Congressman Introduces Video Game Warning Label Legislation

Gamasutra reports that Congressman Joe Baca (D-CA) has introduced legislation that would require video games with a rating of T or higher to have a warning label that alerts buyers to the dangers of simulated violence. The warning would read: "Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior." Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), who introduced similar legislation in 2009, co-sponsored the bill, and said, "Just as we warn smokers of the health consequences of tobacco, we should warn parents — and children — about the growing scientific evidence demonstrating a relationship between violent video games and violent behavior. As a parent and grandparent, I think it is important people know everything they can about the extremely violent nature of some of these games.”"

Comments

Sigh...

[Anonymous Coward]

When will some people learn?

I give up on you, America. Do something about these people, will you?

Re:Sigh...

[__aatgod8309]

They've already done something about these people. They've voted for them.

Re:Sigh...

[Bahamut_Omega]

What do you expect from someone that is literally an elected idiot. In this case pun intended, with just treating the c as a k. I'm sorry, but I can't help but make fun of that political lunatic with a little word play.

Re:Sigh...

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

I'd be happy to, but a single angry man with a gun isn't a revolutionary.

Hypocrite?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the useless wars that are shown on TV? Daily base? Maybe add a "extremely unhealthy" tag as well? (Esp if you're the one fighting it....)

Citation Needed

[drmacinyasha]

Can we get some citation on the whole "linked to aggressive behavior" bit? Last I heard... The opposite was shown.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been linked over and over again. By idiots.

Re:Citation Needed

[myurr]

Especially as this is going to be the thin end of the wedge. By putting a warning label on it and getting the population to accept that, it then legitimises their complaints and fears about computer games leading to restrictions and bans in the future.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is that those politicians mix everything up.
Violent media/games have not been shown to cause aggressive behavior in adults. However, they have been shown to cause aggressive behavior in children and young teens (who are still learning what is socially acceptable behavior).

Re:Citation Needed

[cheekyjohnson]

However, they have been shown to cause aggressive behavior in children and young teens (who are still learning what is socially acceptable behavior).

Even a child's mind is not that fragile (let alone a teenager's). Given the number of children and teenagers that play violent video games, the amount of them that are violent and possess minds that are that fragile appears to be abysmally small and not worth worrying about.

Re:Citation Needed

[IronSight]

I can also see them doing what they do to cigarettes and tobacco... putting a sin tax on video games. I wonder what else they will put on the warning labels. Warning playing violent video games will teach you that if you ever decide to play a hero with an armed gunman, you will probably be shot. Or, WARNING: You will aquire excellent hand-eye coordination from playing this game! Warning: Crazy people might do crazy things after they play a video game and/or buy a gun. Keep blaming the video games folks, don't stop to think that maybe, crazy people do crazy things no matter if they watch V for Vendetta, play Call of Duty, or Hello Kitty's Island Adventure. Violence has been in this world long before video games, and will be around long after.

Re:Citation Needed

[somersault]

Did you know that knives have been linked to murder? Next time you have a steak, you should perhaps just let your kids eat with their hands.

Re:Citation Needed

[Internetuser1248]

Well if tobacco warnings are anything to go on, I would also expect to see "Warning: Video games can make you blind" and "Warning: Video games can make you impotent"
I would also like to see warning labels on politicians. I can prove direct links between a number of politicians and real world violence. In fact the number of people killed by crazy video gamers is insignificant next to the number of people killed by the actions and policies of political leaders in the US, UK, China, Russia, and much of Asia and Africa. Don't even get me started on cars, alcohol, consumer food products (dioxin anyone?) etc. If video games is the standard for how dangerous something has to be to get a label, then we need to label everything.

WARNING: REPEATEDLY SMASHING YOUR HEAD AGAINST THIS BRICK WALL CAN CAUSE HEADACHES, BRAIN HAEMORRHAGE'S AND DEATH.

Re:Citation Needed

[Kilrah_il]

A quick search shows many articles on the subject. While I didn't read all of the, a quick look showed that many are observational, prompting the famous "causation != correlation" argument, but some are intervetional and show a causative link between video games and aggressive behavior.
On /. there have been a few articles on the subject, many showing positive correlation, but some didn't show a connection. As someone wrote before me, given so much evidence, can we still cry vehemently against the "weak science" regarding video games and violence? Aren't we better than other groups that do not let evidence stand in the way of a good argument?

Re:Citation Needed

[ThosLives]

What you'd need to show is that a "peaceful" population, when subject to "violent" video games, has a higher rate of people switching from "peaceful" to "violent" than a population that is not subject to "violent" video games.

Any reasonable study would need to eliminate the fact that people with violent tendencies already would probably choose to play a "violent" video game.

I personally fall into the camp that sees video games and other media not as a cause of violent behavior, but merely a catalyst: media is likely to take already existing tendencies and magnify them. If those tendencies don't exist, the games (or movies or television shows or music or books) will do nothing.

Re:Citation Needed

[Pharmboy]

Well if tobacco warnings are anything to go on, I would also expect to see "Warning: Video games can make you blind"

You're thinking of porn, not video games.

Re:Citation Needed

[elsurexiste]

I agree.

I'm think it's more likely that violent people are more inclined to play violent games, rather than violent games making peaceful people violent.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

What was Cain's excuse? or Hitler's? or Charles Manson's? ad infinitum.

Some people are violent. They don't need video games, Dungeons & Dragons, guns, or anything else. This is Fear Mongering, plain and simple.

Re:Citation Needed

[Kilrah_il]

While I generally think the same as you (i.e. "...video games and other media not as a cause of violent behavior, but merely a catalyst"), some of the studies are not just correlational, but, like I mentioned in my OP, also experimental. For example:

Two studies have examined the effect of video game violence on aggressive cognition. Calvert and Tan (1994) randomly assigned male and female undergraduates to a condition in which they either played or observed a violent virtual-reality game or to a no-game control condition. Postgame aggressive thoughts were assessed with a thought-listing procedure. Aggressive thoughts were highest for violent game players. Although this supports our GAAM* view of video game effects, we hesitate to claim strong support because it is possible that this effect resulted from the greater excitement or arousal engendered by playing the game, rather than the violent content of the game. More recently, Kirsh (1998) showed that 3rd- and 4th-grade children assigned to play a violent video game gave more hostile interpretations for a subsequent ambiguous provocation story than did children assigned to play a nonviolent game. This also supports GAAM.

