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CSI Takes On Grand Theft Auto
Tycoon Guy was one of many to write "Looks like another 20 million viewers will be fed the 'video games promote violence' story tonight. Today's CSI: Miami episode will feature a group of kids who are inspired to go on a city-wide crime spree by a game that looks suspiciously like Grand Theft Auto. From the description: 'Delko witnesses a bank robbery and the CSIs soon discover that the culprits are playing out the action from the videogame 'Urban Hellraisers' on the streets of Miami. As they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.'"
I don't think that the debate isn't so much about whether video games inspire people to go on crime sprees (which is only the aspect that the CSI episode seems to address). Most of us agree that they can. Just like a violent movie, booze, extremely stressful situtation, etc. can push a person already with a few screws loose over the edge. The question is: Do video games make killers? And if so (and that's a big if) where does the line between social conditioning and personal responsiblity lay?
Anyhow, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to throw up your arms over this show. Knowing CSI, I doubt that they're going to devote much airtime into exploring the social and moral issues surrounding the debate. The focus of the show isn't the same as Law & Order, which is a bit more far reaching.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
CSI is going to turn into the new baywatch if they are not careful...
"BSD is about people pissing each other.." (Moid Vallat)
Will it include a Jack Thompson kind of lawer?
C-SPAN2 today will air an episode of Head of the Class 2005 where the students form a representative government that really is more interested in padding their pockets than in protecting their constituents.
We have to accept that the media has nothing to report on. They HAVE to report on games that may entice teenagers to murder, and the fiction media has to make it fact.
It isn't like Sharon quit the Likud or gold hit a 18 year high or GM is cutting 30,000 union jobs that it should have cut 20 years ago or even that Intel and Micron are colluding on flash memory. I know there's no real news out there for fiction-media to mimic.
The lady watches a lot of Law & Order (SVU primarily) and whenever I'm on the couch watching the show, all I can think of is "criminals are stupid" and "these cops are walkin all over people's rights." Then I realize it isn't reality -- but I do believe that a majority of viewers THINK this is real life. It isn't anywhere near what happens in the situations presented.
Wasn't it the Miami ADA who complains about how they have problems with getting guilty verdicts because juries expect DNA and other CSI-style evidence? Is this CSI pandering to the local legal authorities in pushing what may be a big issue for them?
I, for one, welcome our new "this is reality and you better accept it" overlords. The positive thing about shows like this is that it only helps in destroying the media regimes that exist today.
BTW, the advertisement to the right of this article is a GTA:LS for the PSP ad. Funny.
if GTA only imitates "reality" in their violence, and there HAVE been cases of copycat murders imitating GTA, is there any problem with a TV show imitating the reality of GTA-inspired copycat murders?
Because gamers censoring CSI is in no way different from lawyers censoring GTA.
Every time I read something like this, it makes me want to carjack someone's Infernus, back up over them with it, then go on a huge hooker shooting spree.
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Shows often hop on a hot-topic issue to prompt more viewership. This move is relatively unsurprising. What will be interesting to see is if the game is actually blamed, or the show exhonorates (sp?) the game, dismissing what the kids emulate and acknowledging that personal responsibility is capable of dettering anyone from a mass murder spree, GTA be damned.
(Sorry for the poor spelling.)
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Hollywood has decided that games are a threat to their business, not just the next wholly owned subsidiary. They see that they can't control the game medium with their distribution monopolies and promotional control, so they're attacking it. They thought they could make a fortune off game music, but failed to change their bizmodel to pull that off. So now they see gamers and "pirates" as their enemy. Which consensus will now appear in Hollywood products generally. How long before the Internet itself becomes the target, beyond just P2P filesharing?
--
make install -not war
Art is imitating life again?
Seriously though, the people who believe games induce violence will not be changed and those who believe it doesn't won't be changed either. The few souls who don't have an opinion might be changed but I don't think there are very many of them left.
--
On another note, I never watch this show, but now I will just to see what it shows...
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Somebody needs to go start killing people, and say that he was inspired by gruesome scenes in CSI. Right back at them.
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Couldn't the CSIs just check the walkthrough?
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Now, Jimmy, I want you to do something for me. Do you think you can help me out? Yeah? Good.
See this badge, Jimmy? It means you're an honorary police officer. Tell me about what you saw.
Jimmy, I am going to find out who stole your video game.
As they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.
GameFAQs. What kind of investigators are these?
As long as they portray it as bad parenting and idiotic kids acting out bits from a video game. Or a book. Or a movie.
It's not that video games don't inspire mentally unstable people to do stupid things. That's a given. Mentally unstable people could find inspirations for their actions from a box of rice crispies.
It's how you portray it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
That sounds like a great episode.
In fact, I'm going to create a video game where you are a forensic pathologist, and you have to travel around a city trying to track down a gang of teenagers who are acting out scenes inspired by the latest episode of CSI... you must figure out what the crazy wrapup / plot twist will be in order to stop them. I bet the video game would be a hell of a lot more interesting than their show- and probably about equally gory.
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
A popular television series is using a plotline based upon bad information to enhance its ratings during sweeps month? Tell me it isn't true. Next thing you know, they won't be throwing their main characters into bikinis and making them kiss!
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
As they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.
Simple...just put a big sign over a warehouse that says 'Pay-n-Spray', fill the warehouse with cops, and wait. ^_^
Seriously, though, I will be watching this episode tonight, even though I usually avoid CSI: Miami like the plague (I would rather perform an appendectomy on myself with a rusty grapefruit spoon than sit through David Caruso gibbering and capering onscreen for an hour). After all, we have to be familiar withh the propaganda if we're going to fight it effectively, no?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Anyone stupid enough to need a videogame to tell them how to commit crimes is stupid enough to get caught pretty quickly.
I pity the kids whose parents actually believe the stuff they see on CSI is real and WILL affect them/ their kids. good luck... and I expect an increase in Auto theft game purchases after this CSI. Is it a coincidence that this is airing close to christmas (though in US, $now is close to christmas, whatever $now is)?
As long as I have my Unity engine and a computer in front of me, I'll make the game I want to make and will be uncensored. The rest of the world can shove off. Don't be scared, folks, the Indies will make it all right.
my excuse is gonna be reading slashdot and coding in Perl.
I'll watch. its a great game, make a great movie.
CSI:Miami, a TV-show with violent content, is going to go up against violent content in the video game industry? What do you kow? The vultures are beginning to eat each other! Of course violent games and TV don't make people into killers! Now excuse me as I go strap on my StormTrooper armor, grab my handy blaster, and lay waste to some people at the supermarket...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Will the episode be sponsored by a producer of hot coffee?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
flunked out, so they need to take it out on someone... Last thing i want to do for 6 hrs is a pixel hunt to find some guys pubic hairs. If i want a pixel hunt i'll go back and play myst.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that CSI (the original) has already done this storyline, but with one kid. All I can remember (was a few years ago) was killing a hooker.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
from the whole, Physical evidence never lies last week on CSI (it does, or rather people are faluable.) to today's GTA inspired show. What do you expect? People want entertainment, people want absolutes. BFD.
I've never seen so many white gang members in my life as there are in the CSI universe. Are tehy afraid of offending anyone? EVER?
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
As the made for tv movie "Mazes and Monsters" but it's a start.
...they've been watching too much CSI.
I say we put them both in a ring of jello and let them fight it out the American way.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
... is Monday Night Football.
Don't these overlap on differeing networks? And if so, is anyone really worried that those who might actually read to far into a crime drama wouldn't be watching something more banal anyways?
Hours spent watching TV has been decreasing for the last decade, owing to alternative time-wasters in the form of the internet and video games. It makes sense that TV would get out their big ole tar brush and paint up their new competition.
This cannot be preceived as bad publicity for video games. A television show portray's an actor who plays a video game and replicates the violence. The rub is, they can't say it is the video games fault while the show depicts the exact same kind of violence. Maybe Rock star should make a game that portray's a crime based television show that a viewer watches then replicates the violence they see on the show... all this pandering moves focus away from the actual culprit, the person behind the actual violence.
Angry viewers count just as much in the ratings as any other kind of viewers. If stirring this pot motivates you to watch, it's money in the producers' pockets.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Of course, silly me, this is one of them "videogames", so it must look like old PSX and sound like an Atari2600.
