Views on Violence in Video Games

CBS News' GameCore site is running a series of articles discussing the ever recurring debate about video games and violent behavior. They start with prominent anti-gaming lawyer Jack Thompson. From the article: "The heads of six major health care organizations testified before Congress that there are hundreds of studies that prove the link. All the video game industry has are studies paid for by them, which are geared to find the opposite result. Lawyers call such experts 'whores.'" Tim Buckley, of the webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del, had the chance to put forth an opposing viewpoint on the subject. According to the site there will be more coverage on this topic next week from other gaming community members.

Comments

Re:New Study, More Time

[Kierthos]

Correlation, not causation. If video games could so drastically affect behavior, where are all the Pac-Man addicts who should be running around eating everything in sight? Where are the vast numbers of Halo and UT who should be sniping at people off of rooftops?

Most people can play videogames and not think that the room-mate who refuses to do the dishes needs to be fragged. It's those sad sacks who can't, and their parents (who in all likelyhood are just as responsible for Junior being a clue-impaired moron) who should be held responsible, not the game companies.

Parents need to actively involved in raising their kids, not letting the TV or the X-Box do it for them. Buckley hit the nail on the head with that one.

Kierthos

Kneejerk attorney

[nathan s]

I found it difficult to take him seriously after the first question:

What constitutes violence in video games?

There's no real debate over that. Any M-rated game has violence levels unacceptable and definitionally harmful to anyone under 17. The industry will rue the day it accepted this labeled scheme.

Again and again throughout the interview, he basically takes an elitist stance that says "if you don't agree with me you're stupid." Here, if you don't agree that "M-rated means violent" then the implication is that you must be too dumb to accept what "everybody" thinks.

It would have been interesting to see him actually answer the question, as Tim Buckley did. Compare and contrast:

What constitutes violence in video games?

The same things that constitute violence in real life constitute violence in video games. Blood and gore, for instance...

Ahh! Game studies!

[davecrusoe]

Despite the contentious issue of violent game playing on player health, I concur with James Gee of UWisc. I'll paraphrase one of his arguments, as I can't recollect which precise article it's in:

While game playing might contain violent aspects, the cognitive engagement is far different than, say, bullying or beating up some poor kid. How the player thinks about their experience - entertainment and fun, for example, rather than punishment or retribution - is important.

Furthermore, some of my own research asks, despite violence in videogames, what do players learn through their playing? The results have, so far, been a surprise. Younger players use the medium for socialization with older players; groups of players focus on teamwork skills (nothing amazing there) and the game environment requires active thinking about strategy for success. My own next step is to explore "gaming clans," and clan players' motivations.

Nonetheless, the question we should all be asking is, given that violence is inherant to our humanistic being, in what modes is it possible a constructive experience, and in what modes is it destructive?

Bandura's social cognititve theory might suggest that the illustration of violence begets further violent behavior. But that we haven't all killed each other, and that we don't punch random stranges on the street, despite having watched violent television programming, indicates a compromise.

More later, this is a wonderful subject! --dave

Re:violent games

[carpe_noctem]

Give credit where it's due

Re:Much Worse then TV and Movies

[pHatidic]

Please keep up the obvious, uninsightful, and only tangentially related posts to whore your porn site. The rest of us really appreciate it.

Re:violent games

[CPUgrind]

Just hold down circle, you don't need to keep pressing it.

Re:violent games

[wawannem]

A study such as what you mention is much harder to pull off than you realize. How exactly are a person's "violent tendencies" measured? I wrote a paper on this very topic (the affect of violent video games on adolescents) in undergrad and one study I read equated a small child popping balloons to "violent behavior" or one child recognizing "violent words." The problem is that violence isn't an easily definable behavior. There have been a number of court cases where cities/states have tried to ban violent video games, but each has been thrown out because it is unprovable that video game violence leads to real violence. Now, if only I could find my paper to point to some links.

This is the only one that comes to mind quickly, but many may argue that a trade organization representing video game mfgrs is biased. But, some facts are impossible to ignore.

1. Adolescent violence is a problem primarily in the US despite other countries having a equivalent number of video game playing adolescents
2. In the last 20 years (actually since 1983) youth violence has been significantly decreasing, while video game sales has become a 7 billion dollar a year business. The decrease in adolescent violence is theorized to be due to increased youth programs and decreased gang-related activity and membership.

Study proves nothing

[whitis]

A new study was released yesterday by Tulane Medical which tracked video game users over a 8 year period testing how much the video games they play affect their tendency toward violence. The study found that among those who played games 8% went on to have some form of violence conviction while only 6% of the non-gamers did.

Correllation does not prove causality. Consider, for example the following hypothetical statistics:

• 20% of the population is prone to commit violent crimes
• People who are prone to violence are twice as likely to enjoy violent games. Suppose 30% of the non-violence prone population plays the violent games and 60% of the violence prone population plays the games.
• 50% of the violence prone successfully sublimate their violent tendancies through violent video games while none find that it makes them more prone to violence.
• 0% of non-violence prone become more likely to commit violence as a result of playing the games
• To simplify the explanation, we are going to assume 1 crime per offender.