* GAAM - General Affective Aggression Model
As I said earlier, it's easy to just continue on saying "correlation != causation", and other great-sounding slogans, but isn't it time we took a more level-headed look at the issue?

P.S.
And no, I'm not part of the "think of the children" group. I think parents should take care of their children, not the government. That doesn't mean parents shouldn't have all the relevant information at their disposal.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that knives have been linked to murder? Next time you have a steak, you should perhaps just let your kids eat with their hands.

Not the BEST analogy, since under a certain age, parents won't let children cut their own food with steak knives.

Re:Citation Needed

[dogmatixpsych]

There has not been an "opposite" shown. That would mean that video games decrease violent behavior. A recent meta-analysis of literature showed that there was not a link between video games and aggressive behavior (Ferguson. The good, the bad and the ugly: A meta-analytic review of positive and negative effects of violent video games. Psychiatric Quarterly (2007)) - that does not mean that video games lead to a decrease in aggression. I have to add though that this study has some questionable methodology - I'm not saying it is bad necessarily, there were just some corrections done by the researcher that are worth questioning; i.e., studies show a link between violent video games and aggression until "bias" is corrected for.

If we go back a bit, there was one study that showed a decrease in aggression following viewing violent media (Feshbach, S., & Singer, R.D. (1971). Television and Aggression, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco) but I haven't seen any replications of that experiment and one study will not counteract the findings of so many other studies. If we have 50 studies that show a link and 1 that shows the opposite, I'd give more weight to the 50 than the 1 (although the 1 could be correct).

If you want to look at some other studies we find there is a link between aggressive attitudes (but maybe not behaviors) and video games: Wei. Effects of playing violent videogames on Chinese adolescents' pro-violence attitudes, attitudes toward others, and aggressive behavior. CyberPsychology & Behavior (2007)

However, this is the most important thing. It has been reliably demonstrated (e.g., Cantor. Media violence. Journal of adolescent health (2000)) for a lot of years that exposure to media violence is associated with increases in "antisocial behavior, ranging from the trivial (imitative violence directed against toys) to the serious (criminal violence), with many consequential outcomes in between (acceptance of violence as a solution to problems, increased feelings of hostility, and the apparent delivery of painful stimulation to another person)." (Cantor, 2000). This goes above and beyond what is explained by kids who are inherently more aggressive seeking out more aggressive entertainment ("there is strong evidence that the relationship between violence viewing and antisocial behavior is bidirectional"). This type of research has been going on for 40 years now (it really started with Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment). While none of these studies are perfect, there is much more evidence to suggest that exposure to violence via media (t.v., movies, and even games) can lead to an increase in aggressive thoughts and behaviors in children.

Is it worth putting a warning label on games? No, but just because the whole video game violence and aggression thing isn't popular on Slashdot, doesn't make it untrue. Anyway, as a whole there is more evidence suggesting a link between increased aggression and viewing real or simulated violence than there is against it.

Re:Citation Needed

[Kilrah_il]

My father is not overweight, he exercises regularly and doesn't eat junk. However, he still has Diabetes. Does it mean obesity, lack of exercise and bad diet are not risk factors for Diabetes? Anecdotal evidence does not disprove this theory.
We can look at video games as risk factors for violent behavior. I am not saying violent games will turn everyone into a blood-thirsty maniac; or the converse, that playing "The Funny Adventures of the Care-Bears" will make everyone nice and cuddly. I do say, that the mass of evidence is in favor of the theory that violent video games have some effect on people's behavior. Maybe if we took a random group of people, X percent will be violent. If we add video games, X+Y% will be violent. How large is this Y? I don't know, and I suspect it's not much (in comparison to X), but that doesn't mean Y is 0. Probably video games pushed those who have a borderline tendency towards violence, a bit over the border.

Oh, and regarding Cain, I think his excuse was not enough attention from his mother. I can't comment on the other two.

Re:Citation Needed

[Rutefoot]

Most studies that have shown aggressive behavior have only looked at the immediate, short term effects. The flaw there is that people are very susceptible to just about any stimuli in the short term and this in no way shape or form relates to long term effects. If a person reads words related to the elderly they will walk and drive slower for a short period after. But this doesn't mean that speeding tickets are now a thing of the past for you or that you'll now start paying for things in pennies.

The effects last a couple minutes at best and are so widespread (not just in video games) that society would simply cease to function if we attempted to ban and avoid everything that causes short term psychological effects.

Re:Citation Needed

[zeroshade]

Actually, of the many studies I've seen, they've only succeeded at proving a correlation not causation (I've only read the video game ones.) The link that the evidence seems to prove is more than likely that violent and aggressive people both seek out and prefer violent media, and are excited enough by it to show it more directly after, than before.

Re:Citation Needed

[nomadic]

What you'd need to show is that a "peaceful" population, when subject to "violent" video games, has a higher rate of people switching from "peaceful" to "violent" than a population that is not subject to "violent" video games.

Why so abstract? Real life is messier than that, the video games are not being sold just to "peaceful" populations. Why set up such an arbitrary definition?

I personally fall into the camp that sees video games and other media not as a cause of violent behavior, but merely a catalyst: media is likely to take already existing tendencies and magnify them. If those tendencies don't exist, the games (or movies or television shows or music or books) will do nothing.

Sounds like a good justification for warning labels then.

Re:Citation Needed

[Defenestrar]

Even a child's mind is not that fragile (let alone a teenager's). Given the number of children and teenagers that play violent video games, the amount of them that are violent and possess minds that are that fragile appears to be abysmally small and not worth worrying about.

Really? You think you'd have the same opinion if your kid got knifed or caught a stray bullet due to an escalated situation caused by some other child's aggressive behavior?

