a real threat. And that is with old school technology that has been around for many decades.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Fine. I really don't want to get in a flame war with an AC here, but the first two categories:
5(Works perfectly): 7. One of those being Diablo 2, which has been out for almost 5 years, and 2 of the other being Warcraft 3+expansion. And another being a Hoyle Card Game collection.
4(Playable with minor irritations): 278. Including such gems as "Blair Witch, Volume 2: The Legend of Coffin Rock", "Putt-Putt and Pep's Balloon-O-Rama", "Revenge of Marjorie the Chicken", or "Hello Kitty: Cutie World".
Sure, there's "real" games on there as well, but the vast majority with this rating fall into the category of:
1) FPS games.
2) Games from at least 2-5 years ago.
Which is all well and good, but doesn't really fit with "it is just as good as Windows for games, in fact better", does it? If that were true, it would work with any game designed for Windows, with no problems other than hardware incompatibilities or the occasional DOS/Win95 game not wanting to work under XP/2000.
Also, I don't know about you, but many people have interests other than shoot-emups, and don't care that WineX can play Quake 3, Unreal or every version of Half-Life ever made perfectly.
The rest of the list, ranging from "Playable with major irritations" to "May install but there is no gameplay", down to "Does not install and does not work" contains 591 titles, or more than twice the amount of working titles. Take from that what you will.
I'm sure the BBC is just misleading the public on this one too.
http://randomfoo.net/junk/lag.jpg
I grew up in a pretty conservative family that tends to respond to this type of hysteria, so I understand what's necessary to make these people to reconsider their ironclad position.
I've gotten a lot of milage out of the following teenage homicide graph (other violent crime trends are similar).
DOJ Homicide Trends by Age
I would like you to note the trend from 1993 to today. Please note that it wasn't until around 1993 that the most violent 1st person genre took off.
In fact, if you continue to reseach the DOJ's site, you'll find that our crime rates are comparable to the more "innocent" times (50's, 60's) of the last century, where our war on drugs in the late 80's and early 90's reflect similar crime rates to that of the prohibition.
Surely wishy-washy attempts to trace cultural influences of violence ignore the basic evidence that the human male character and physique have been selected for violence amongst other traits, and this for at least millions of years.
I've seen violent behaviour in children from the ages of 7 up, and it is not influenced by watching others any more than children who doodle patterns in the sand are influenced by watching art.
From watching people, I would say violence is latent in most young men (and the occasional woman, but it's much rarer) especially between the ages of 16 and 25. You can definitely shift these limits - see child soldiers who kill at the age of 7 and up. But violence is almost never random and spontaneous, except in sick people. Violent behaviour is almost a predictable and (from the individual's point of view) a rational response to an environment where it's the best strategy for success.
In other words: place a normal young male in a social setting where violence is the best route to success (which simply means reproductive success through whatever short or long-term route), and you will see a violent young male emerge. Place the same male in a setting where intellectual and commercial ambition are better strategies, and you will see a young man who puts his energies into those directions.
There are extreme cases - people who are violent in most settings, and people who are not violent in most settings - but we're talking about mass influence here, right?
Video games are in no possible way a factor in deciding how to proceed in life. They are fantasy, and even a six-year old child can maintain totally coherent fantasy worlds that do not affect their real life.
So the debate about video games is on the wrong track entirely... we can solve problems of violence in youth only by changing economics of behaviour so that non-violence works better. It's quite possible that suppressing violent video games could even increase violent tendencies, since they provide an avenue for expression of violent nature, in the same way as porn provides an safe avenue for sexual fantasy.
Luckily the formula for reducing violent behaviour seems clear: a stable system of government where long-term good behaviour is rewarded and short-term bad behaviour is suboptimal.
Modern societies are incredibly pacifistic compared with historical ones. The USA may seem violent compared to Switzerland, but it's a haven of peace and calm compared to most places on earth.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Society has still not decided whether TV violence causes actual violence - let alone the lack of conclusive proof for Rap music lyrics-induced violence, Board-game-induced violence (remember Dungeons-and-Dragons?) Cinematically-induced violence, promiscuity after listening to Elvis records, Radio Play-induced violence, Book violence, Bayeux-tapestry-induced violence (have you *seen* that thing? It oughta have at least a 'PG-13' rating), Cave painting violence or racial-memory induced violence.
Until we understand the impact of all of those other things, there is little hope that this issue will ever be conclusively resolved for Video games, Holodeck novellas or any other story-telling media we may come up with in the future.
www.sjbaker.org
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by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
When I was growing up it was Ozzy Osbourne,KISS and D&D that caused kids to kill and commit suicide. Ozzy is still wailing away to this date, KISS is still jumping round on stage with make-up on and D&D has grown way beyond the pamphlets I sarted with. I'm sure my copy of Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack (XBOX) will seem tame by comparison to the level of reality obtained in video games 10 years from now. The only thing to do is just ride the wave and let the "grown-ups" fight it out.
I think games are moving more and more towards allowing creativity. I think programming languages should move towards having an audio/visual aesthetic. Maybe not drag-n-drop icons, but think about diagrams on a whiteboard that animate as data structures change during program execution. That would be cool.
Very true, in my experience. The moment that brought it home to me was when I was listening to the BBC on the radio. First up was an interview with a VP of Napster (IIRC; some Napster bigwig anyway). The interviewer twisted the VP this way and that especially on DRM, never giving an inch.
Second interview was with an AIDS activist/researcher about the Vatican's stance that condoms aren't safe for birth control nor for AIDS prevention (since they claim that the condoms have holes to let sperm and especially the HIV through). There was no other party to this, and they both were critical of the Vatican's claims. The interviewer seemed to be treating the activist/researcher (I for get what all he was) as a fellow in a pub chat, discussing their common thoughts.
Nobody (in my experience) tells things without a slant. The best you can do is inform yourself from many varied sources, keeping track of their slant. Then you can balance them and figure out where they point.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Basically they just spouted the SCO byline with no effort to avail themselves of any information concerning the origin and purpose of the virus.
Now why would you want to concern yourselves with anything else they write.
Help fight continental drift.
Canada and Japan have violent media, but fewer instances of actual violence (even adjusted for population).