I think it sounds like a great TV episode, it's just too bad that ignorant people will take it to mean that video games promte violence in EVERYONE. It's a very small portion of video game players that actually become violent in a certain manner due to something they witness in a game.
The problem is parents who buy a game that's unsuitable for their mentally challenged or disturbed children. They wouldn't buy them beer or let them drive at 12, why would they buy them something like GTA?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The broadcast networks (save ABC last season) have been bankrupt of good ideas for new shows for years now.
crap, crap, crap....
One of the many reasons I don't watch network TV
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
"Killer Instinct" or whatever the crappy fox crime drama is did the same plot a week ago (Yeah, I watched it. I was flying on JetBlue and was curious about this particular POS. It was craptacular).
Expect this same "Viloent crime spree videogame inspires real killers" to pop up in Law and Order next.
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After I played GTA (can't remember which one) at a friend's house for a couple of hours, I found myself thinking about ramming into other vehicles and stealing their cars. I'm really not joking. Of course, I also once pointed at a cop checking for speeders during my Quake years and yelling audibly, "Look at that camper!!!" Again, I'm really not joking.
While I neither rammed other people's cars nor pulled out a rocket launcher to teach the cop a lesson, I certainly KNOW that games can bleed into reality and if the person is just messed up enough in the head already, I don't doubt they could live out the game.
Before anyone complains about this, keep in mind that it's just television. You know... make-believe, just like the video games. It would be unfortunate for people to make predictions about how this CSI:Miami episode will affect people considering those critics would be the same ones arguing with Jack about how the games affect people's behavior.
I'm surprised this even made Slashdot. What next... a detailed analysis of how the last Numb3rs episode was incorrect? How TV shows glamorize things that aren't glamorous? It's TV... it's about ratings, not trying to change how people think.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
GTA is satire. Made all the richer by those who don't get it and end up looking like the total goofs they are for taking satire seriously.
my "Random shooting spree in a mall" video game. How do you decide who to shoot anyway?
... with the "punk rockers". It set us back 20 years.
P.S. Sid was innocent.
I thought they jumped the shark with the "tsunami" episode (David Caruso was getting pretty tedious even before that). This sounds like another incredibly unlikely storyline.
Proverbs 21:19
Killer instinct had an episode about this a couple weeks back. The episode was called 'game over' and featured a killer using the levels on a video game as a plan for the crimes.
d e/498048/summary.html
More info is available here - http://www.tv.com/killer-instinct/game-over/episo
I wonder if the guys doing carjacking,killing,whoring and stealing in the 80s can sue for plagerism?
Yeah video games invented violence, greed and lawlessness, now can we move on?
C.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
The entire episode is spent using forensic evidence to track down the killer criminals, and the episode ends in a carjacking followed by an almighty car chase involving 20 police cars and the criminals.
Unfortunately, just before the police are about the catch the crooks, they drive down an alley and pass through a floating police badge, costing $500, and the police promptly forget about them, causing a massive 20 car police pile up followed by period explosions for 5 minutes in which 500 police and innocent bystanders are killed.
However, the criminals later are found standing aimlessly outside a local hospital after a misguided attempt at a stunt jump landed their car in the river, which was unfortunate as they were unable to swim.
And life goes on in Vice Cit.... Miami.
Game violence is something most of us grew up here and we are fine, right? Well its right and wrong at the same time. Since we were kids computer games gained whole lot of realism and detail. Its one thing to 'kill' pixilated nazis that cannot be mistaken for human beings because they don't look that real and another thing to ... well nothing right now but we are getting there. IMO in our lifetime we will see movie-realistic graphics and perhaps some emersion-3D technology that would make any games very close to reality. I don't think we have real problem right now with computer game violence, after all games do not feel real that reasonable person, or even typical kid, will mistake it for reality.
Marginally related are Warren Spector's thoughts on the issue, over at Gamespot. Very good read IMO.
MrRogers(2)
Clearly, it is a dumb fucking show. Was and Will be. What else did you want when you turned it on?
I can tell you how it ends. Microsoft saves the day with a Fatal Error.
So where's the episode where we find out that the CSI's are inspired to do what they do because they play the CSI: Miami video game?
The only thing I hate more than hypocrites are people who hate hypocrites.
I've played violent video games for a long time now and I haven't killed anyone, yet...
Football encourages drug use, sexual assault and battery. Why don't they do a CSI where a bunch of frat-boy football jocks stick needles in their butts just before raping and beating a bunch of under aged girls? The CSI detectives could then learn how to play football in hope that it will help them catch the drug addict rapist child molesters before they can strike again!
...like Satanic Puppy, I think you'd do it anyway. =P
Cool, do they drive around listening to 80s music?
If they get a PJC-600, not even the CSI guys could catch them.
Hey, they did the exact same thing in 1992 or something with a Swedish movie called Beck 2: Spår i Mörker. That time the victim was Bungie's game Marathon 2. (Though they claimed it was another game called "Final Doom". They didn't fool anyone, as you can see: read all about it, plus screenshots.
Frog blast the vent core.
Personally I will love CSI if they have the kids yelling GIVEUSATANK or NOPOLICEPLEASE when I'M HORATIO AND I'M ALWAYS MAD/David Caruso start coming after them. Hey, it'd even set up a crappy cliche line for him to say.
I don't think the writers will be that awesome though. Tis a shame.
What I hope happens is the GTA guys do a bit of a bitch slap back at CSI, a little piss take on CSI in the next GTA game if you will...
He'll kick their asses!
"Absolutely! I'll use my 3D modeling software to virtually reconstruct the note based on the camera footage and flip it over."
"I think it's in an envelope, though."
"No problem, I'll just turn on the thermal imaging X-ray subroutine that comes with the camera footage. It will detect the ink and construct an image for us."
"Okay but can you hurry up a bit, we have about 60 seconds until some plot event happens that will render the suspect uncatchable."
This plot was already covered by Law and Order.
I bet you just read Slashdot.
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- Drugs
- Computers/The Internet
- Gambling
And now we're just adding video games to that list. The sad thing is that without the obvious departures from reality, the 10 minutes of montage in every show, and a few cases of terrible acting, CSI is actually a great show show.I wonder if the victims will be forced to act like GTA people.
GTA4real
They should make a CSI episode about a killer who commits crimes based on stuff that he's seen from watching CSI.
So last week it was all about how videogames have addictive properties and make chronic players never want to leave the basement, and this week the story is that videogames are overstimulating, and make chronic players leave the basement to commit crimes.
What's it going to be next week? In or out? Maybe both? Maybe games like the Sims will make chronic players go on wild redecorating sprees? The anti-videogame forces need to make up their fucking minds.
Is CSI good? This has to be the dumbest storyline possible.
Consider a jury: 12 people too stupid(*) to get out of jury selection wonder why the scientific evidence is so bad. They compare it with what "scientists" say on CSI with all the flashy graphics that seem so convincing, and conclude that the real evidence is not compelling. Reasonable doubt surfaces and joe bad-guy walks.
One of my father's friends is a reasonably-high-ranking policeman back in the UK, and there is a genuine concern that people's expectations of phorensic evidence is being pushed too high by programs like this.
Here's a use for 'mythbusters' - get them to take a CSI show's flashy effects, and then compare to the real world... Some points:
CSI is a fantasy - an enjoyable fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. Just once it would be nice if their technological approach failed (the database was wrong, the drivers licence pointed them in the wrong direction, etc.) but no, they're perfect. It would be nice if fingerprints were shown to be not 100% accurate as well (it might trigger some debate!)
Simon
(*) I don't really think jurors are all stupid, some of them are true servants of the state, but some of them... sheesh.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Find walkthough. Case closed. Next week: kittens in peril!
Of course this is understandable - teenage kids go on crime sprees all the time .... ... oh wait a minute
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Games like Quake IV or HALO are less psychological violent although you must kill your enemy. WOW its a great game. And Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego was educational and funny.
I'm in favor of videogames, but not all videogames. It isn't a matter of if videogames are good or bad, but if there are some video games that may be bad for children and teenagers.
My city: Barcelona.