Once again, we need some data and more importantly we need a good statistical analysis of the data done - i.e. separate out contributing factors so that we can say "x additional bloody nose fights, y additional emergency room admissions, and z additional deaths per year are casually linked to violent video games per played child hour."

Once we have that, then we need some studies correlating causal relationships to the benefits of violent video games played by children (i.e. improved test scores, lower resting heart rates, Saturday mornings parents get to sleep in, or whatever, etc...) and then we can discuss the cost benefit ratio. It'd also help to have other childhood activities available for a side by side comparison as a reference frame for our risk assessment (i.e. baseball, football, curling, etc...) We need the data as a reference frame because our perceptions of risk are often wrong (i.e. according to child mortality stats: homes with guns are safer than homes with swimming pools).

Re:Citation Needed

[dougisfunny]

I wouldn't blame videogames for the other child being aggressive.

And "linked to" violent video games isn't good enough.

If you went back to the 1930s-60s I would bet you could link smoking to driving accidents. Because most everyone smoked, most everyone in an accident would have been a smoker. So it was more likely a smoker would get in an accident.

Smoking didn't cause most of those accidents, had nothing to do with them. There has been nothing showing that violent video games cause anything.

I bet they could make a study linking aggressive driving with playing racing games or watching movies like The Fast and the Furious.

Honestly people, correlation is not causation.

Re:Citation Needed

[cheekyjohnson]

You think you'd have the same opinion if your kid got knifed or caught a stray bullet due to an escalated situation caused by some other child's aggressive behavior?

1) Correlation does not equal causation.
2) If that happened, the other child was likely mentally unstable to begin with. Even the most naive children are able to differentiate most forms of fiction from reality, let alone teenagers. And even more children are able to differentiate the two if they have decent parents.
3) Even if I were to change my mind because something similar to that happened, that would prove nothing more than the fact that I would have a biased point of view.
4) It truly is odd given the number of children and teenagers who play/view violent entertainment that most of them likely aren't violent, isn't it? The statistics simply don't add up.

No banning is necessary. Even if a few people who were already mentally unstable are affected by the video games, banning them for everyone (even just children) is a terrible, terrible idea (whether that banning be by the parents, the stores, or by the state). All that is needed is a decent parental figure to inform the few who can't differentiate fiction from reality that what they are playing/viewing is, in fact, fiction. The ones who are truly that mentally unstable probably should steer clear of violent entertainment, however.

Re:Citation Needed

[cheekyjohnson]

Experimental or not, it still doesn't explain why a large portion of video game players aren't actually violent. I mean, we're talking about correlation right now, correct? The group of people that become violent (or their violence is merely triggered) from playing a violent video game (or viewing violent media) appears to be abysmally small.

Not to mention that even if people start thinking violent thoughts because they played/viewed violent media, merely having violent thoughts isn't a reason to ban/censor/take away violent video games (from children or otherwise). People can control their own actions, and as statistics seem to prove, they do (a majority of the population aren't criminals despite many of them being subjected to violent media).

It's not even worth worrying about the few people who would act on those thoughts, if they exist.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

I would expect that, under a similiar age, parents wouldn't let their kids play Call of Duty or Dead Space, either.

Re:Citation Needed

[Malyven]

This is, I think, the entire issue at hand. Children and young teens should not have video games/TV/Movies as their primary source of socially acceptable behavior. It's the parents responsibility to ensure these children know the difference of right from wrong.

Re:Citation Needed

[tgibbs]

"Linked" is a very vague term. It does not imply causality. Of course, "aggressive" does not equal "criminal." So basically it is a warning that "Use of this product may be associated with behavior that is legal, but that some people don't approve of."

"The opposite" has not been shown in the kind of behavioral tests that this refers to. Of course, it is incontrovertible that as video games sales have increased, and as video game violence has become more realistic, the incidence of real-world violent crime has declined substantially. That does not prove that video game reduce violence, but it does prove that any "criminal violence promoting" effect of video games is so small that it is swamped by other social/cultural/demographic/economic factors that affect the incidence of violent crime.

Re:Citation Needed

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

That's why our ancestor have invented chopsticks some 3000 years ago.

Re:Citation Needed

[Drugmath]

+1 Masturbation Joke

Re:Citation Needed

[RockoTDF]

What they should have done was taken a violent game and compared it to a nonviolent game that still 'gets your adrenaline flowing' so to speak (sports, racing, etc) and performed the post-gaming test after several sessions of gaming, not just one. I applaud attempting to assess this experimentally, but the experiment here is a bit sloppy. It is a bit like comparing drug A to no drug, when you should do drug A to a placebo or drug A to drug B.

Re:Citation Needed

[k8to]

Don't be a pedant. "there is a link" and "there is not a link" are considered opposites.

The poster did not say "inverse" or "reverse" or "opposite outcome".

Survey appreciated.

Re:Citation Needed

[Kilrah_il]

In another post I wrote:

Maybe if we took a random group of people, X percent will be violent. If we add video games, X+Y% will be violent. How large is this Y? I don't know, and I suspect it's not much (in comparison to X), but that doesn't mean Y is 0. Probably video games pushed those who have a borderline tendency towards violence, a bit over the border.

That seems, to me, a good explanation why only a subset of violent video game players become aggressive.

In your reply you shifted the argument from "do violent games promote aggressive behavior" to "why do they cause aggressive behavior and what is the magnitude of the phenomenon?". Those are important questions, and I agree with you that if the effect is small, there might not be a need for such drastic actions as TFA suggests. However, most people on this thread are still debating the first question. Only if we agree that the answer is "yes", can we move to the second set of questions.

Re:Citation Needed

[shadowfaxcrx]

And "linked to" violent video games isn't good enough.

Exactly.

The earth rotates around the sun every time a murder is committed. They're linked! Ban the sun!

"linking" video games to childhood violence is equally stupid. I bet the kids also ate breakfast that morning. Perhaps they shouldn't, as all violent offenders eat and therefore eating has been linked to violent behavior.