Given that IQ would be consistent across all nations, then IQ might be a component, but not a big one. It would be nice to see someone run an IQ test of people convicted of violent crimes.
I think the issue is a LOT more complex. It involves (in my opinion):
#1. Biology (as mentioned in the article)
#2. Early social development (it's amazing how many violent people had violent parents)
#3. IQ (the dumber you are the more problems you'll have in a tech world)
#4. The predominant culture's attitude towards violence in real life (which can be very different than its attitude towards violent entertainment).
#5. Drug/alcohol consumption.
And others, but those are the main factors.
You might be a violent person because of biology, but your intellect and socialization can give you socially acceptable means of channeling that agression.
I've seen many parents in articles and on TV talking about violent video games and saying such things as "I never knew that game was violent" and then complain that stricter labeling or even removing them from some stores is needed (thus barring legitimate adults from easily purchasing them). While ironically Sam Goody now has a large DVD porn section with only cute opaque plastic slips with playboy bunnies on them in front of the first DVD to hide them.
The other day I was at a Gamestop (getting Gothic II), and there was a mother there with her two little boys. Her little boys kept looking at games and saying, "Mommy, get me that one, and that one." To which she was very acquiescent. She was there purchasing a few new memory cards for the Game Cube. When the clerk said, "Okay, here are two Game Cube memory cards," she said, "Game Cube? I need memory cards for the Nintendo." Meanwhile in the background, the two little kids were in fact discussing GTA... and acting it out against each other. It was.... disturbing. But more than anything, it made me rather angry. If this woman wasn't even too clear about what console she was buying memory cards for, you can be sure as hell she has no idea about the content of the games she buys for them, and didn't really seem to care either. I've seen similar sights before too. It seems people like her are using games as a proxy for parenting, keeping the kids quiet and out of their way. I admit, I was playing Doom with my dad as a middle schooler, but it wasn't a substitution for parenting. I may have played games like that with their knowledge, but I had the parents who demanded to know who I was with, where and why 24/7 and any applicable contact info. My parents called the shots.... nowadays it seems the kids themselves are.
I never believed that videogames enhanced the possibilites for violence, until it happened to me. I'm not violent, having learned martial arts while a volatile teen, mastering my violent impulses to let them pass and remain rational. In NYC and elsewhere, my risktaking activities and confrontational attitude have occasionally landed me in physical confrontations, but I haven't taken the bait for a fight for decades.
I don't play videogames much, as I'm always too distracted by the programming behind their simulations. But I got a PS2 to play DVDs, and picked up the new _Grand Theft Auto: Vice City_ as long as I had the console. After a few days of playing that tour de force of human failings, I was in a dive bar in NYC's Hell's Kitchen. I've frequented that bar for about 10 years, and have seen several fights. I've even been "invited" to join over a half dozen, but always "laughed" them off before. But that night, when challenged by a guy actually grabbing my drink out of my hand to impress the girl who favored me over him, I had the unusual feeling that I should take the drunk up on his offer, and beat him senseless out back.
It was actually a different feeling of my own identity. I would otherwise have rejected the image of myself actually settling things with this animal with my fists. Getting up and going out to fight, or even throwing a preemptive punch with a fist full of shotglass into his face, would have conflicted with my self image enough to stall in my subconsious, let alone emerge for serious consideration. But that night, I found myself visualizing those strategies, and more, and thinking "I can do that", "I should do that", "I will do that"; "that's me kicking that guy's ass". I remarked to my friend that I was going to go destroy this clown, when he quoted a prior, more sensible me, saying "clowns are to be laughed at". Reminded of my actual personality, I snapped out of the hypnotic testosterone downwards spiral, and just laughed at the clown until he disappeared, over by his buddies at the other end of the bar. The girl fled before this display of masculine idiocy.
I realized immediately that what was different about me was playing GTA dozens of times in the previous few days. I could feel the difference in my ego, that I now accepted some violent, antisocial behavior, that I had previously rejected. I stopped playing the game, and the feeling left. I have since had more opportunities to fight, and passed them all by, as usual.
I would like some real behavior research on the effects of different kinds of games on violence inhibitions. I want to separate the basic effects of antisocial dissociation and immersion in fantasy worlds, to the exclusion of socialized real world play, from the imitation of violence. The dissociation/agression relationship was demonstrated so clearly in 1990s research that it was finally accepted even by the AMA, in recommending that even childhood TV watching be rationed and mediated by parents, through supervision and even discussion. I want to know how much the further roleplaying of violence, especially in emulable characters, with narratives, and realistic immersive visualizations, enhances the development of violent tendencies. I'm a pretty peaceful guy, whose behavior was influenced well into my adult life. I want to see some quantified research into how this way of life influences kids, for good and for ill.
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make install -not war
sounds like someone got pk'd.
"Unarmed girl begs for her life and you kill her for 300 credits wich in game is about 1 clip of ammo? Game should not give you points for not killing her, instead the door should burst open the moment you raise your gun and you are shotdown in a hail of fire by the real hero of the game. Then it should lock the controls and you can watch the real hero complete the quest. "
Yeah you'd have people lineing up to play that game for sure! you could name it something like "the elitest world of unrealistic boring dreams". honestly whats more fun than masacaring someone when their reloading or lagged?
"So if you play GTA and kill a minimum of people and do professianal job then perhaps you are unaffected by the game play. If you go putting holes in their body parts to make them die slowly or gain extra gore well then excuse me while I call the padded wagon to take you away."
oh ok. so if your a professional killer, training to be a professional killer than thats fine. but if your just a gamer looking for a laugh or trying to test the game mechanics, your a psychopath. do you ever have any fun at all?
its a game. if people waged pretend wars, i believe that would eliminate the bloodlust for real wars. its like those people who are treated for fears of heights in a simulator. they recieve their stimulation artificially.
you my friend are the person in this thread who sounds like hes closer to snapping then any of the pro game people who are just trying to have a good time. its when you take it seriously, as you are doing, that it begins negatively affecting you. as it seems to be.
"I wanna play a dirty old knight in slightly rusty armor!"
surprisingly, thats exactly how i pictured you.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Sounds kinda neat...Reminds me of some sci-fi books i've read, where a character will do programming/design work by playing musical notes, drawing connections on a screen, etc.