So if the claim is that people get violent ideas and act them from playing games, which is worse, the video game or the TV show that explains in great detail exactly how one should become violent after playing games.
Wait, CSI:Miami? Does anybody actually watch that one? I've yet to see an episode (although I have given it only few chances) that wasn't horrible.
I read the internet for the articles.
Even before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it seemed 90% of television these days consisted of cop shows (forensic investigation being a large subset of "cop shows"). Since then, everything that isn't a cop show is heroic gubmint agents saving us from terrorists, when it isn't heroic cops saving us from the evil pornographic interweb and video games. Fuck CSI. Fuck them up their stupid fucking asses.
Fuck Slashdot
What would be really cool is if the crew of one of these shows was smart/interested enough to actually produce "enhanced" camera shots as they would look coming out of one of these experimental image reconstruction algorithms. You know, crazy mis-prediction artifacts, blocking, pseudocolor, hokey text overlays. Heck, go nuts and have the reconstructed license plate have a character that could be an 8 (40%) or a B (60%).
Doing this would cost the producers almost nothing, greatly increase the versimilitude of the show, and make us geeks feel good. I won't hold my breath.
...is who watched CSI:Miami, anyway? This is just another in a long string of ploys intended to try to drag viewership into what is, really, a terrible show. The last one, I believe, was an attempt to combine CSI:NY and CSI:Miami for an episode... all it achieved was to take away from CSI:NY. Ignore the lame hate-mongerers. They can try to take away our games, but as long as game companies keep making money, they'll stay in business. Look at smoking. That's actually scientifically proven to be consistently deadly, but cigarettes are still on the market.
Two of those linked stories were right off the home page of CNN.com - in fact, the GM story was the lead. The other two were linked off the front page of their Money section.
Since it's obviously not that hard to find coverage (of variable quality) of all the stories you mention, I can only conclude that what really has your panties in a bunch is that people seem to care more about watching L&O:SVU than they do important real events of the day. A valid concern, but one that isn't well served by griping at the news.
I am so thankful that we have network TV to show us the true path to enlightenment. CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox, what would we do without you?
{shuts off TV and walks out into sunshine, rubs eyes, and smiles}
that's because shows like this are made as much for law enforcement propaganda as they are for entertainment.
and as a gamer, I'm happy to say "Welcome to the club." We're another group of generally law abiding people who get demonized for the stuff the batshit crazy minority does in our name all the time. And our paths are pretty well connected. I was told repeatedly by the media that it was guns and Doom that caused the shooters in Columbine to go on a killing spree. As Chris Rock says, "What ever happened to crazy?" If all 80,000,000 gun owners in the US were crazy (that's 1 in every three people), the streets would truly be running red with blood like I've been told they would by every anti-gun group. But they don't. How many gamers are there in the US? If the violent content of video games was truly a problem, wouldn't we have more of these violent episodes, not less? Of course, the true issue with Harris and Klebold is that Harris was a pure psychopath. He didn't want to shoot up his school for revenge. He wanted to kill them because he felt nothing but contempt for them. He wanted to be known as one of the greatest mass murderers in US History. So says the psychological profilers who examined his writings. So, it wasn't the game that caused him to be murderous, it was his disgust and contempt for people he saw as beneath him.
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
Didn't Law & Order: SVU do this just last week?
David Caruso couldn't act his way out of a wet bag. And they drive a Hummer around. I have only ever tortured myself with 2 or 3 episodes of this anyway, so I will not be watching anyway. Isn't Jack Thompson from Miami? Super secret network television conspiracy anyone?
and confuse joe schmoe viewer. Ever wonder why they don't get a pile of useless evidence, everything they find actually fits in to the puzzle.
One other thing to point out, CSI:Miami is the comedy show. CSI:New York is the soap opera and CSI: (Las Vegas) is the crime drama. Please remember they are just trying to make you laugh or piss you off with Miami plots.
Bones, on the other hand, is downright ridiculous and should almost be classified as science fiction with the kinds of analyses they do on that show! Criminal Minds is pure fantasy, too. But Bones is definitely the champ here!
I would love for one of these crime dramas to feature a story about someone who perpetrates crimes as a result of watching too many crime dramas. A violent television show has no place presenting an indictment of any other violent medium. If touched by an angel or 7th heaven chose to tackle the subject it would be ridiculous, but at least not hypocritical.
But not because of the game-related storyline. More like I'll watch it because Marg Helgenberger is one hot MILF. :-)
Great. Just great. Wait until those boys figure out the cheats; we're gonna have tanks dropping out of the sky and law enforcement losing interest in finding them.
I've worked in psychiatry for a while. I've had to deal with people who went into psychotic episodes because someone turned on a lightswitch that they beleived held mystical qualities. Other candidates for psychotic event stimulation have been television shows, watches, and telephones (mobiles) It all appears to depend on the technology that was new when the person got their illness.
The thing is, people with mental problems will acheive their trigger no matter what the context. The only important issue here is that other, not so ill people are using this fact to push their own agenda's.
The only one I've seen this season is the first episode of CSI:NY.
Within 2 minutes they pulled out a fucking tricorder and I turned it off.
I complained about the image enhancements for years.
I complained about pseudo-science for years.
Star Trek tech is just too much.
All CSI's are off my (short) list of watchable TV now.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
...but as a BestBuy employee in the GeekSquad, I'd just like to take a few moments to say that retail sucks. Good thing I'm in school.
Sig: I stole this sig.
It would be hard for me to re-create the environment of goodfellas or scarface to trigger a situation where a violent response is caused by me previous exposure to the movie violence. Holding a real gun after many hours wielding one indescriminently in a video game could cause an already unstable perdon to step over the edge, however.
Notice that I say 'already unstable'!!! I'm not claiming that violent VG's make killers of choirboys, but that a kid from a bad or no family and social adjustment issues can get de-sensitized to the repercussions of the violence (after repeated game playing), making them more likely to snap as oppopsed to a similar kid with no violent game play history.
Flame Away...
Maybe the kids in this episode rented a copy of Death Race 2000 and are doing their own Death Race. quick, somebody sue Stallone.
I've hated CSI: Miami since its first episode, but I really grew to loathe it for exactly what you're citing. There was this scene I saw, when my wife was still giving the show a chance, where a flotilla of small black boats with "HOMELAND SECURITY" in bright yellow letters written on them triumphantly rode in to root out the badguys. I had never seen, before this, a more blatant case of propaganda in a TV show.
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
Could you provide some links to these studies? I've never seen any study indicating anything like this. In fact, all studies I've read indicated the exact opposite. The human mind isn't a boiling pot that needs to release steam in order to keep from boiling over. It's a learning machine which learns from experience, even if that experience happens in games.
Over here in England, there's relatively little gun crime. Due to the 1997 ban on handguns, guns any more lethal than hunting rifles or shotguns (which need licenses to possess) are very expensive (if you can find someone to vend one to you) and will get you detained at her Majesty's pleasure for a good long time if they catch you with one. Ball Bearing guns are treated in a manner similar to switchblades - they aren't allowed out in public, and threatening somebody with them is likely to get you in serious trouble.
Less than 10% of the police force is armed, and these particular officers are only deployed in emergencies like bank heists, terrorist alerts and the like. As a result, firearms aren't leaked into society through the police force (check the firearm saturation here. Homicide levels in the USA were 5 times what they were in the UK (admittedly, the survey was carried out about a decade ago and the number has been falling, and both countries use slightly different methods for deciding what's a homicide and what isn't, but 5 times?).
In my opinion, all this stuff about video games causing murderous feelings to arise is down to a few isolated incidents, where it's the gun that causes the deaths, but games are cited as the reason. It's not as if this type of media hasn't been blasted in our faces since the first action movie. The argument that 'games make you the killer' is nonsense - they're people on the screen, and all the gamer is doing is moving control sticks.
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
Cracking safes with thermal imaging
Anything can inspire us to new ideas.
What would the world be without inspiration?
Well I know the point has been made before, but what do you think the effect of a war-mongering president, violence-obsessed media, and constant push for loose gun laws (among other things) is on people's propensity for criminal behavior? I'd like to see a CSI where somebody blows up a whole US city just copying what the president is doing abroad. Or maybe he knocks out a major government near a huge museum of great historical importance, losing irreplacable treasures of civilization just to be like Dubya.