Now, all that said, I'm not trying to say that it's appropriate to let Johnny 8-year-old play GTA. It's not, for any number of reasons. I'm just saying that blaming the game for murder is as dumb as blaming Pac Man for making you over eat.

The really sad part about this story isn't that people are jumping on the "blame the video game bandwagon" again. It's that science and logic understanding in this country is so poor that people will see the "linked to" sticker and think it means something.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't twinkies cause violent behavior too?

I think the connection is tenuous at best. Putting a warning label for such a connection would require warning labels on everything....from guns, to tv's, to caffeinated beverages. Its silly for them to target video games without a very significant instance of behavioral impact.

Re:Citation Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that we as a country choose aggression as the solution (Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.) must have nothing to do with people choosing aggression as the answer. It has to be all those videogames...

Re:Citation Needed

[internettoughguy]

And no, I'm not part of the "think of the children" group. I think parents should take care of their children, not the government. That doesn't mean parents shouldn't have all the relevant information at their disposal.

Why do you think that? I'm not illiberal but it seems to me that we need to enforce basic standards of parenting, and in fact we do, which is why there are laws against child neglect and abuse. So what I'm getting at is this; if these games are harmful to children, then parents who let their children play them clearly aren't doing their job.

Re:Citation Needed

[Labcoat Samurai]

Really? You think you'd have the same opinion if your kid got knifed or caught a stray bullet due to an escalated situation caused by some other child's aggressive behavior?

And *you* think that if that happened I'd immediately go hunting for a scapegoat? I hate these kinds of arguments. Whenever someone says "What if X happened to YOUR child?" it's equivalent to saying "I think that you're either a complete hypocrite or that you've given no thought whatsoever to your point of view."

Re:Citation Needed

[Labcoat Samurai]

some are intervetional and show a causative link between video games and aggressive behavior.

Let's accept that this is true, for sake of argument. Who is to say that the violence in the video games is the cause? I know that I personally can get aggressive shortly after playing a video game, but it's tied strongly to my sense of excitement or frustration. A violent video game where everything is a big joke (like Saints Row 2, for example), and almost nothing is terribly challenging or frustrating makes me feel far less aggressive than, say, a nonviolent game like Mario Kart. Competitive games in general massively ramp up my aggression regardless of the violence factor. Games that evoke fear or tension tend to make me more aggressive as well (like the celebratory "how you like that mothafucka!?" I might shout after killing a guy in Gears of War). In general, the games are entertaining because they provoke these emotions, and it's absurd to think that will not be linked to some short term aggressiveness, but I don't see violence as the primary deciding factor, and I'm not seeing the long term impact.

Incidentally, I'd like to see aggression similarly correlated with competitive sports. Maybe soccer balls should carry this warning as well.

Re:Citation Needed

[Labcoat Samurai]

Wish I had mod points. This is my biggest problem with even the most compelling studies I've seen. My own personal experience suggests that yes, trivially, video games can contribute to aggressive feelings. I myself feel more aggressive after playing some games. But am I more aggressive 4 hours after playing those games? I really don't think so. I'm not the most reliable source of unbiased information about myself, but that personal experience makes me skeptical of the value of investigating the short term impact.

Re:Citation Needed

[Dogtanian]

I'm just saying that blaming the game for murder is as dumb as blaming Pac Man for making you over eat.

Obligatory 90s joke: If video games had any effect on kids, they would have grown up gobbling pills, running around in the dark and listening to repetitive music.

Re:Citation Needed

[Jerslan]

Many of the studies that show causation or a positive correlation also *don't* take into account factors other than violent video games and/or television. If you look at them closely, and don't just skim the headlines or results, there is no data for other important factors such as environment and good vs bad parenting. Having more studies with the same general result doesn't make the methods used in those studies any less suspect or wrong.

I'm a young (26) and successful engineer. I grew up playing games like Doom and Duke Nukem. I did not turn out to be a violent person, if anything the games gave me an outlet for an unstable temper. Before the games I was prone to occasionally going into almost violent outbursts over little things. After I started playing them, and as I got older, I was able to control it better. Other factors include my parents, teachers, relatives and neighbors (all important factors in raising a well-balanced person) being able to teach me the difference between a game and reality as well as right from wrong.

Give a bunch of kids in a violent neighborhood with largely absent parents a copy of GTA4 and yes, you will see a correlation between violent games and violent behavior.

Comparing violence in video games to the dangers of smoking Cigarettes is faulty and misleading. Those two "dangers" are not even close to the same thing. Many video games already come with labels explaining that it's rated "M for Mature due to violence". What we need are more vigilant parents that are willing to pay attention to what their kids are playing, watching, and doing.

Re:Citation Needed

[Jerslan]

One "good" study (where solid methodology is used and most potential factors are taken into account) should be able to disprove many "faulty" studies (where questionable methodology is used or many potential external factors are completely ignored). If that's *not* possible, then what the hell is the point of science if someone could publish several faulty studies and claim everyone else is wrong because his/her faulty conclusion has been reached more than the less faulty one.

Re:Citation Needed

[Jerslan]

It's also worth pointing out that most of the people that cry foul when this correlation/causation is "proven" are people who play violent games themselves. Many of them are well balanced people presenting well thought out arguments. So, either there is an obscenely large size group of outliers (people who don't fit into the study's results) or the study is faulty in some way. You tell me which is more likely?

Re:Citation Needed

[Jane Q. Public]

No, actually it was YOU who shifted the argument from "violent behavior", to "violent thoughts". In this context, a correlation between violent video games and thoughts of aggression is pretty damned irrelevant. As the other poster pointed out, thoughts do not directly translate into action.

It is not valid to assume that just because violent games are correlated to certain thoughts, then they are necessarily correlated to violent actions as well. That's a pretty big leap.

Re:Citation Needed

[Jane Q. Public]

Then you would have to make the same argument against parent who allowed their children to play "cowboys and indians", or "cops and robbers", or just about any other conflict-simulation games.

Good luck trying to enforce that.

Re:Citation Needed

[Jane Q. Public]

Not only that, but you'd have to qualify "aggression" to mean specifically violence towards other people... something that I have not seen done.