Video games cause violence as much as golf video games cause me to shoot a 60 over 18 holes.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Whew, now we know. It looks like in-game violence is in fact not the prime and only cause of all variations in levels of violence across cultures after all. So I guess that wraps the debate up.
Although personally, I think a heavy diet of computer gaming makes people pasty, fat, slow, house-bound and unenterprising and thus unlikely to be able to commit spectacular atrocities. I'd love to see the the statistical comparison for crime rates between gamers vs. pro and college athletes, for example...
The most extreme defenders of the 'video games cause violence' theory are those that believe a perfectly normal and good natured young person can be corrupted simply by playing a violent video game. They see the kids that commited these crimes, from columbine to the recent highway shootings, as victims, and video games as the 'trigger' that set them off.
A comparison to another nation is indeed a valid point in favor of videogames as a cause of violence. The videogames are a constant, as is the majority of the human mind. If a child in Tokyo plays violent video games and is not at all violent, while a child in Idaho plays those same violent video games and goes on a killing spree, then it would seem to me that the environment or personality of the child is a more likely cause than the game.
As to your views on players being 'evil' in games; calling someone sick for choosing dialogue option 2 instead of 1 and then changing the "is_Alive" bit from 1 to 0 for a database entry represented by a humanoid coloud of polygons seems rather self-righteous.
There were also very few 'innocents' in Knights of the old republic. The primary component of the Dark side is selfishness; killing others to lessen risk for yourself, or for a monetary reward, or for the thrill. Yes, these are all evil and twisted paths of thought, but they are my characters, not mine. Accusing me of personfying myself in an evil video game character is rather hypcritical when you admit to playing the game yourself. It would be rediculous to accuse you of being a crazy person that belive himself to be a Jedi out to save the galaxy.
And what of the scripters that designed those numerous choices of light versus dark? Are they enablers for giving you access to those evil "is_Alive" bits? Perhaps they are the most evil of all, ensaring unqitting players into the folds of the dark side. Right...
I am not an evil or sadistic person. Honestly I have trouble killing things larger than dimes, even painlessly. But I have no problem fragging you online, or setting my character loose on an unsuspecting crowd, because they are abstractions; graphical representations of game data. They do not live, they do not think, they do not care. When the game is reset they are reborn, when the game is turned off they cease to exist.
The only thing that shows how people act in real life is life itself. Interactions between real people, not their respective visual abstractions. When you play chess with an englishman and take his queen, you are not making threats against the Crown of Britain. You are playing a game. Is the piece captured, imprisoned, killed? No, it is set on the side of the board, because it is a game, and there are rules, and removing pieces from the board is part of the game.
If you don't want to, you can avoid taking pieces; you will lose, but then that is your perogative. You can play the game how you choose, and the only thing it says about how you act in real life is how you play chess. Because it is only a game; nothing more, nothing less.
First it was the national debate topic when I was in High School, and then I was forced to debate it yet again in a philosophy class, a logic class, and now just recently in a sociology class. It's not really important what study says what, because most violence studies are inherently flawed by their over-correlation and over simplification. The only significant evidence I've found in relation to this issue is that toddlers very often directly imitate what they see since they aren't to the point they can separate fantasy from reality. Strangely enough this demographic isn't the one that's targeted by the media and government.
The MPAA ratings system is a completely different animal just because of the relative newness of video game technology. Until relatively recently a parent could buy a video game console and games and not have to worry at all about the content.
The real problem, IMO, is that this is a transitional period and even with the ratings, everyone isn't yet used to the fact that increasingly larger numbers of adults are playing video games only with themselves or other adults. Blaming parents for this doesn't solve anything, because the existence of one clueless parent in a neighborhood makes the good parenting of the others worthless. Instead of focusing on blame, if we want a solution, we should focus on raising awareness of video games as legitimate art and entertainment suitable for mature tastes. This is the effect the controversy over GTA3 is having, IMO - it's kicking the clueless in the ass and showing them exactly what's out there, and what point video games have evolved to.
The argument that "video games don't cause violence" just encourages parental laziness IMO. Video games, like any other form of art, do have the power to inspire both emotion and action, and it's time people realized that they aren't just harmless kiddie toys.
"Masturbation does NOT, in fact, cause blindness!"
/. has been a good empiricist and tested that false claim plenty often.
I didn't find it funny, but I hadn't thought of that...people did once belive that, and I'm pretty sure everyone on
I wonder how long the videogame culture will need to endure before the "its evil and makes people evil" myth dies down. Perhaps when the hysterical elders die from old age and everyone left has played videogames since early childhood?
You can't take the sky from me...
Er, when I kill off a whole block of gangmembers in GTA3, it will defenitely earn me some points : so they aren't exactly worth nothing ;)
Violent geeks? Ridiculous. I'm going to stop wasting my time on this discussion and go check out the new Slashdot poll.
whats more fun than masacaring someone when their reloading or lagged?
Reloading? Nothing that is part of the game in say american army or vietcong. Killing someone who said he had to answer the phone is just poor. I bet when you play chess against a kid you don't allow do-overs or when playing monopoly insist that a player about to loose pays up completly?
Grow up.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The articule quotes Michael Moore thusly: "As Michael Moore so eloquently discussed in Bowling For Columbine, Canada has violence in movies and games, plus more guns per capita than the US, but proportionately a fraction of the killings."
Which is crap. Micheal Moore never said Canada had more guns per capita than the US, Canada doesn't have more guns per capita than the US, and only an idiot would think Canada had more guns per capita than the US.
Canada's guns are concentrated in rural areas with very very few people, with very very few guns in the big cities. The US, on the other hand, has lots and lots of guns in the big cities, as well as in rural areas.
Now it should be abundantly clear to everyone that Video Games do not cause violence: rap music does.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Daniel Etherington, the author of that article, was an old school friend of mine. We used to play C64 video games together back in the good old days. I've not been in contact with him for years, but I still read quite a few of his articles on BBCi.
But, getting back to the point of my post: this particular article is a follow up to his last piece, entitled 'Are video games breeding killers?'
