What Came First, the Violence or the Videogame?

An anonymous reader writes "Another wave of video-game-violence panic is upon us. The pressed suits who read the pop news on television are wagging their so-called neutral fingers at an industry they have never understood. Planet Xbox 360 considers the many games they have played and the real-life murderers they have known in their own lives, and how little the talking heads know about either."

Comments

Re:See: Dave Grossman / On Killing

[Darth]

I got no reference on this, but I think that I've heard somewhere that FPS and similar games are actually used in training soldiers. First comes to mind the game... was it called U.S. Army that was made by the army ?

The military in the United States uses first person shooters to teach small unit tactics, leadership, and teamwork skills. The goal is for the team to assess the situation, make the right tactical decisions, and then execute the plan in a coordinated fashion. The part where they shoot people is incidental to the purpose of the training.

Re:Which came first?

[NelRo]

Hey yali,

I respect your perspective, but I want to clarify my point in the article. The appropriate mirror argument is not are games fun, but: Do videogames CAUSE fun in society? Without video games would people just float about without even the knowledge of fun? To continue with the mirror: people had an impulse to find fun before video games, and use the games as an outlet for an impulse that exists on its own. The games reflect a need, a history and a social awareness of fun. The game developers do not invent fun, but comment on and draw from an existing continuum of fun. A person who buys a game does not suddenly discover that there is such a thing as fun (except maybe with Dig Dug in 1982 ;-)... they bought the game specifically to serve the impulse that already existed.

Taking this back to violence, the point is: Some critics are, in fact, trying to argue that video games spur people to act out violence because the games confuse the players as to the consequences. The "proof" as presented is a tangential link that cannot be shown to be causal. Killer owned game, game is violent, game encouraged killer... without game, we will all be a little bit safer. That is the idea behind the legislation to tone down or regulate game violence.