Merely calling something "aggressive behavior" is far to vague to be practical. Not all "aggressive" behavior is necessarily a bad thing. Winning at some games -- even board games -- requires a kind of aggressive behavior, as does winning a better job, in some firms.

Aggression is what got us to the top of the food chain. People should not knee-jerk discount all aggression as "bad".

Re:Citation Needed

[Jane Q. Public]

It is still necessary to show that "aggressive behavior" means undesirable violent behavior. Aggression takes many forms and not all of them are bad. Further, like it or not, a certain amount of "acceptance of violence as a solution" is simply acceptance of reality, regardless of your personal view of same in society. Denial that violence can be an acceptable solution to some problems would therefore equate to insanity, if you define insanity as a refusal to accept reality.

--
"Violence never solved anything...except attempts at world domination, the Holocaust, the spread of communism, slavery, genocide and a moron or two who tried to be dictators."

Re:Citation Needed

[internettoughguy]

Then you would have to make the same argument against parent who allowed their children to play "cowboys and indians", or "cops and robbers", or just about any other conflict-simulation games. Good luck trying to enforce that.

These children have probably been watching violent westerns, and to a social "scientist" this violent ideation is just about enough evidence to ban them :). I don't believe that violent media are much more harmful to children than pornography, and as you have mentioned in other posts, it has not been shown that violent video games produce violent behaviour.

It is however ilogical to believe both: (A) Violent media are harmful, (B) Parents should be allowed to provide their children with violent media, unless you think children are some kind of personal property.

Re:Citation Needed

[Jane Q. Public]

No argument here. It's just that -- at risk of repeating myself -- right now (A) is a very big "IF".

But really, in my view, the situation is actually much more complicated than that. Let's say, hypothetically, that it is found that violent video games cause just a little more aggression. Is that enough to justify State interference in a parent/child relationship, which has historically been considered near-sacred?

Many parents allow or even encourage their kids to overeat, which we know can be damaging, but which we do not, as a society, consider justification for taking that child away. To me, State interference in family affairs requires a lot of justification. I think they would have to go a lot further than simply proving a cause/effect relationship. Even proving that it caused "significant" violence would not be enough. It would have to be proven to cause a clear and present danger to others. After all, that is the legal standard we use for other situations.

Re:Citation Needed

[internettoughguy]

Many parents allow or even encourage their kids to overeat, which we know can be damaging, but which we do not, as a society, consider justification for taking that child away..

That's abuse to me, their parents are entrenching habits in them that will harm them for the rest of their lives. This is precisely my point, we seem to consider kids to be a type of property, and give parents way to much discretion in their upbringing.

Re:Citation Needed

[Jane Q. Public]

In that I will disagree. Remember that it is the STATE that intercedes in peoples' lives... and whenever you consider government involvement -- in anything -- you must be very careful. Let them tell you how to feed your kid, and the next thing you know ice cream is illegal. That is a very slippery slope to be messing with.

Re:Citation Needed

[Kilrah_il]

First of all, I was talking about "violent behavior". Granted, some of the studies were regarding "violent cognition", but it's a valid first step in researching the issue, even if we assume that there is a big difference between thoughts and action (an assumption I share with you).
Second, regardless of the above point, I was discussion of whether violent games cause a violent change in people, be it cognitive or in action. The post I replied to changed the focus to what causes said change and whether the effect is large enough to require action by law makers. Both of these points are valid, but it is important to differentiate the issues.

Re:Citation Needed

[Kilrah_il]

...and the next thing you know ice cream is illegal. That is a very slippery slope to be messing with.

Whenever you start messing around with ice cream, you might get a slippery slope... and sticky fingers.

Re:Citation Needed

[Internetuser1248]

Where I come from, New Zealand, They write this on cigarette packets. I think that smokers have a 0.5% higher chance of developing cataracts when they get old or something. My point was exactly that, warning labels often describe things that are not a real danger at all, and in doing so dilute the impact of the ones that are actually valid like stroke/lung cancer etc.

Re:Citation Needed

[cheekyjohnson]

That seems, to me, a good explanation why only a subset of violent video game players become aggressive.

I don't deny that they may push mentally unstable people over the edge. But that's not really surprising. Not to mention that again, even if violent video games do cause certain players to have violent thoughts, the thoughts likely go away soon and almost never translate into action. From what we've seen, there is absolutely no reason for law makers to get involved. There is likely no perfect solution, and a few people who abuse things (such as acting on violent thoughts) will always exist.

In your reply you shifted the argument from "do violent games promote aggressive behavior" to "why do they cause aggressive behavior and what is the magnitude of the phenomenon?".

When I was speaking of aggressive behavior, what I really meant was the employment of physical violence. Then I went on to speak of a hypothetical situation where even if violent entertainment caused people to have violent thoughts, that still wouldn't be enough of a reason for law makers to get involved. If it does cause these thoughts, it really doesn't matter all that much to me. It might, I don't know.

relationship between violent video games and...

[kyrio]

nope.

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[Anonymous Coward]

So? If I owned a video game company, I'd welcome these ratings and make sure that all may games would get one of the most constraining ratings (for lots of violence or whatever). If I were 15 and saw a game that was advertised as being for 18+ or 21+, I'd do everything in my power to get my hands on it!

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[Volguus Zildrohar]

Everything except pay for it!

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[Opportunist]

Pretty much.

I often wonder whether those "parental advisory" stickers are a warning or an ad.

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[SuricouRaven]

An M rating is basically the commercial death sentence for games. Walmart refuses to carry them, as do most other major retailers, online and off. It doesn't matter how good your game is if you can't actually get it in stores.

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[WhirlwindMonk]

Assuming you're talking about the US, you mean "AO." M is carried basically everywhere. AO is the one everyone refuses to stock. And to get an AO rating you need to have basically downright pornographic content in your game, so it's really not that hard to avoid. If you're referring to another country's system, though, then I have no idea how it works.

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[SuricouRaven]

I correct: I meant AO rating, not M.