But you forget that children aren't people so they can't choose anything. They're just some weird cross between pets and property until they turn 18 and then they magically become human beings with the capability of sentient thought and equal rights... unless they're gay. Oh and they can't drink... or get a credit card... or rent a car... and have to pay outrageous insurance rates. But other than that they've got the same rights as everyone else under the constitution once they've passed the arbitrary temporal threshold without regard for physical, mental, or emotional maturity or capability.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
The article quotes the statistic of New York City's murder rate at 2500 per eight million residents per year. I don't know how old those "stats" are, but they must be way damn outdated, because current stats are about a quarter of that.
Arbitrary sig
Which is more controversial: a game like GTA, where a thug goes around blowing people away (nothing new here . . .), or a game like Final Fantasy X, where the characters end up questioning their belief in god, and finding that belief and the institutions built up around it have been all wrong?
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"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
were subjected to mushroom policies, they grew quite big though ;)
...but please: if you are seriously saying that playing violent video games and seeing a constant barrage of simulated violence DOESN'T have a behavioral effect on people, then someone should tell companies that every penny they are spending on advertising doesn't work.
If they are spending million$ on showing you a lifestyle or a fashion or a behavior that will lead you to buy their product, they must have some justification?
So is it inconceivable that a similar series of totally negative images and behaviors would have a negative effect on kids?
-Styopa
I don't understand why any slashdotters would even be arguing this issue. Shouldn't it be obvious?
If the images we see DON'T have an influence on the way we think, there would be no billboards, or no commercials!
You don't think movies like "2 Fast 2 Furious" influence people? You don't think "Urban Cowboy" motivated a bunch of dweebs to wear cowboy hats, or "Saturday Night Fever" didn't help pump the disco dancing craze? You think those kids in columbine didn't imagine in their minds some video game scenario they'd been playing?
I remember the first time I played "Crusin' USA" on N64. It was a lot of fun. However, the next time I got in my own car, I found myself driving much faster and more reckless. All these images do have an influence. That doesn't mean we're all going to go out and bump somebody off the road or car jack an old lady, but to deny that video games and other imagery desensitize us to many things is foolish.
"Recent investigations uncovered that it was actually the spiteful Linux community that wrote and deployed violent video games, hoping small children would then take their violence out on IP rival SCO."
--Ben
"There are no such things as mutual fantasies. Yours bore us and ours offend you."
- Bill Maher
its a game. if people waged pretend wars, i believe that would eliminate the bloodlust for real wars. its like those people who are treated for fears of heights in a simulator. they recieve their stimulation artificially.
Let's follow your analogy to its logical conclusion:
Person X is afraid of heights (Y). X is treated for an aversion to Y by simulating Y. After treatment, person X no longer has an aversion to Y, and thus may be more inclined to do Y.
Replace Y with 'doing violent acts' and you'll see what your analogy is actually saying.
I'm not providing an argument either way -- I'm just pointing out that you have a record for one of the _worst_ _analogies_ _ever_.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
The BBC in my books has no more capability of creating links between phenomenon..
they say video games don't cause violence,
yet they say linux users caused the MyDoom virus?
-judging another only defines yourself
Say we play chess and I sacrifice my pawn to take your rook. That is normal even though chess is a game representing elements of an army and I just sacrificed a unit. Since it was once used to train people on the tactics of real war in an abstract manner this just meaned I send several hundred people to their death. But that is the game we play.
Now imagine me playing chess and cackling like maniac as I send my hordes of pawns to their deaths in endless waves. Would you be worried? Of course. It is how you play it.
Now imagine you are psychiatrist examining a person. How do you judge the personality? Well roleplaying is one way. Asking questions and analyzing the answers is another. What would you do with a person who wishes to roleplay as darth vader and torture his daughter? Or who answers the question, "you see three people in a bar in a town you just arrived in do you: A, walk up to them and ask them what is happening in town. B, stroll around seeing if their pockets contain anything usefull. C, gut them like fish", with C?
The problem is not how some people play the game. The problem for me is how they then talk about it outside of the game. It is not how they play the game. It is how they talk about it.
In fact with chess it has been proven that your personality affects how you play. Aggresive risk takers tend to leave pieces open but dare to take advantage of openings even if it may cost them some lower pieces. Carefull planners make sure all their pieces is covered and are generally unwilling to sacrifice any piece unless the gain is clear. Wich one would you put in charge of the beach landing and who in charge of defending a long stretch of coast?
Fragging someone in a shooting match is one thing. Fighting a wargame is one thing. Doing a bombing run on a city is one thing.
Savoring in detail how you put a lightsaber through a young women begging for her life is quit another. If you can't see that then I fear those people claiming violent games are a trouble may be right.
Claiming that it is just a number of polygons of wich you are resetting a bitch is valid. I wonder then why you ever went up from space invaders however. Some people would claim that with the increasing realism in games the characters might become more like characters in a novel or movie. Not real but we are supposed to believe they are real at least when playing. Note I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT QUAKE, I am talking about single player story telling games. The games people put fansites up for the characters.
Some decades ago they did a test on people. They asked them to read a number of questions to a person they could not see and if that person got the question wrong they were to apply an electric shock to that person. Each time the current was increased. They heard the person scream in pain. Tell me. After how many shocks would you have stopped?
If it was a game in wich you could put electric shocks through a few bits and hear very realistic screams, would you keep pushing until the death gurgle? I described this to someone and he got far to excited about such a game ever being made.
Oh and I rather be a madman who thinks he is a jedi out to save the world then someone who gets his jollies killing defenceless polygons.
Chess is only a game, but how you play it says a lot about you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This positive press is well-timed, since Britain is currently orchestrating a witch hunt against extreme adult web sites since some guy murdered his girlfriend:
"Coutts reportedly began searching the web for the same violent content that had driven him to murder in the first place."
"A complaint waged by the victim's mother was reportedly the catalyst behind the British government's clampdown on violent porn."
Awwww, mom!
and I'm glad they mentioned this.
because if you read goldfinger, (james bond novel.. back in the 60's, sure you all knew that, but making a point) he makes a mention about goldfinger prolly being demented, because of the way he looks and being picked on during his childhood..
notice that most of the violence related deaths because of "videogames"
have all been by kids who have been picked on a lot, or ones with a violent background or are just violent themselves?
some kids who get picked on cant handle it and snap. some kids are just already fucked up due to chemical imbalances.. and some are screwed up because of a bad family life.
but, people started blaming videogames becausei t was a much simpler scapegoat than all the real reasons. and the fact that the kid who shot up columbine had some FPS games.. but they leave out the fact that he prolly got the fps because he was already fucked up, not to mention the videos of him and his friend shooting targets in the woods and cheering and going "DIE!! DIEE!!! YEAAAAH!!! DIEE!!"
the columbine kids were violent, and they were picked on.. it's like provoking a sleeping tiger with meat strapped on you.