What about somebody going on a crime spree just to be on TV (a la Natural Born Killers)?
Yes, video games are violent, however for most of us it's just a healthy outlet for latent tendencies that when played for fun reduce our violent tendencies. When kids who are too young and impressionable play such games before they are able to discern the difference between reality and fantasy, then there could be problems. Overall, I am kind of tired of the government doing what parents should be doing and responsible people such as myself (never had a serious violent thought as a result of a video game, song, movie, or whatever) are denied the sort of entertainment we enjoy as a result.
That's exactly what pisses me off about these shows. They NEVER have a false lead, or take any time to figure something out. If they figure out one piece then they magically just KNOW about 5 more.
Good example. One episode I saw, the guy "investigating" the vehicle involved in a crime basically opens the car door, and IMEDIATELY looks in the CD player & finds a CD with a person's name on it which just happens to be the guy who hired the killer. I guess if the answer to any question can't be found in 15 seconds, then it can't be found *rolls eyes*
I wonder if the writers/producers are paid by certain groups/organizations to do such episodes...
Mod points are a dangerous tool. Abuse them wisely.
page 41, Culture: Television. Television is hte single strongest cultural influence on American life and the widely recognized lowest common denominator. More homes have televisions than indoor plumbing, and the average child spends more time watching television than he or she does in the classroom.
Television defines a reality of its own; news that isn't covered on television didn't happen, and television-only events (such as the wedding or death of a fictitious character) provoke nationwide reactions.
Daytime shows lean towards endless soap operas with plot that revolve around infidelity and medica crises, and talk shows in which hosts prod their guests to reveal personal details no sane person would want to make public.
The American passion for getting something for nothing reaches a frenzy in evening game shows. Another evening staple is the hard-boiled investigative show, which dwells on lurid topics such as body-snatching, drug dealing, and juvenile male prostitution. The latest development in this genre is the real-life crime show, on which camermen follow the police around for an evening and film them making arrests.
Every time you think that no depth is unplumbed, sure enough, television finds a format even more degrading. Survivor, for example, pits a dozen castaways against each other in meaningless competitions; the individual who can endure the most humiliation gets a million dollars. In Temptation Island a number of supposedly happy couples are marooned on an island with a variety of sexy singletons who try to break them up.
Television reaches its acme, or perhaps more accurately its nadir, with the introduction of cable and satellite TV, which provides hundreds of channels of unwatchable drivel. Specialised programmes include The Weather Channel, 24 hours a day od barometry and precipitation forecasts; Music Television (MTV) and it's country and soul music imitators; C-Span, which shows the U.S. Congress in session and is widely applied as a soporific; and Court TV, which allows viewers to shriek at the television judge the way sports fans might shriek at a referee.
Few topics are considered cultural minefields. Turn on an American television any afternoon and you can see people discussing, in intimate detail, before millions of viewers, topics that natives of other nations wouldn't whisper about in the dark. One may hear the testimony of a man who had a sex-change operation so he could live a fulfilled life as a lesbianm or a wife who has a baby by her sister's husband and wants another so the child will have siblings (her own husband doesn't know about the situation, but presumably will soon if he's at home watching television). Talk-show guests include everything from homosexual fathers to bisexual nuns to children who killed their parents, interspersed with advertisements for alxatives.
Faced with such unabashed exhibitionism, one is tempted to sarcasm, "Is nothing sacred?" The answer, of course, is "Well, actually, no. Not on television, anyway."
--
This is from a book I picked up while visiting Rome (yes, I am an American).
There are many many many more passages like this in the book and they are funny.
I always laugh at the argument that what we see, listen to, or choose to participate in doesn't affect the type of people we develop into. Why the hell do we go to school, train to become employees, etc.? Why does the military have entire programs and millions of dollars invested in video game-based training? That stuff just leaks out our ears and leaves us the same as we were before? Nah, it teaches people how to be dead-eye shots and in the case of GTA to objectify human beings as things to be robbed, slaughtered, raped, mutilated, etc.
"Just turn it off!"
"Then don't buy it for your kid!"
yada yada yada
Yeah, those arguments make sense from my own perspective. But they don't make sense when my kid goes over to a friend's house where I don't have any say in what he sees or does. It definitely makes no sense when someone I don't even know decides it'll be fun to load his Glock and drive around shooting up houses and cars. That's entertainment!
Just like everything in life, the stuff we take in through our senses inevitably alters us for good or bad. GTA is just one more thing that influences kids and teens. Maybe not on a massive scale like some have claimed, but isn't even ONE killing spree related to the playing of such a game (however remotely) enough to justify its being restricted or banned? I think so. I know I would think so if I were the family member of a victim of some GTA freak.
"Today's CSI: Miami episode will feature a group of kids who are inspired to go on a city-wide crime spree by a game that looks suspiciously like Grand Theft Auto."
I wonder how the producers of CSI would feel if someone wrote a book or movie script about someone inspired to commit crimes they saw on shows like CSI. How would they react if someone in real life was inspired by the show to commit crimes.
You do know that the DHS encompasses the functions of INS and the Coast Guard now, don't you? And that all thier uniforms are yellow on black with DHS on thier hats?
I think you're mistaking reality for propaganda.
Well, duh. If you've ever played the game you know that their hands turn into green arrows when they're near a viable clue so of course they find them right away. And then the shading on the evidence changes around the spot they can use a magnifying glass. Personally, I have trouble figuring out why it takes them a whole hour to solve anything.
I don't know if anyone is aware, but Jackie Chan has a recent "Police Story" script which is exactly this.
Some kids love video game, feel miffed by his police dad, and start committing crime based on video game....
Looks like some old scriptwriter for the CSI team copied this idea?
I dropped CSI:M off my TiVo at the first season's finale. I suffered and gave it a chance, but it was too horrible. CSI:NY didn't make it past episode 4 I think.
CSI:LV is the *only* CSI. Which is why it's called "CSI".
"as they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.'" How come the CSI's are investigating anything other then the crime scene itself ? I thought that the Homicide detectives were there to stop the Homicides ? Thats the part I could never get either. Why is it that these guys go and confront the brutal killers themsevles, no back up, and the culprits give themselves up ?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
This sounds like a goddamn awful idea for a stupid idiotic show. Why don't you bring back that show, Deadly Games? Screw CSI. Watch "The OC" instead.
And quadruple points would go to the first person to hit a nun wearing a pink habit while pushing a baby-carriage filled with cans of spam through a crosswalk at night.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
Hey that dosn't sound to bad at all, why don't you coin it to Rockstar Games? I bet they'll make it into a million copy selling frenchise :)
It was the dirty dirty pervert that did it, right? Man, I'm like a fucking' CSI judo master. I should go into police work myself.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
what Law & Order they did the same thing with D&D....
devil WORSHIPing game my mom always thought it was...:)
and that show did not help matters...
sigh...
Yes mom we "Pretend" to kill things.
Yes mom I know when something is real.
Yes mom I know not to kill Real people, (or real orcs).
--meh--
I find it hilarious that parent post is modded 'Insightful'.
I can just picture some mod sitting and reading over that post, stroking his beard, saying to himself... 'by jove, that guy's right, Barney DOES make me feel that way!' (*clicks Insightful*) 'Hmm, I'd better go see if my diplomatic immunity papers cover that...'
~ Aero
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Oh someone that works the same place I do. Nice to know I have company. I just *can't* wait for *cough*Green Friday*cough*. All those happy shoppers wanting their RAM upgrades for free, their computers customized in ten seconds, etc etc etc.
At least breakfast and lunch are provided for the employees so when I drag in at 4 in the morning I'll have a donut to look forward to.
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it, why can't you?"
Saying violent video games cause crime is like saying spoons are the reason Rosie O'Donnell is fat.
The first example is ascribing unrealistic levels of influence to playing a video game. The second is simply a matter of TV misinforming viewers. Huge difference.
I can spread bogus information all day, and if I make it sound sufficiently technical a good chunk of the populace will believe it. That doesn't mean that I can convince people that it's okay to go on a killing spree.
This is a perfect example of why I almost never watch TV, but still play video games.