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[Ironhandx]

Its an Ad.

I can't remember who started it, but some enterprising rap artist I think it was started slapping those on his records, and not because he was forced to. Guess what? Kids couldn't get enough. Probably was also good music, but I'm certain that the sticker helped. I've seen kids whose CD collections barely have anything without that sticker on it.

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[Stormwatch]

I correct

You accidentally a word.

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[HTH NE1]

I correct

You accidentally a word.

I disagree.

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[RockoTDF]

....you know kids with CD collections?

Re:relationship between violent video games and...

[Ironhandx]

Sorry, I forgot to put a past tense on that... I don't anymore.

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats it like having violent games?

Sincerely Australian

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a VPN from another country and buy from download stores.

Sincerely German

Let's broaden that scope a little.

[Dutchmaan]

How about a warning label for television and movies warning that prolonged exposure to violent acts desensitizes a person to violence behavior and makes it socially acceptable. I'd trust a gamer over a person who is desensitized to their own violent and antisocial behavior from too much violent media consumption. Hell T.V. and movies glamorize violence as much if not more than video games do.

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[dmbasso]

Hell T.V. and movies glamorize violence as much if not more than video games do.

But Heaven T.V. is so boring!

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[arbiter1]

yea lets put warning on everything, on an apple, "warning this could contain poison"

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just non stop Little House on the Prarie.

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[sammyF70]

YOU have been watching too much Walt Disney! I wished there was a label on the "Snow White" DVDs "WARNING : This movie could make your kids avoid healthy food!".

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[Seumas]

Just think of all the labels that would be required for religious texts. Especially since they ARE actually linked to violence and terrorism of all sorts. Not to mention delusional behavior. When was the last time someone chopped off their daughters limbs or chained their child to a tree and beat them because "GTA told me to"?

Anyway, I'm all for randomly assigning bullshit blame to various things and then putting warning labels on them. Lets put some on butter knives. And stereos. And books. And shovels. And clothing. OOH, that's it! Let's put a RAPE-WARNING on all clothing deemed to be even remotely suggestive. After all, the connection between rape and revealing clothes is about the same as that between videogames and violence.

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[JustOK]

In MY heaven, there's porn & violence on TV all day. Plus, they give free samples.

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[Onuma]

Yep...like that nice, non-violent episode where the family is chased through the field by a pack of wolves...

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[GameboyRMH]

No, on Apple it should say:

Warning: Product use leads to lock-in, reduced consumer freedom, and sharply diminished cash reserves. Excessive purchases have been linked to confused thinking and Stockholm syndrome.

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[Anonymous Coward]

But apples do contain trace amounts of cyanide, well, the seeds do.

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about warning that the US is losing its edge because of people watching ridiculous reality tv shows... ah wait they are good with that because they don't want people to actually think, but they want to get more profit from companies. What about a warning on Fox News for inciting to violence against other parties and a warning on Palin's website for actually marking other congressmen as targets?

Re:Let's broaden that scope a little.

[Anonymous Coward]

uh - arsenic content within apple seeds - so the poison label would be appropriate - if you ate enough of them - plenty of people I know eat the whole apple, seeds, core and all - and no, they aren't horses or cattle - lol.

Priorities

[MrDoh!]

Huge unemployment, wars still raging in Iraq/Afghanistan, debt at crippling levels, and people losing their homes at huge levels, great to see the important stuff like video games is being addressed.

But...

Every time a politician brings this up, it just shows how out of touch (old?) they are. Hopefully this won't be too much of a problem in not too many years as people who grew up gaming end up in positions of power and see that it's just a pastime. Golfing/Tennis/few rounds at the bar. It's just so not worth spending any time over, and shows they probably shouldn't be holding any positions where their opinions matter if this is the best they can come up with on something todo.

Re:Priorities

[Supurcell]

For real. It'll be a golden age once my generation takes power. At least until the generation after mine shows up with all the things I don't like.

Re:Priorities

[MoFoQ]

I definitely agree....with so many other things that are important....including economic/social issues...this should be the least of everyone's worries.

wonder if this "joe" fella is influenced by /.'s most despised character...Jack Thompson.

funny and ironic that his last name is phonetically similar to the Japanese word "" ("baka") which means stupid/idiot.....

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll be a golden age once my generation takes power

Have a read of Tim Leary's Neuropolitique. One of the sections, entitled "The Seeds of the Sixties" discusses what will happen when the flower children of 196x grow to positions of power and influence. Since this hasn't changed the socio-political position as much as Leary hoped, I wouldn't stake any particular hope in any generation having a major change in the way the world operates.

Re:Priorities

[Seumas]

Good luck with that.

The group of people that think video games are not just for children or that geeks are cool is a very limited one and the impression that it is a generally accepted feeling is an inaccuracy merely reinforced by our own ranks. Kind of like if you spend all your time swinging, you might start to think that swinging is something far more accepted by society than it really is, because -- of course -- you're around a subset that is into it all the time.

I remember a very specific incident with a girl who is a good friend of mine. In response to some ridiculously geeky tangent I went on, I snickered that "I'm such a geek . . ." and her response was to sincerely try and convince me that I wasn't a geek the same way a friend might respond to you if you had called yourself a loser or an asshole.

Then you have video games. While most gamers are adults and the average age of gamers is around 35 years old, most adults are not gamers. If you're an adult - especially once you're out of your 20s, you are bordering on being a pathetic curiosity to the rest of the grown-ups around you, who see you as less responsible and less mature merely for what you spend your recreational time doing.

One might suggest that it merely indicates the age of such prejudice, misunderstanding, and judgement is a lot younger than the "old folks" we would associate the attitude with, but if you are an adult and have been playing games online any time, recently, you've probably experienced comments from very young people, too. I was astonished when I was playing Black Ops with a couple buddies a few weeks ago and when some teenagers asked us how old we were (between 30 and 40), they couldn't believe it. They thought we must be a bunch of losers, because they couldn't imagine that anyone would sit around playing video games when they're an adult. I actually heard that repeated from kids to older players (not just ourselves) too many times to count over a period of about a month that we got together and played regularly.