IMO blowing people away in realistic everyday settings is horrible and tasteless. If that in itself makes people prone to acts of violence? I doubt it, although I wouldn't mind if some games were analyzed and academically studied for its content.
Would make for a far more interesting debate, I'm sure.
However, what is undeniably dangerous in violence (screen, games, books) is stereotyping. Making it OK and even funny to do acts of violence against some people in particular.
There are numerous studies on enforcement of prejudice. Once again, it would be interesting to see how they apply in the gaming world, where you are allowed and encouraged to act out.
So while I appreciate the BBC's vote of confidence, I'd rather see some human sciences opinions.
Side note: being currently deeply into Need for Speed Underground (illegal downtown racing) I must say I'm much more prudent in traffic, looking twice in every direction...
Which instantly makes me wonder: do games change our appreciation of reality? e.g. does playing violent games make you secure/insecure etc... does roleplaying make you inventive, trusting or distrusting in social exchanges?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
First, many of us are extreemly upset with how stupid the world seems today. I know this is probably charistic of teenagers throughout time, but it seems to me that my generation is very extreme in these viewpoints. Example: many of us hate Geroge W. Bush. Not because of his politics, but because he is a dumbass.
Now, this hatred of society generally gets channeled into one of three forms:
Attempts at change. Some teenagers decide to try to fix things. Unfortunatly, we are rarely taken seriously, and thus, most would-be reformers eventually fall into the second response:
Rebellion. This includes: somking, drinking, doing drugs, sleeping around, occasional shoplifting, listining to "offensive" music, and, of coures, playing violent video games. These things aren't done for the sake of doing them, but rather because "mainstream" society shuns them.
The third response generally includes events such as Columbine. I think this is pretty self-explainitory.
Now, how would teenagers playing GTA3 affect younger children? I'll tell you: pop culture generally stresses that, somehow, teenagers are "cool". This is why you see 7 year old girls dressing like sluts. And it is why young children feel the need to play violent video games.
Now, as to whether these games cause violent behavior, my humble oppinion is that most of the "violent" children that the talking heads say were bred by "media violence", are actually just violent people, who happen to prefer violent video games to other entertainment. (btw, I find it ironic that after the news people are done blaming the latest violent act on violent media, a 5-hour COPS marathon starts)
Fianlly, the "blame the media" response is leveled by the parents of antisocial children, because the parents are too damn lazy to raise their own children, and just park them in front of the TV all day. Well, what did you expect?
So, next time you see one of those "special reports" on TV violence, or whatever, remember this post.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
At least for Stalin.
Yeah, that's right. Here they barely even have to pretend to be fair and neutral.
THe article didn't reach much of a 'conclusion' anyway, it just raised questions.
How many tragedies in the last 20 years does it take? Why can't one be enought to change our mindset? would you rather it repeat itself?
Because it is profound stupidity to seek general explanations of singular events. Singular events generally have singular explanations--a rare confluence of circumstances that is unlikely to repeat.
Of course, that sort of violence will repeat itself, not because the particular confluence of personalities and events that caused the first one repeats, but because we can't seem to stop talking about it. Huge numbers of disaffected young people saw a handful of kids just like them receive concentrated and ongoing media attention as a result of one violent action. That is an influence far more profound than a million copies of Grand Theft Auto.
Yeah, okay. Video games probably do make an extremely small number of people edge over the line and go psycho killer. But isn't it possible that they prevent just as many? I'm not saying that in a world where I didn't have a nice, harmless way to release my violent tendancies that I definitely would kill anybody....but you know, I really can't say I wouldn't either.
The only comparison that would work is a country before and after exposure to computer games.
We have that, too. In the US, as video games have become more popular, more violent, and more realistic, violent crime among the age group that plays the most videogames has steadily dropped.
First of all, you really started to piss me off when you said that kids who play GTA talk like little rappers. That's a wrong thing to say in more ways than one. And, also, means absolutely nothing, because as you say, they are not talking about the game they are talking about the fantasy world within it, and that has no bearing on what they think about the real world. Except maybe make them avoid the streets a bit more.
As for playing evil in an RPG being sick...um..it's a game. You honestly believe humans are, at the deepest levels, pools radiating light and altruism and goodness? Hah, no such species would have made it this far. Your average person DOES have pretty sick fantasies. I thought this was pretty common knowledge. Games are outlets for those feelings, feelings that are NOT caused by the game itself, as you're playing.
Bah, your self-righteousness sickens me.
The results of "games cause violence" idea (also known as "Magic Bullet Theory" in mass media classes, would only be true if humans did not have a bit of programming called "choice". Choice is a little errorlevel clause in the mindOS that poses the option of whether to do something or not, and games cannot bypass that clause. Games can inspire crime, but not cause crime -- just as much as the Tolkein books caused me to try and think of nifty fantasy fiction novel ideas so I could become rich and famous after I'm dead or blacksmith some "one bling bling" to rule them all.
Perhaps those with less will to resist temptation should examine their poor choices in imitation.
Also, it is not the responsibility of the product manufacturer if the consumer misinterprets what is fantasy or realistic. Shall we also sue Warner Brothers for failing to warn me that you can't swing an anvil from a narrow rope tied to a narrow stick that I am standing on crossing two cliffs?
thehomeland(.org)
that video games reduce juvenile violence because it keeps them at home instead of out causing mischief.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
but there are two things that people who are making this argument don't address:
a) parents aren't exactly supported in this culture. most of the two parent families i know have both parents working, and the kids in daycare for a significant part of the time (cause the kids are young); and when the kids get older?
b) related to the above point - kids have LOTS of influences, not just parents, and it seems overly simple to just replace "games" with "parents" as the bad guys.