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
And certainly not anyone who's ever heard of jury nullification!
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I saw an episode of, I think, CSI, where a cop who'd been kicked off the force had fabricated evidence to get someone sent to jail who he was real sure was guilty. The guy turned out to be innocent--the real killer had gone free, and murdered again, partly because this guy had planted the evidence.
So, you'd think we'd be watching a tale about this guy's hubris, and his fall from grace, and how he learns the importance of due process. You'd be wrong.
The episode centered around our other leads buttering this guy up, telling him how much the force needed him, and how he couldn't let himself succumb to his guilt, because there were bad guys out there that needed catchin'.
I shit thee not. This is the kind of story they tell, which is why I refused to watch another damned episode. I don't care how cleft the leads' chins are, or how clever the zoom effects.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
When I first played Tetris, my eyes were trying to fill in everything I saw with falling blocks. It was especially bad when I was reading. The lines of text needed to be completed quickly because they were getting dangerously close to the top of the page.
If I had been younger and more impressionable, who knows what I would have been capable of. I might have gone around dropping blocks next to people!
SharkJumper
I don't know if anyone on Slashdot has noticed, but CSI: Miama is shit. It is shitter than shit. It is so shit, that it makes me want to rub shit in my eyes, and eat some shit, and then do a shit.
Now, if this were appearing on plain ol' CSI I'd be pissed off. But come on. The main character's name is Horatio. What the fuck kind of name is that? Who on earth takes that show seriously?
geography was never one of my good subjects but since when is California a New England state? Well I suppose some TV shows would support any cause as long as it gains some more viewers. Plus CSI Miami is the crappiest one of the 3 CSI shows and I really couldn't care less about it. As far as the game goes I think it's a lot better killing a couple of cops in a game after you got a speeding ticket than doing it in real life. Oh yeah and if your kids don't know the difference between real life and a video game, boy you are in for some serious phychiatric bills. You can't blame a game for the choises that YOU make and if any judge is dumb enough to say otherwise I think he or she really has the wrong profession. Plus if you teach your kids that anything other than them is responsible for their choises or actions you can't expect them to become decent and productive adults. Hey the bad man and his stories made me strap on explosives to my body, blow up the building, and kill all those people. It's not MY fault. Yeah only all this BS never stands when you are on the receiving end and no longer a spectator. Anyway, to sum all this up I think you should just accept people's choices to play violent 3D games and do whatever they want in a virtual environment. It might actually save your life by letting the freak next door release some preasure ...
I guess that next week's CSI show is a thoughtful treatment of the obvious linik between TV and random teen violence stemming from watching too many TV detective shows. I may just rush out and buy TIVO to record that one.
[Insert pretentious and semi-clever sig here: ______ ]
What's Green Friday? The day after Thanksgiving is supposed to be the biggest retail day of the year, right? That's why it's also Buy Nothing Day, right?
Oh, wait. I got it.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
TV! have you turned on me too?
video games dont kill people, people kill people... hehe
-Boycot shampoo! demand real poo!
Ba-zing. I can't believe the show would market a video game and sanctimoniously preach against them. That's just... wow. Words fail me.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
As they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.
They check GameFAQs.
sup
Kinda odd how the CSI episode gets mentioned on /. but not the SVU episode that started with a hooker being beaten to death.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Just once it would be nice if their technological approach failed (the database was wrong, the drivers licence pointed them in the wrong direction, etc.) but no, they're perfect.
The American worldview at present is a curious mixture of faith in higher powers and faith in technology. Americans tend to believe that our sophisticated technology will always prevail. We like bright, easily-discerned lines and are very uncomfortable with nuanced ethical decisions. It's obvious in our entertainment (lest the video game industry smirk and point fingers at Hollywood, movies aren't alone in this), our generally idea-free political process, and our bewilderment when our technological marvels don't automagically win wars for us.
CSI's treatment of video games is just one more episode in an ongoing list that goes back to the dawn of Hollywood. Fictional entertainment may purport to be realistic, but it seldom is. Let's flip this one on its head and look at video game realism. Just walking around in body armor in blazing heat, with a helmet on your head, a weapon in hand, and assorted other crap festooned to your person is a pain in the ass. Games can't give us anything remotely approximating what that feels like. When you go into combat in the streets of Bagdhad, if you get shot in the face, you're either dead or fucked up for life. "Realistic" first-person shooters go to great lengths to be as realistic as possible in all aspects but the most important one of all. Ah, but how entertained would we be if our on-screen personas died every time we entered combat? Well, therein lies the rub. Just as first-person shooters distort reality by pretending that with enough guns and enough automagically-supplied bullets and miracle life-saving rejuvenators you can win epic battles against long odds, so television distorts reality by providing seemingly realistic settings that actually present the reality ass-backwards.
Bottom line: No matter how slick the presentation, it's all still entertainment, and it is usually almost completely divorced from reality.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Next level? Scoring points for each crime committed? I mean...does that sound remotely like GTA to you? GTA uses money, and doesn't use levels. Surely there's a game that comes closer to this description than GTA right?
Ok, now that that's out of the way...games don't make people screwed up in the head and inspire them to do things. People who do those kinds of things are screwed up in the head to begin with, and would be a danger regardless. Video games are just the popular blame. I remember when D&D was, and rap music, and rock music, and punk rock music, and violent movies, and violence on TV, and cartoons, and books. I've also heard people complain about CSI... Everything that has ideas, or leads to fantasy, brings out this type of bullshit. Mainly because certain people do not like the idea of other people thinking in any way other than how they are told to think by them. It's ultimately about control.
Watching fictional TV shows that portray video games as cop-killing trainers has no more effect on the general public than say, playing some child's game like Grand Theft Auto.
Wow, an already shite show made even worse. I didn't think it was possible.
I tell you, after playing Carmageddon for about a week, I'm driving really, really carefully nowadays.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Gee, I'm sure the liberals would like to throw all the violent psychopaths into the clink, but there's just no room in there since you conservative types have filled up the jails with nonviolent pot smokers.
Whoops, makin' way too much sense here. I'd better give it a rest.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Anyone that uses the word sheeple needs a hug, followed by a sharp smack on the cheek for being a cock.
Don't be a cock.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
In the past the CSI team has allowed some people to be guest directors and producers on thier show. Quinton Tarantino being one of them. I woner how much money Jack Thompson paid CBS for more air time on the network. Apparently, I think he just figured out that the demographic he was trying to sell his message to does not watch 60 Minutes. Then again, the only CSI that CSI fans really watch is the original CSI in Las Vegas.
CSI: Miami just doesn't live up to its name. You would watch Miami Vice without scenes of the babes of South Beach in it, so why would we want to watch CSI: Miami without the babes?
If anything, Jerry Brockheimer should just rename the show to what it really is: CSI: West Palm Beach. Every week they would go after kids with a copy of 2 Live Crew in their CD collection. It would make sense being that Thompson is a pisant Miami Florida attorney trying to start a moral panic over video games despite that he lives in the part of this country with the zip code with most sexual predators! (33311 is not to far away from 33146.)
Here's something I can't believe. You guys at the University of Miami Florida, Do you realize who lives across the street on US 1? That's right! Thompson! Why haven't you TP'd this guy's office? At least as a good frat prank. Go over there and give that bigheaded nimrod some real trouble.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
There may be some connection, but it isn't necessarily directly TV.
From the article:
From this I can pretty safely assume that a lot of changes were taking place in the country at the time. Any one of the changes occuring in the process of modernization may have influenced the perpetrators of the crimes. This was a relatively isolated town suddenly comming into more contact with the outside world. I suspect there were many more outsiders visiting the town than there had been in just the previous decade.
From the TV and possibly outside visitors, the inhabitants were suddenly bombarded with waves of new ideas, concepts, religions, and philosophies. This sudden contact often causes confusion and will lead to people changing their own habits and morals. Even if the change to the culture as a whole was only subtle, the changes likely had a significant effect on select individuals.
Violence on TV may have influenced them, but I suspect just the new ideas from all different cultures being broadcast into the community had a larger part. I won't claim to know what caused the crime spree, but my guess is it was some combination of "all of the above."
"As they score points for each crime committed, the CSIs must discover what consists of getting to the next level in the game in order to stop the culprits before they strike again.'"