It was mirrored by a conversation/poll/discussion I saw more than once online . . . in video game websites. Places you would expect the attitude to be more rational. Instead, I've seen questions and forum discussions by what are clearly younger people asking "How old do you think you will be when you stop playing video games?". Probably more than half of the responses are typically things like "as soon as I turn eighteen and get out of the house" or "probably when I have a kid" or "when I get married" or "when I'm thirty". Kind of absurd that there seems to be a huge population of young people who love video games, but only see it as something children do and not something they'll keep doing. Imagine if you spent your childhood reading a lot of great books or maybe hiking and you said "I'll probably stop reading books and going on hikes when I'm 23". What the fuck?

Anyway, the attitude may change. It's not going to be in our life time.

Re:Priorities

[Opportunist]

I'm pretty sure in some native american dialect "Thompson" means "funny man in funny dress acts like a moron".

Re:Priorities

[IronSight]

That sounds about right because kids know alot about life with all that real world experiance of living on their own, paying their own bills, taking care of their kids. They know adults don't desserve a little bit of "me" time when the kids are in bed after a long day of running around. They know that the world belongs to the kids for the fun stuff, and the adults just get to have the right to earn all the money they blow on the childs 60 dollar games, a car, and college, or whatever else they need. Adults are just there to buy their games and drive them all over town, after that they can go shine their shoes and relax in bed with the wall street journal, dreaming they were as cool as their smart children. So what if it was mom and dad's generation that gave them video games or computers from mom and dad's investment in them through out the years. That we watched the evolution from Pong to Crysis, that we might have even coded our own games on a computer that was as powerful as their calculators (or even on calculators). We are creepy if we keep the same hobby for thirty years. Hell, I still play some of my old atari carts from time to time in the very few limited times I get a break from kids or work, and if my kid told me I was too old to play my atari, I would tell him he's too young to understand the feeling of nostalgia. When I was a kid, I thought it was cool to see someone that had refurbed a pinball machine, and would play it in his garage almost every other night. If it makes him happy, leave him the hell alone.

Re:Priorities

[MrDoh!]

Hmm, good points.
But even so, even if not gamers now, it's still been experienced far more than it used to be? People who used to play games when younger and then got bored, moved onto other stuff, didn't kill/maim anyone, isn't that also a valid argument that his type of stuff is pure bunk?

But I'd even argue that the amount of 'gamers' is bigger than people think. Maybe even themselves. Ok, they may not sit around and play WoW/CoD for 16 hours straight, but they might have a few sessions of Angry Birds/some other phone game.

Alot of this resistance is surely just anti-technology sentiments. People who've not grown up with Atari VCS/Intellivisions/NES/SNES/Megadrives/C64's/......./....../Gameboys/...../Playstations/Xbox/Wii/iPods/SmartPhones/flash games on the web theyplay for 10 mins drinking that first cup of coffee at the desk.

I still think this sort of behavior will be self-correcting in a few more years.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

For real. It'll be a golden age once my generation takes power. At least until the generation after mine shows up with all the things I don't like.
Signed - Every Generation Ever

FTFY

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to burst your bubble, but when your generation gets into power,there will still be individuals and corporations with a vested interest in protecting their vast wealth, against who you will be pitted, and will in all likelihood capitulate to in order to survive.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

"We want less Homer Simpsons and more money for public schools."

Saying there are bigger problems they should be dealing with is a very weak political argument. Usually it's one of the last arguments you go to after you've already lost the debate. In this case, it's not necessary. The link between video game violence and violent behaviour has not be proved anything like as strongly as the link between smoking and, well, just about every illness under the sun, so the precedent is invalid.

Re:Priorities

[Carewolf]

The Wii and iPhone games has already changed this. It is a matter of statistical fact that there are more female gamers now than male, and both sexes more games over 30 than under. It is only because the industri is so slow at adapting that you still see most games marketed at the old stereotypes.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

For real. It'll be a golden age once my generation takes power. At least until the generation after mine shows up with all the things I don't like.

Well, you can just put warning labels on all of those annoying things! Problem solved forever!

Re:Priorities

[carrier lost]

Hopefully this won't be too much of a problem in not too many years as people who grew up gaming end up in positions of power and see that it's just a pastime.

We used to say this about pot in the '70's.

Good luck.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't congressmen come with warning labels?

Re:Priorities

[nomadic]

I definitely agree....with so many other things that are important....including economic/social issues...this should be the least of everyone's worries.

It probably is, but just like a 10,000 person police force does not assign all 10,000 officers to solving the current most heinous unsolved crime, Congress can multitask.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully this won't be too much of a problem in not too many years as people who grew up gaming end up in positions of power and see that it's just a pastime.

We used to say this about pot in the '70's.

Good luck.

You used to say that about Rock n' Roll too, you know. And unlike Pot, Rock Music actually has something in common with Video Games, as they're both forms of media/entertainment.

Re:Priorities

[vlueboy]

Thank you!

This judgemental attitude is also specially true of anime, because our parents grew up on western cartoons, clearly aimed at juveniles, and they just do not know that there are more mature issues, lots of blood, killing, sex and all in today's anime because we wouldn't normally show it to them, and they ain't gonna see that on primetime TV. Anime is becoming a hit with kids in the US thanks to US networks' cementing it this past decade, and it will take very long before those kids realize that the shows aren't as normal/mainstream once they leave middle-school, as we all think during childhood.

Time spent in front of computers is another one. Being the only computer geek in the family, I put up with my parents asking how I could stand sitting still for hours in front of a small screen (without understanding their 4:3 TV's did the same to their mobility back then). Eventually my blue collar parents took computer classes and started spending their free time on them, and one of them joined FB. Now they understand computer attachments better. I wish the same would happen with cartoons, games and anime, but it's asking for too much.

Re:Priorities

[Dragonslicer]

Congress can multitask.

Guess you slept through all of December, huh? There were a large number of members of Congress that refused to do anything until their single priority was dealt with.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

For real. It'll be a golden age once my generation takes power. At least until the generation after mine shows up with all the things I don't like.