I'm just surprised that we can actually unite as a community and agree that real world violence is a bad thing.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
Yeah, and I, in turn, find myself in your post. Games are how I live. I play games so often that I actually replaced my Linux partition with a little extra storage. I never booted to Linux, there was no point. I don't get 20 minutes without starting a game. Hell, right now I have Silent Storm actually running...
But I hate it when people say I'm a stupid Windows user, just because they don't understand my needs.
Years ago I was playing several hours a day, seven days a week, some games, like Ultima and such. Funny thing, when I went to stores I had to remind myself that things had to be paid for, you don't just pick up stuff and its in your inventory. I think there's some training of the mind that happens when you do play a lot of games and you may be unaware until you catch yourself thinking twice about some course of action.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Quite often, people on /. say I should switch to Linux and use Wine to run all my games! Yeah, okay. Sure. Write me a Wine that's good enough and I will. In a given DAY, I will play probably five to eight different games! And they vary from day to day! Call me crazy if you want to state the obvious, but it's what I do, and I need to be able to support this ridiculous addiction!
Okay, also want to make clear that I'm not joking. This is how I live.
"It is trite and irresponsible of ill-informed commentators to claim that games like Grand Theft Auto are central to terrible crime."
It's nice to know that when it comes to ill-informed BBC commentators making trite and irresponsible claims they at least draw the line somewhere...
The best way to rid ourselves of violence? Castrate little boys before they reach puberty. What has the world come to?
eTrade SUCKS
It's the fault of the parents for letting they're kids play the violent video games in the first place. Most kids can't tell the different between right and wrong. That's up to the parents to teach them.
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http://spaceruckus.web1000.com
These guys are putting together a free 3D action/adventure game.
Free Wii Points
It's like Dick Cavett said:
I think that it boils down to parents. I grew up watching violence on TV all the time, and in my case I barely ever torture animals for fun...like once a month tops.Seriously, though, it really is the parents' influence over the kids. Kids without good guidance might never see a TV in their lives, but they'll end up doing drugs, or being violent, or joining the Jehovah's Witnesses. That why I roll my eyes when I hear O'Reilly on TV going after rappers and other people who he says are damaging kids who don't have good supervision at home. Rappers or not, those kids aren't going to turn out any different if they don't have responsible parents, man! Wise up!
sev
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
So do many news organisations in the UK, except for BBC of course. Are you saying that one public funded news organisation is bad? I'd agree if they all where but they're not.
C'mon. If you're a gamer, Linux is the last platform you look to, right after Windows, consoles, handhelds, cards, dice, and watching paint dry.
But right before Mac OS. See? Linux isn't last after all!
(posted from my new iBook G4, which I absolutely love)
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I believe that violent video games do not cause violent behaviour because there is plenty of evidence of this fact on every level.
There is plenty of personal, observational evidence, the least valid but what many people trust the most. I and almost all my friends play lots of video games, many violent. Most of us have never even been in a fight, and none of us have ever been arrested for a violent crime.
Then we have historical evidence. A quick look at history shows that humans have ALWAYS been violent, all the way back to the dawn of civilization. It is nothing new that people kill each other.
Then there is biological evidence. Violence is a part of just about every animal. It is necessary for survival in many cases, used to establish dominance in others, and even just for play (personal example: my cats beat each other up for fun all the time). Thus it's reasonable to infer that we also have a genetic predispositon to some violence.
Finally there's the most compelling, stastical evidence. The USDOJ has tons of statsics on crime which, when you look at, make it pretty clear that the biggest cause of youth violence is gangs, not videogames.
So I feel quite confident in saying my position is based on evidence, not on hysterics. If someone can produce good evidence to the contrary, I'll be happy to listen. However it needs to be more than a simple correlation that violent kids like violent games.
You might want to go look up the violent crime stastics there. Turns out, they are higher per captia than in the US. Perhaps the largest difference is simply what and how the US news media chooses to report on things. Also there is the fact that most Americans see little to no foriegn news, whereas most of the rest of the world sees a fair bit of American news, as well as local.
So perhaps your outlook on things is what is skewed. Look in to it, and make up your own mind, not what a book or movie or talking head tells you.
I've found the link between videogames and violence: Violence
Some excellent points.
I can indeed see the difference between war and enjoying a murder. I do not see how that is relevant however, as your example was concerning credits. She was also armed, and had assaulted a man, though with some justification.
I agree that how a person plays a game can tell much about their personality, however that still does not allow one to accurately gauge how they would react in an actual situation.
The second time I played through Knights of the Old Republic, my character was evil. His goal was to cause misery and suffering, and cause people to fall to the dark side. My goal was to be consistent with this character, and to watch the story that the game designers had scripted for evil characters. I was a bit disappointed that the majority of being evil in that game consisted of mindless violence rather than causing mental anguish and pulling others to the dark path, but not because I wanted to watch them suffer, but rather because it would have been a more interesting story. The first time I played through with a somewhat selfish but overall good natured character.
So what does that tell you about me? Do you think I would turn an orphaned girls best friend against her via mind control, given the chance? Or conquer a galaxy and bring about a dark era that would last for centuries? No, all it tells you is that I enjoy a good story, even if the main character is evil. Does that make me a sick and twisted person in your opinion? That isn't flamebait, I am genuinely curious. I laid out that story with my motives, because I wanted your take on how it reflects upon me.
Personally I do not see much wrong in enjoying the deaths of imaginary people, regardless of motive. Using simulations in place of the real thing, wishing you were hurting actual people, would be cause for concern. And I suppose that a large percentage of those that enjoy being overly sadistic to innocent pretend victims would probably fall into that category. But reveling in one's ability to send rows of infantry to their certain doom, while certainly a bit pathetic, does not warrant my scorn.
You ask why we moved on from space invaders; personally I do not put much stock in eye candy. But improved graphics do add one major change to gameplay; refined visual information output. Generally after a playing a game for a while, any graphics that do not tell me something are tuned out, and those that do are simplified down to their base components.
Regarding the experiment you cited, I probably would have stopped when the person recieving the shocks asked me to. But I am sure that there are some that would enjoy the thought of inflicting pain on others, even though the other person was an actor and not actually recieving shocks.
Unlike a game, the experiment takes place in real life, and the subject actually believed pain was being inflicted. But unlike most situations in real life, the subject was given permission and authority to inflict pain on a stranger, and goaded on by the tester if they expressed concern for the person answering the questions. So while someone that revels in their sadism would be a possible danger to society, not every that continued the punishment for wrong questions would be a sadist.