So essentially, the CSI team needs an expert in video games! In fact, with all the video game inspired violence we're seeing these days, I think just about every big city police department will need a Video Game expert. I think I've found my new career!
How will the police or the FBI know that some heinous crime was inspired by Serious Sam II unless they have an expert like me to tell them?
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
Yes, I'm aware of that. The problem is that the task being depicted was clearly a Coast Guard responsibility, and the Coast Guard doesn't operate little black boats with "HOMELAND SECURITY" emblazoned across them. Their surface craft are all, to my knowledge, white with a diagonal red stripe with the Coast Guard logo. Maybe it's just incompetence on the part of the show's producers and fact checkers, but the whole shot just screamed "hey, look, DHS are the good guys, you must love them," complete with a big zoom in on the words "HOMELAND SECURITY." Oh, wait, this is the show that had a bunch of county crime scene folks working a plane crash instead of the NTSB, who were nowhere to be found. Maybe it is incompetence.
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
They would do an episode where a killer goes on a crime spree because he watched too many episodes of CSI and now they can't catch him because he learned how >not to be caught
I sure wouldn't trust this story:
"Beneath a portrait of the Dragon King, the in-store TV shows wrestling before BeastMaster comes on. A man in tigerskin trunks has trained his marmosets to infiltrate the palace of a barbarian king."
Shoddy reporting. Everyone knows that Kodo and Podo are ferrets NOT marmosets.
Who could possibly confuse a ferret for one of these?
Sometimes my arms bend back.
The first example is ascribing unrealistic levels of influence to playing a video game. The second is simply a matter of TV misinforming viewers. Huge difference.
You seem to indicate that the former only influences while the latter only (mis)informs. I think that both cases both inform and influence.
In the first case (the violent video game), the game informs the game player that predatory violence is fun, acceptable, cool, and risk-free. It influences the game player to participate in said predatory violence.
In the second case (the television show) the show informs the viewer that forensic science is blisteringly fast, nominally expensive, fun, computationally trivial, and capable of technological feats that do not exist. It influences the viewer to place trust in forensic science in ways where it is not deserved.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Uh, no. They almost always have false leads and investigate the wrong person first. For example, the last episode I saw of CSI: NY, they spent well over half the show investigating the wrong guy (the one who was at the poker game.) It was only at the end of the show that they figured out who the real culprit was.
As long as they portray it as bad parenting and idiotic kids acting out bits from a video game.
The stupid often die in stupid ways, and there's little we can do about that. But what about the "bad parenting" you mention? Would good parents prevent their kinds from playing GTA (because it might influence their kids to predatory violence)?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The CSI theme/franchise jumped the shark a couple of years ago. It's dead but still kicking a bit.
Yeah right. And next you're going to tell me is that the science behind Quincy is bogus. The show that was responsible for warning us Westerners about possible death from Ninjas applying the technique of Dim Mak.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Killer Instinct Episode 7 (Game Over) First aired: 11/11/2005 When Lt. Ray Cavanaugh is faced with the possibility that he convicted the wrong person for a crime, he and his team are thrust into the obsessive world of gaming and the deviant way in which players are reenacting murder scenes from their favorite video games. Exactly the same plot and story line. Too bad CSI is a few weeks late.
Just out of plain old lopsided, misguided and totally irrelevant curiosity :
- If that's why they do it. Then, which game exactly are they playing; that gang (or those gangs ?) going around on an international rampage ?
Where did they get their games ? And what is "the next level" ?
Now I'm really curious.
Hey! I remember that story... the sequels were pretty bad, though.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
The DHS are the good guys. It's just the restructuring of existing law enforcement agencies. Yes, it's a creepy name. No, they aren't anymore jack-booted thugs than they've ever been. No, the shows aren't law-enforcement propaganda. They're fiction composed by people who majored in the humanities, designed to entice viewers to look at images of junk every fifteen minutes, and nine out of ten times not only haven't fired a gun, but think guns are bad. The stories are overdramatic, unrealistic, convoluted when not directly ripped and perverted from the news, and depict law enforcement agencies engaging in irrational behavior while regularly stomping on the rights of every person they come across. They're insulting to law enforcement, the judiciary, scientists, the professions and subcultures they portray as they search for the criminal(s), and to people that actually write for or act in quality art. Whenever you see a CSI character violating someone's rights and then being smug about the supremacy of their purpose, instead of viewing it as GO USE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM view it as GO CSI CAST. They appeal to the audience's sense of justice, like any shitty crime drama, but the people making the show are as likely to be snorting coke in their dressing rooms and employing illegal immigrants to raise their children as anyone else in the business.
Aagh! Memories! Horrible, horrible memories of Jon Katz!
He fell off a cliff or something, didn't he?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I'd be interested to see how they handle it.
Law And Order has had a few episodes that touched on the subject of media connections to crime, and even where the game or whatever was shown to have influence, things came squarely down on the perpetrator being an asshat or mentally ill. Basically, violent media may influence what direction someones criminal career takes, but isn't likely to inspire it in the first place.
CSI has done a good episode involving furries. Ignore the paranoid ravings of 90% of the furries out there about it, the episode was rather good. The chick that saw it as completely fucked up was shown to be, well, an intolerant bitch, and the guy cop, who was shown to clearly be more intelligent and insightful, found it a bit strange(who wouldn't?) but not inherently bad, and even potentially good for these people. Given how they handled that topic, I've got hopes for them to handle this one somewhat intelligently.
I'm surprised nobody linked to this yet. It says a lot about the show.
I do not concede the causitive relationship between playing games and having destructive thoughts, but even if it does exist that doesn't take responsibility for the act away from the perpetrator or their legal guardian. If someone is forcing people to play brain-washing games, then THAT PERSON is the problem, not the game. If people are voluntarily playing games, then they are still responsible for their actions.
This is the same confusion that led to prohibition. People got drunk and did terrible things, but instead of holding people accountable for the terrible things they did, the United States outlawed alcohol. We're still recovering from the effects of that ban.
That's what all this about violent video games and movies amounts to. What did they have to blame for violence before they came along? Only themselves and society as a whole. If you think the kind of violence we hear about on the news now is a modern problem, you need to read a lot more history. As just an example, the Ripper murders in Whitechapel were sensationalized at the time, but a closer look reveals a great deal of violence happening on the streets before and after. One woman who is sometimes thought to be an early victim herself claimed to have been attacked by a gang - that is, a gang of young men, adolescents - before she died; there were quite a number of prostitutes murdered in Whitechapel months before the first true Ripper killing.
Humans are a violent species - that's where the problem really lies. Society, environment and well, life itself, aggravates violent tendencies. Deal with the cause rather than trying to blame something and get rid of it or the problem will just keep coming back. So what will happen if you do get rid of violent movies and games? Will the problem of violent teens magically go away? If it would, why were teens committing violent acts for several millenia before now? When censorship doesn't help, who or what will you blame then?
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Video games sometimes don't even try to reflect reality. Most "realistic" TV shows have to at least obey the laws of physics, even if they try very hard to break them.
Sure, you might hear sound in vacuum on ST:TNG, and you might hear the same in Wing Commander; how many times on CSI does someone drive their car too fast and clip through a wall? "Realistic" television is inherently and insidiously more believable than even the most realistic video game. Hell, this is by _design._ You don't want a video game to be too realistic, ever--why bother playing? What if the cops never stopped looking for you in GTA, and if you couldn't just run on top of the buildings to get away?
I'd believe that more people would mistake CSI for reality than GTA--substitute any "realistic" television show for any video game at all: try "Law and Order" and "Phoenix Wright."
More importantly, the types of influence in the case of violent video games and inaccurate television programming are completely different. It is easy to misinform a person. To do so, you simply lie. Given a lack of evidence to the contrary, many all too trusting people will believe you. That is not the same as turning someone into a killer.
The comparison is outrageous. It is shocking that it has been deemed by the mods to warrant a +5.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
And you though Voltron was a Vicious cartoon. Maybe Tom and jerry should be pulled (racism). Wait.... why are we making anything remoteley entertaining? Lets all just stair at the wall.. ( wonder what the crime rate will do ).