Now we conduct an omnipitant study of 1 million people. Results show:

• Non Violent, plays violent games: 0 commit acts of violence, 240,000 people
• Non Violent, don't play violent games: 0 commit acts of violence, 560,000
• Violent, plays violent games: 50% commit acts of violence, 120,000 population, 60,000 commit crimes
• Violent, doesn't play violent games: 100% commit acts of violence, 80,000 population, 80,000 commit crimes

Now a study committed by mere mortals that looks only at the numbers and doesn't look deeper would show:

• Of the 140,000 who committed crimes, 60,000 played games. Thus 42% of those who committed acts of violence played games as opposed to 30% of those who did not. Thus, violent offenders were 40% more likely to have played violent games.
• Of the 360,000 who played violent games, 60,000 (17% committed violent crimes). Of the 640,000 who did not play violent games, 80,000 (12.5%) commited acts of violence. Thus, those who play violent games are 36% more likely to commit acts of violence.

Both of these studys show a strong correlation between playing violent games and committing crimes. But in reality, the violent games have actually eliminated 60,000 violent crimes and the availibility of violent games have reduced the amount of violence by 30%.

There are many other reasons for violent crime. There is a statistical indication that the drug war may have doubled violent crime (not even counting the crimes perpetrated by the government) just as prohibition did. There is considerable violence against racial and sexual minorities. The poor are increasingly desparate in our rich get richer, poor get poorer economy.

Someone was pointing out to me, that in an area of the city where I live, that there has been a substantial outbreak of armed robbery. This followed a recent crackdown on dope dealing. Possible cause: the remaining dope dealers have decided that it is safer to commit armed robbery and split than to wait around long enough for both drug buyters and police to find them.

Re:violent games

[Life2Short]

Could you cite any of these studies that have been done before and found ZERO, NADA, NO increase in violent tendencies? Could you explain the significance of the number 100 in your thinking? The power of a statistical test relies on 3 things: sample size (which I think is what you're trying to get at), the significance criterion that you set for the test, and the effect size that you're looking for. As far as I know, there is nothing special about 2 groups of 50 people. I'll admit that I don't know the videogame literature as well, but I do know literally hundreds of studies that clearly show a link between exposing children to televised and live violence and a number negative outcomes. There are correlational studies, lab experiments (one of my favorites is a study that showed violent and nonviolent films to youth offenders incarcerated for either violent or non-violent offenses living in separate dorms), and naturalistic observations (some great studies from the 60s in Canada where obervers literally have the opportunity to look at children before and after television is available to rural communities). Negative outcomes include violent behavior in general (hitting/kicking), desensitization to violence ("Watch these kids playing and call me when you think their play is becoming too rough" - kids who are previously exposed to violence wait longer for the violence they are watching to escalate before calling the experimenter to intervene), belief in a violent world (e.g., I believe that arguments frequently end in physical violence), and copycat acts of violent behavior (e.g., I saw them put ground glass in the stew on TV, I thought I might try it at home to see if it works). If you have trouble believing any of this, just read the literature for yourself. Try a scholar.google.com search of the keywords "video game violence children" or check out "television violence children."

BZZT.

[Grendel Drago]

Nope, he's right and you're wrong. The point which he describes is not the average, but the median. As IQ is normally distributed (well, it's designed to be), it's symmetric about 100, so that its median and average (mean) are the same.

IQ tests are normalized based on scads and scads of results for lots and lots of people. A test taker is given a score of 100 because half of the people who took it in the calibration group scored higher, and half lower.

So, while the mean isn't necessarily the median, it sometimes is, and you won't always score cheap points by saying it isn't.

--grendel drago

Re:violent games

[gurps_npc]

Go here:

http://www.pafko.com/wayne/docs/media_effects_vide o_games.pdf

They list several studes, some of which showed a DECREASE in violence.

I just picked 100 as a sample number. Do it as large as you want to.

Note, there are LOTS of studies where the Authors "Conclude that violence was caused by video games". But NONE of them I have ever seen succesfully show indicate causation of actual violence.

What the tons of "anti-video game studies consistently prove is that:

people that play violent video games have some violent thoughts for the period immediately afterwords. Violent thoughts sounds scary, but there is another name for it: Memories. When you look at red things for an hour, you tend to think about red things. It does not make you like the color red more, nor does it make you subconciously want to buy red things.

People that engage in violent actions like playing violent games and liked to play violent games when they were kids. They also like to eat meat and liked to eat meat as a kid. They also like to wear cloathing and wore cloathing as a kid. And they tend to be physically in better shape.

Causation is not correlation. Proving Correlation is worthless. Show me causation and I will agree with you.

Re:New Study, More Time

[Anonymous Coward]

by cliffski (65094) on Friday March 04, @05:17PM (#11848579)

well if you lived in a society with minimal gun crime would you fund a study into it? or be mroe likely to do so if you have rampant gun crime, like (for example) the USA? Its just sensible allocation of research money.

If guns cause crime, then why are prisons so dangerous?

Is it because the inmates have easy access to guns?

Simply put, the Japanese are among the most law-abiding people on earth, and far more law-abiding than Americans. America's non-gun robbery rate is over 70 times Japan's, an indication that something more significant than gun policy is involved in the differing crime rates between the two nations.[129] Neither Japanese nor American prisoners have guns, but homicide by prisoners and attacks on guards occur frequently in American prisons, and almost never in Japanese prisons.[130] Another indication that social standards matter more than gun laws is that Japanese-Americans, who have access to firearms, have a lower violent crime rate than do Japanese in Japan.[131]

-David Kopel
"Japanese Gun Control"