The key factor of course, is motive. Does one kill that innocent cloud of polygons because you wish she were real and actually suffering, Or because you want yoru character to experience the consequences of such an action?
As to your Electro Shock game; again it would come down to motive. Does one play all the way through imagining a real victim on the other end of that shock, or because one is curious as to the specifics? What if the voice were designed to simulate Hitler or Stalin? Would someone who enjoyed torturing one of them be evil and sadistic?
Who decides who is acceptable to enjoy inflicting pain upon? I find torture of the guilty distasteful, but others would jump at the opportunity to perform 'justice'. Of course, the killing of the guilty is, from a Christian standpoint, far worse than any earthly torture, if the guilty has not yet been redeemed. But let's not get into that.
as of late, you can imagine how it makes me feel that they and I agree on this one...
A goal is a dream with a deadline
There's nothing in the world that CAUSES violence. Violent action is a choice made by a single human being every time it happens. Even in a group, each individual chooses to do violence upon their target independent of the other group members.
To assume that some environmental factor such as a video game causes violence is to assume that human beings are stimulus/response automatons. The BBC article grants the possibility without even thinking about it, but goes on to say the data do not support such a conclusion about video games specifically. Wonderful.
This assumption is common among the Left, they seem to think all manner of things will take an ordinary human being and turn him/her into an insane killer. If it isn't guns its video games, or lead poisoning, or not enough sex, or too much, or some such.
The reason why collectivist social experiments consistently fail is that humans are not automatons. They think. They do not behave in predictable ways even when herded like cattle by oppressive regimes.
Violence is a tool humans sometimes use to get things they want. Period. If society is arranged such that it is the only tool available to a section of the populace, perforce more of them will use it that would otherwise be the case. However even in such evil circumstances some will and some still won't, and there is no way to tell ahead of the event which a given individual will choose.
"From the release of Doom (94), to the release of The Matrix (99) the number of victims of violent crimes fell from 51.2 per thousand to 32.1, droping steadily each year, for a decrease of 37 percent. The total number of killers under 18 [...] dropped by 46 percent."
And maybe it's risen slightly since, I don't know off hand, but not by a huge amount, and not thanks to one game.
Actually crime in Japan has been increasing rapidly (though obviously still low relative to the US), and there have been any number of horific crimes committed by "children" in the last few years.
I actually read a case study on the whole D&D scare.
Apparently, it all stems from a news article about how such-and-such percent of kids who play D&D commit suicide. The case study talks about the hysteria about D&D a bit. It then proceeds to mention that the reporter who wrote the article did bad research, and that she got the suicide factor completely wrong - it was actually TWICE what she reported. On top of that, this doubled suicide rate was still signifigantly lower than the national average suicide rate among kids of the same age group. (I don't remember the exact numbers, but we're not talking just statistically signifigant, we're talking there should have been news stories encouraging parents to buy their children copies of D&D to keep them from killing themselves.)
This seems to be the case with kids and violence. The violent crime and murder rates among kids has been steadily dropping for most of the past century. Granted, back in the '40s kids used knives rather than guns, but I gather that there was a greater cultural stigma against guns back then. The fact still remains that despite what the news says, kids are getting less violent overall, not more violent.
The day after an all-night Quake marathon, I tend to have problems with constantly running, going around corners sideways, and jumping incessantly whenever other people are in the room.
Hmm. Personal note -- friend from school committed suicide many years back. I knew something was wrong when he dropped role-playing. Can't say for sure what was going on in his head, but facing reality head on, 24/7, was clearly not for the best.
Do you think MTV is really there to help the youth of America?
No, its all about the ratings, thats their #1 bottom line priority.
Do you think people make games to entertain the youth of America?
No its about the sales, making the quarterly earnings is their #1 bottom line priority.
The entertainment industy isnt going to be looking out for everyones best interest. Everyone(with main emphasis on the parents) needs to pay attention to whats going on and being shown around us. Exposing yourself or your children adds to their lifetime experiences and is a small part in what molds their/your persona. Plopping an 8 year old in front of the TV and leaving the PS2 to interact with them 90% of the time is not going to help them interact with real people in the real world.
A parents job is a 24 hour, 7 day a week, 365 day a year full-time responsibility. If you cannot accept this then do not have children until you are ready to be involved. Its common sense.
The media and entertainment industy are there as a part-time outlet for fun. They are not there to raise our children.
They are not playing a role in a game. They are living out a fantasy. Problem with this is, what is stopping them from acting out that fantasy in real life? You killing someone for few bucks in a game is of course not the same to YOU as killing a person in real life for a few dollars.
However to those kids who killed for a pair of sneakers or the latest console it is exactly the same. Did games cause this? No. But I think it is a symptom.
You played the game twice and the second time you went the evil path so I take it this means the first time you were on the rightous do-gooder path? There are those who went the evil path straight away and complain they can't be evil enough. Think of the person who cracks the joke "my father died in a concentration camp, he fell of the guard tower" is that person a nazi? No perhaps not. But I doubt he gives money to amnesty international either.
No I don't think games make people violent.
The key factor of course, is motive. Does one kill that innocent cloud of polygons because you wish she were real and actually suffering, Or because you want yoru character to experience the consequences of such an action?
Precisly my point. The electro shock experiment was an experiment as to who would follow orders and who would decide for themselves that it was enough. The people in the experiment ALL showed unease with inflicting pain but some went on because that was what they were ordered to do while only a few disobeyed.
My question was would say the kids who murder for a few dollars have shown any empathy with the victim (remember the test subjects did not now the victim was not real they did not even know they were being tested they thought the victim was the test subject and they the researcher).
Have you seen the movie "the green mile"? All of the guards are murderers if you think about it. However I think almost every person can pick out the evil one. He is the one that takes pleasure out of it.
Guards are not supposed to take pleasure out of punishing. They are doing a job that needs to be done. I think you will find that in the real world they screen guys out who take pleasure out of torturing inmates in civilized countries.