I'm sorry, I know this is going to sound weak, but it's the only episode I saw through to the end, and I didn't get the episode number. It was a few years ago.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Hey, CSI -- the 80's called, and they want their inane movie-of-the-week plot back.
What "risk-free" violent games have you been playing? I get killed all the time in Quake, GTA, etc.
After which you respawn, correct? If you wanted a game with *real* risk (not this pussy "no permadeath!" fake risk that you champion), then after you "get killed" in Quake, rusty metal spikes would shoot out of your PC into your eyes, heart, and genitals.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
If you love terrorists so much, why don't you move to Iraq and join the "resistance".
Tonight with special guest writer, Jack Thompson.
Unrelated to CSI's tackling of the subject, I had an experience with this sort of nonsense not too long ago. I was taking a hunting safety education course in Ohio and the wildlife officer who was lecturing on the state went on a rant about video games. He was trying to say that hunters, gun owners, etc. aren't to blame for school shootings, but that video games are. It was all I could do to sit there with my mouth shut and not stand up and rake him across the coals. (If you're wondering why I didn't, I'd already spent about ten hours sitting through the course. I didn't want to get kicked out and have to retake it for going off on one of the instructors.)
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
Miami and New York are not C.S.I. I watch the real C.S.I (Vegas), and not those llama spin offs.
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
For example, the last episode I saw of CSI: NY, they spent well over half the show investigating the wrong guy
This is why I like Law and Order - they screw up, the bad guy gets away sometimes, or they get an innocent statutory rapist killed and one of the detectives blows it off because he's scum anyways. There's also the one I saw where the DA wanted to charge a witness with attempted murder, even though that'd blow her case against a known multiple murderer. Crap like this where things don't end neatly is what makes the show worthwhile.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
that's because shows like this are made as much for law enforcement propaganda as they are for entertainment.
If that's true, then it's backfiring.
This thread and the words in it make me want to go on a killing spree.... therefor speech causes violence, lets get rid of freedom of speech... it causes violence. from now on all we can say are slashdot cliches, nothing else.
Dan Mayer: my blog, essays, art, etc
I think that saying video games never teach people that violent principles are acceptable is as irresponsible as saying video games always teach people that violent principles are acceptable.
I think video games do present a message, even if it's as something as obvious as "Spending countless hours playing this MMORPG is definitely worth your time!" I think that violent video games present a message that at best says violence may be necessary in certain situations, and at worst says that acting on violent principles produces happiness.
I personally have little sympathy for video game companies who produce games that teach us that "violence makes you happy" and then hide behind the "It's your parents' responsibility to teach you that what we're teaching you is a lie!" Every person is accountable for what they strive to teach other people.
when i was younger and went on crime sprees i had a hard time because i could only find the red and blue keys :(
*Beats head against desk*
i don't think this is a matter of demonizing computer games... i don't think there's a soul out there who hasn't picked up a controller at some point and played a 2-person fighter against a friend, your dad, uncle, sibling, whatever...
i've always hated GTA specifically for the things that it rewards players for. i watch my brother play it, and he smiles as he throws the driver out of the car, blasts him with an automatic weapon, and proceeds to run over a nun standing on the side of the street. i understand that it's a fantasy, and i think he does too, but there are people in the world who cannot separate the fantasy world of a game and real life.
what's more important is that the games PROMOTE violence and make KIDS think it's acceptable. you can do this with movies too... the bottom line is that it's about teaching your children what's right and what's wrong. and i'm sure most people will agree that there are a lot of parents out there who don't do this. buy 'em an X-Box, and they'll shut up for a while. i do think you should have to be a certain age to buy those games. porn distortes your view of sexuality if you looked at it, say, when you were 8... when you can't understand the "porn fantasy".
CSI isn't the epitome of a tv series commenting on our culture, but give it a chance. maybe it'll be good... at the very least, we can hope they address the free speech issues and comment that the violence is unacceptable while playing games is not.
Blame Canada! Blame Canada!
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
[Camera flies in over Miami, pans past some T&A, settles on a bank, crime happens, screen flashes to post-crime investigation scene]
SUPPORTING CAST: Blah blah blah VIDEO GAMES blah blah.
HORATIO: Well now [puts on sunglasses, stares into distance] it looks like the game just turned deadly!
[roll intro]
~ I can't believe it's not science stuff happens ~
[Horatio locks up criminal]
HORATIO: Well now [puts on sunglasses, stares into distance] I guess it's game over!
[roll credits]
Yes it is SO unrealistic to think that people might be so influenced by video games that they might actually ACT OUT the plot of such a video game in real life. That would never actually happen.
http://www.pacmanhattan.com/
Never.
Law & Order:SVU did a similar show.
Not terribly surprising from L&O tho. Dick Wolf has always said that he "rips the stories from the headlines" and I've even heard lines on L&O that were word-for-word quotes from 60 Minutes before.
Kinda bizarre to see a story on 60 Minutes then 3-6mo later catch the same story as fiction on L&O.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
If you wanted a game with *real* risk (not this pussy "no permadeath!" fake risk that you champion), then after you "get killed" in Quake, rusty metal spikes would shoot out of your PC into your eyes, heart, and genitals.
That's a great idea! Except... how many people do you think would play a game that's likely to kill and/or maim them in real life? My guess is that such a game would set records for poor sales.
Why do you think that is? Simple- only the most deranged or mentally crippled people don't clearly and intuitively grasp the difference between video game violence and real-world violence.
I can't believe that after over 25 years of video games being a mainstream phenomenon people still make these ludicrous arguments. It saddens me to think that you feel that people are so feebleminded as to be that easily influenced.
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
One of my favorite scenes from Monk involved an "enhanced" image.
But then again, I could be wrong.
I saw a few minutes of this on TV roughly two weeks ago...
DYWYPI?
I'm waiting for other Rockstar games to come out on television...
South Park meets The Warriors: "Oh my god, they killed Cleon! You bastards!"
The OC meets Max Payne: (voiceover of Ryan) Everybody was so damn rich there. It got more and more difficult to go one episode without punching anybody. And then with the drinking, the women, the pain killers, the murder of the Cohens, I just came apart...
Gilmore Girls meets Manhunt: "Come on Luke, I wanna see some GORE!"
The Simpsons meet Oni: Nevermind. I'm probably the only person who ever played Oni.
You get the idea though.
I'd like to see a CSI episode where kids are acting out the crimes comitted on the various CSI programs. Talk about the pot calling the kettle.
If I was entertained by the movie 'Platoon', does that qualify? I gained pleasure from watching violence and destruction.
I don't think anyone would suggest we hold Oliver Stone accountable for making entertainment containing large amounts of violence.
-bZj
.sig
You know, this is why video game developers have work to do on the image of video games.
Outside the niche of gamers (and it is a niche), the majority of people don't really know what games are like. It's actually believable that these games might be influencing their kids.
Over the years there have been several cases where games have been linked to violent acts. They've never made a case that stuck in court, but the perception has stuck. People think of video games and make that connection with some school shooting somewhere, or a sniper they heard was a gamer, or some other thing that a friend told them about someone they knew.
The mud is sticking, and while some gamers seem to think that it's the rest of the world with the problem, the media are loving it. It's easy to sell an idea like "gamer goes on crime spree" now, and the whole video game industry suffers as a result while some expose TV show sells ad revenue.
Until the game industry takes the media a bit more seriously, we'll see this sort of garbage being put up more often. People will believe it and they'll start to wonder why the government can't control these evil game companies that make their kids crazy.
I don't watch the show so I'm relaying this second hand. This was the last episode of "Medium" that my wife watched.
Although in "Medium," the cop wasn't kicked off the force, and it was presented as justified because the cop was sure the bad guy was a bad guy.
Of course, this is "Medium," where people are presumed guilty because some angry messed up white lady had a dream that they, at some time time in the future, might commit a crime.
Total crap. "Based upon a true story." Yeah, right. Some people believe this shit.
Support SETI@home
You know, this is why video game developers have work to do on the image of video games.
This kind of media coverage - while stupid and inaccurate - is also great for sales and costs the industry almost nothing. You can't buy advertising this good. The industry does not have to work on this at all, just keep making more money from it.
Too stupid to server on a jury?