No someone who takes pleasure out of killing in real life is not the same as someone who does it in a fake game. Are you however convinced that every gamer out there is treating the game as fake?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The reason why this continues to be a controversial issue, IMHO, is that most people insist on seeing things in black-and-white terms. Either video games are responsible for turning kids into killers, or they have no effect whatsoever. It's easy for people on either side of the issue to knock down the appropriate strawman.
Aphex Twin uses a software called Max for Mac OS, and the Linux/IRIX OSS version (developed by the same company as a successor to Max) is called jMax (the GUI is Swing and the backend is C, IIRC.)
It's basically a musical programming language. You can type it in textually, or arrange and connect elements graphically. It's a completely different way of making music than most people are used to.
As for games, I've run Linux on all of my desktops for years, and I can easily fire up Liquidwar, xscorch, or pretty much any NES/SNES/Genesis game worth playing (I owned all the ones that were sold in the US, so you can stick any self-righteous ROM-bashing right back where it originated). I could also wander one room over and turn on the Gamecube, or downstairs for the PS2, Dreamcast, or Saturn. I sure don't have a shortage of games to play.
Sometimes it would be nice to be able to run a certain Windows game, but it's not worth the hassle of running Windows as my desktop. Yes, I'm much more productive under Linux, but then I don't run a "desktop environment" that's trying to mimic Windows. If I wanted Windows, I could get it for $10 from the university.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
I had a similar experience after playing descent for 36 hours straight once. I kept finding myself hovering upside down in the corner right above the doorway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Anyway from what I understand the stereotypes pretty much are true. Kids in the city had a hard time getting guns, and kids in the boonies mostly just had it out with their fists. That kids are shooting one another in the street says a lot about the kind of pressure they're under today.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
For the real hacker, programming is the game.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
>Ok, how do you prove you didn't bomb the car, then use a time jump device to jump back before it exploded and just didn't blow up the car in the second timeline?
:-)
:)
Oh, that's easy. I just explain the general theory of relativity. Not that difficult, really. Wrote a short report on it in high school.
>Or how do you prove that you didn't use advanced nanotechnology and matter replicators to create a new car and restore everything to the way it would be if you hadn't bombed the car.
Another easy one. They're figments of the late Gene Roddenberry's imagination. The fact there's hundreds of episodes produced by him proves this. Unless, of course, you want to pretend those weren't sets. In that case perhaps you'd enjoy a short trip to Paramount Studios, followed by a long trip to the rubber room?
>Since you can not disprove the use of either time travel or replicator technology
Sure I can disprove it. If time travel were real then the car causing me trouble would simply cease to exist (ie: I'd go back in time and pay the salesman to kill the deal, the butterfly effect takes care of the rest).
Replicator technology, well, for that one I'd just subpeona Gene's show notes. I'm sure his wife would be happy to send me copies, after having fits of hysterical laughter.
>The best you could do is prove it beyond a REASONABLE doubt, which is much different that absolutely proving a negative.
??? No, sorry man. "Reasonable doubt" has nothing to do with people understanding that certain things can't, and others just don't exist.
Reasonable doubt is OJ not being able to squeeze into size small gloves. It isn't pretending that Star Trek is real...
As an example, I can prove a negative. I can prove I don't own the Royal Family's jewels by taking you on a tour of Buckingham Palace, and providing you with a physics textbook, for example. You might say I replaced them with fakes. Perhaps they'd let me prove to you they aren't through demonstration (probably not). The last refuge would be to suggest I managed to create a new diamond-like material that isn't diamond. Then the world would be laughing at you (or perhaps just think you're nuts for not making money on it?)
Hey, I'll prove one more thing! That you don't have my lottery ticket! How can I prove it? Well, if it weren't the internet, I'd just give you my address and you could take a look...
I'm not saying all negatives are possible to prove, just that there are obvious ones that are.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
... so it can't distinguish anything!
Its editors might accept the stories, but the Slashdot itself is not creating any titles of its own.
Can't you, DrMindWarp, distinguish the message from the medium?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Think about it for a second, you are the lawyer of the parents of two kids who just plain murdered dozens of innocents in a public school. The whole country wants a culprit and they are pointing the finger at your clients, the kids (like most teenagers) happened to like rock bands and videogames. What would you do?
Seriously has anyone considered that doom (the game this guys were "based" on) was almost a ten year old game when this happened? wasnt it more statiscally possible they played a quake2 mod, or any other more recent and easier to find game? has anyone considered how convenient is that they had a webpage were they posted "Doom will become a reality" or some similar nonsense which is practically a "I DID IT" letter?
Isnt a bit suspicious they never investigated where the guns (2 fully loaded automatic machine guns and several hand grenades) came from? or where they got trained to use them. (anyone can fire a gun but not a recoiling machine gun or a frag grenade) are we supossed to believe they learned that a 2d simulated 3d game? using a mouse and a keyboard?
did they investigated if they were related to a extreme racist organization (most of the victims were minorities and they were known racists in the school.)
too many "ifs" dont you think? and curiously they dont point to marilyn manson and videogames.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
Think about it for a second, you are the lawyer of the parents of two kids who just plain murdered dozens of innocents in a public school. The whole country wants a culprit and they are pointing the finger at your clients, the kids (like most teenagers) happened to like rock bands and videogames. What would you do?
Has anyone considered that doom (the game this guys were "based" on) was almost ten years old when this happened? wasnt it more statiscally possible they played a quake2 mod, or any other more recent and easier to find game? isnt too convenient that they had a webpage were they posted "Doom will become a reality" or some similar nonsense which is practically a "I DID IT" letter?
Did they ever investigated where the guns (2 fully loaded automatic machine guns and several hand grenades) came from? or where they got trained to use them? (anyone can fire a gun but not a recoiling machine gun or a frag grenade) are we supossed to believe they learned that from a 2d simulated 3d game? using a mouse and a keyboard?
Did they investigated if they were related to any xtreme racist/gun organization? (most of the victims were minorities and the kids were known racists in the school)
Too many "ifs" dont you think? and curiously enough they dont point to marilyn manson cds and videogames.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
I heard some story that kids were crawling into sewers to pretend like they were starting adventures or whatever and ended up dying. I remember that clearly as it got me interested in D&D, haha. I tried it and just don't understand how some people have so little control. One should know if they cannot handle certain things.
D&D was blamed for so many things, sillyness.
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!