Knowing that you dont actually think that jurors are 'stupid' I still wonder why the phrase persists? Maybe it has more to do with having a job that doesnt pay enough for it not to matter if you have jury duty. If you are salary, and get called to jury duty, your employer legally CANNOT dock your pay, or even use those days as vacation time.
So, too stupid to get OUT of jury duty!? Hell, if I still had that salaried job ,Id be pulling teeth to get ON one as often as possible.
Maybe its that these people are too 'stupid' to not be working anything else than a crappy hourly job where the time off ACTUALLY does matter.
You decide
Because they are reducing viewership at the cinema, the television channels, the newspapers, rock concerts. You name it, games are reducing profits for that entertainment medium. Even the drug cartels hate games. So, naturally, PBS/NPR/CBS/NBC/CNN/FOX/RIAA/MPAA, god damn PETA/CAIR/Greenpeace. They all hate games, and they will continue to hate games until they change their business model, or they get bought-out by some other successful company that has adapted.
It sucks to be a dinosaur. It's too bad you weren't born a mammal. Maybe you'll die fucking some really hot dinosaur chick, and millions of years later, the mammals will be amazed to find your fossilized cock in her dinosaur love-hole.
Change your business, or business will grind you under and move onto the next bastard. Your call.
I could just imagine a parody movie between CSI and the Jim Carey movie "Truman". I can't remember the words precisely, but the script of one scene at the end of the movie went like this...
:-)
DIRECTOR: "None are watching with the ocean camera... I know where he is... Truman, what are you doing?"
DIRECTOR: "Get a boat in the water and rescue him before he gets near the limits of the ocean scenery."
[Actor boards a docked boat, and begins doing what he knows best; grinding the non-existant boat-transmission]
DIRECTOR: "Why haven't we got a boat out there to him?"
ACTOR: "I'm a Buss driver actor. I don't know how to operate a boat."
SET COORDINATOR: "We don't have anyone that could operate a boat: they're all actors!"
My apologies on the transcription. Good thing it isn't exact, as if it were reproduced for commercial purpposes I would be liable for copyright fees. Good thing it was non-commercial.
without prejudice
Best comment in the whole discussion.
This poo is cold.
"You know what we call that in Miami......A BAD STORYLINE......"
Worst show on TV........................
It's just what Jack Thompson needed.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Normally I like every CSI Miami, but this show just rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe I'd feel about any CSI where I'm familiar with the subject matter, but this one seemed "forced" or preachy. It's almost as if it Jumped the Shark, if they keep going with this lame social consequences route.
It's a puff show, and should stick to what it knows best:
crime mystery and bikinis. Any thing more and it's just silly, because it doesn't have a foundation of fact to stand on and no one takes it seriously anyway. To suddenly try and have a moral, is satirizing the moral they try to give.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Doesn't have anything to do with "The Game". Actually just a Hummer advertisement, but a link and mirror for your enjoyment anyway.s i_miami/hummer/hummer.shtml>r /hummer.shtml>
Mirror <URL:http://www.cbs.com.nyud.net:8090/primetime/c
Link <URL:http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi_miami/humme
0x68ADA2CC
If you wanna see some old white people get their panties in a twist, you should have seen what happened at my school a year and a half back. Years ago, this kid was going a project with the principal to make a computer map of the school, and after the kid spent all his time looking around, drawing blueprints, whatever kids did back in those days, the project was scrapped. So using the maps he had, he released a mod for Duke Nukem 3D that was set in the school. Couple years later, the blubbering vagina squad that is the media found this and went completely fucking nuts. Site is down but here's google's cache http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:1Ht9jH_-UAEJ:k dka.com/specialreports/local_story_140181158.html+ allderdeath&hl=en Interviews at school, whiny kids talking about how "they don't feel safe". Going to an inner-city public school, walking through metal detectors every morning, and still hearing about gang violence and kids getting shot, and it's a video game that compromises their sense of safety. It just makes me think "if only some of these people had been a blow job..."
Excellent!
Crime as VG for points = total crap. Law enforcement taken as a joke = disaster waiting to happen. Solution: Take the guns off the street. Period. Soldiers killed in Iraqi warzone since March 2003 = >2,080. US murders in 2004 = >15,000. Conclusion: Nobody kills more Americans, than Americans do.
I was at the gym tonight and this was on one of the TVs. I caught bits and pieces, and it was mostly overwrought, stupid crap, but there was one chunk in particular that I believe will infuriate the world of gamers more than anything--when David Caruso interrogates one of the GAME DESIGNERS.
designer (snarky voice) - "Our official line is that any similarity between this crime spree and our product is purely coincidental."
caruso (stupid, semi-Duke Nukem voice) - "Yeah, well, try telling that to the parents of Cynthia So-and-so."
designer - [pauses, stares into camera uncomfortably] "Well, there's a board I answer to--stockholders. I can't be held responsible for any of this. If you want to know more about the game... you'll just have to play the game."
caruso - "Fine, we'll play your game. In the meantime, book this guy for failing to assist a police officer."
WHAT? Why are they turning game designers into Satan here? With this douchey caricature, no less? I think this is the scene that'll touch a nerve with sheltered, middle America. Which, quite frankly, sucks. You find me a police squad that sincerely seeks out movie/TV show/game makers for criminal intent and I'll find you a copy of "Police Academy 9: Larvell Gone Wild!"
I enjoyed the show when it first came out, but now the catchphrase when seeing one of the many character blunders is, "They aren't very good..." Never mind the writing blunders.
And jeesh, "Killer Instinct" just did the very same story line.
I think it's hypocritical for a TV show that romanticises violence to exaggerate the potental of another medium to create violence.
First time poster, long time reader.
Yes, yes they do. I once played MechWarrior in wireframe mode for so long it really screwed up my balance. Got a bit lightheaded when I stood up.
Ooh... then theres the time I sat down to play that Dungeon Maser game at my buddies place as he was leaving for work (I had the day off) "Just lock up when you leave," he said. Only problem was it was so much fun watching my little goblins kill adventurers that I sort of lost track of time... and was sitting in the exact same place 9 hours later when he got home from work.
Then there's that day I lost track of time playing Day of Defeat - one of the few days I consistently had more kills then deaths and still ran up a bunck of caps. Missed both football games that Sunday.
Yeah, those video games are really bad for you. Lost two days of drinking beer and once got myself a little dizzy, which for one in a million times was NOT caused by drinking beer.
fuck 'em.
s'wut i sed.
"I just Wanted The Boys To Notice Me!!!"
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
That was so horrible. More horrible than CSIMiami typically is.
s'wut i sed.
I saw the show. They talked to the CEO guy and asked him for a walkthrough. He declined. They arrested him for obstruction.
### MAJOR SPOILER ALERT ###
Rot13'd for your protection, though the fact there's more should give this away without having to decode it: <rot13>Ng gur raq bs gur fubj, gurl neerfg uvz sbe frggvat hc gur jubyr pevzr fcerr.</rot13>
Clew #2: "Clew" is not spelled with a W.
Next week on CSI: Leisure Suit Larry.
Oh wait, I think that was last week. And the week before. And ummm, the week before that too.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Does anyone ever stop and consider that it's shows like this that give kids the idea to imitate the games in the first place? When the media is constantly suggusting that kids imitate their favorite games, some of the children will eventually do it.
How appropriate that a show like CSI, with it's magical crime solving interweb magic machines, 'if it turns blue when I squirt this shit on it than the butler did it' and 'apparently CSIs are frequently involved in shoot-outs and car chases' BS would build an episode around talk show physchobabble like 'GTA made them do it'. Maybe people will actually make the connection between a laughably unrealistic TV show and the laughably unfounded theory of video game inspired violence - or am I giving the average CSI viewer too much credit?
I wish somebody would pay attention to the Surgeon General for once. He states that violent media isn't even one of the top twenty-five factors to violent behavior. Also, since the release of the Playstation which was considered the first console to have "actual violence" in more than a few games, violent crimes have steadily gone down. Especially in the video game demographic (12-35). So, say what you want, Bruckheimer. For video games hate you too.
Will i go on a killing spree by watching people play video games on TV! tommrow 20 million views become homicidal maniacs!! look out!