I'm not that old yet (in my 40s), but strangely enough I have found the opposite. The older I get the more I despise the older generations for their inability to embrace the present, let alone the future. Maybe I'm not wise enough to be ignorant and irrational yet.

I'd take the younger generations any day. To me, evil personified is an old man in an expensive suit.

Re:Priorities

[Labcoat Samurai]

The group of people that think video games are not just for children or that geeks are cool is a very limited one and the impression that it is a generally accepted feeling is an inaccuracy merely reinforced by our own ranks. Kind of like if you spend all your time swinging, you might start to think that swinging is something far more accepted by society than it really is, because -- of course -- you're around a subset that is into it all the time.

On what are you basing this? Surely not personal experience.

I remember a very specific incident with a girl who is a good friend of mine.

Oh.

While most gamers are adults and the average age of gamers is around 35 years old, most adults are not gamers.

Could you be more specific? Are you counting all adults? When you say "most" do you mean greater than 50%? What's a gamer exactly? What if a person plays Wii tennis? Do they not count?

If you're an adult - especially once you're out of your 20s, you are bordering on being a pathetic curiosity to the rest of the grown-ups around you, who see you as less responsible and less mature merely for what you spend your recreational time doing.

Maybe to the grownups around *you*. My boss perked up with interest when I talked about getting a Kinect, and he had been interested in a Wii a few years back. And I discover all the time that coworkers and clients are interested in games.

Imagine if you spent your childhood reading a lot of great books or maybe hiking and you said "I'll probably stop reading books and going on hikes when I'm 23".

And yet I can't help but feel some skepticism here. I've never met anyone who said they planned to altogether stop playing games at a certain age. So that sounds *just* as hard to imagine to me as this (which is to say I can imagine both, but they both sound strange). I can't help the sneaking suspicion that your entire perception of this is founded on atypical personal experiences.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

That was purely a cynical political move; and it was the wrong thing to do, which is my point.

Wake up call to Congressmen

[arbiter1]

We have one those already on video games, ITS CALLED E.S.R.B. RATING!

Re:Wake up call to Congressmen

[arbiter1]

Just another waste of time for congress and tax payer $$$$$

Re:Wake up call to Congressmen

[Seumas]

No, the ESRB:

+ Is not legally enforceable. Neither are motion picture ratings. It would be a first amendment issue, if they were. Many politicians and busy-body groups would like this, though and are pushing for it. ESRB and MPAA ratings are entirely voluntary as is their enforcement in retail by the retail stores themselves. If you work at a game store and sell an M rated game to a child, your boss might fire you, but neither you nor your boss nor the company have committed any crime. If that were to ever change, you'd have to also start seeing special library cards so that librarians could not check books out to children that were beyond their designated category. (I probably wouldn't have been allowed to read Tommyknockers or The Stand, when I was ten, I guess).

+ The ESRB rating indicates that there may be violence, mild violence, comic violence, language, drugs, sex within a game. It does not have a giant warning label telling you that if you play Call of Duty you are more likely to start committing murders and engaging in wonton acts of violence as a result of it.

+ There is, of course, absolutely no correlation between violent movies, music, games, books, art and actual acts of violence, which makes the legislation even more idiotic.

Re:Wake up call to Congressmen

[WhirlwindMonk]

+ There is, of course, absolutely no correlation between violent movies, music, games, books, art and actual acts of violence, which makes the legislation even more idiotic.

Actually, there is. I did a pretty extensive research report on it in college. There is a correlation. There even has been shown pretty conclusively that people who play the games tend to feel more aggressive (I can't recall if it was in general or just for a period of time afterward). The key was, though, that it wasn't enough. It was the equivalent of screwing up an exam you thought you did well on, or having your parents tell you to go to your room because you didn't finish your broccoli. Sure, you're "angrier" or "more aggressive" from those things, but it isn't enough to cause extreme behavioral changes. Something else has to be present first. Combine violent video games with years of bullying and an abusive parent and you might end up with a reaction, but video games by themselves are not enough, nor are violent movies, violent music, anything like that. As long as you game responsibly (meaning, not playing 16 hours a day, or whatever), there are no dangerous effects. And the real key is, the people in the situations where violent video games might push them over the edge aren't going to be swayed by the ratings or warnings.

Plus, there's always the fact that violent people are going to be drawn to violent games.

And for those of you who instantly think "CITATION!!!!!" I wish I could, but I'm not even sure I have the paper anymore, let alone access to it from work.

Re:Wake up call to Congressmen

[DisKurzion]

In other words, there is no causal link. The videogames can merely serve as a trigger, much as any frustrating activity could.

The years of bullying or the abusive parent were the causal link.

Re:Wake up call to Congressmen

[Labcoat Samurai]

+ There is, of course, absolutely no correlation between violent movies, music, games, books, art and actual acts of violence, which makes the legislation even more idiotic.

Actually, there is.

[...]

There even has been shown pretty conclusively that people who play the games tend to feel more aggressive (I can't recall if it was in general or just for a period of time afterward).

Don't you think that's a tad important? But he didn't say "more aggressive". He said "actual acts of violence".

The key was, though, that it wasn't enough. It was the equivalent of screwing up an exam you thought you did well on, or having your parents tell you to go to your room because you didn't finish your broccoli. Sure, you're "angrier" or "more aggressive" from those things, but it isn't enough to cause extreme behavioral changes.

So no correlation to actual violence?

Something else has to be present first. Combine violent video games with years of bullying and an abusive parent and you might end up with a reaction, but video games by themselves are not enough, nor are violent movies, violent music, anything like that.

What about the abusive parent or years of bullying? Are those enough? If so, what do video games have to do with it? That's like saying "combine dynamite with a lemon cream pie and you have a deadly explosive". If all video games do is cause short term aggression (wish you could remember.....), I fail to see how you could draw a meaningful correlation to actual violence. If a person has the background for violence, the thing that pisses them off could be anything that heightens your emotion.

I propose another warning

[Totenglocke]

I propose we put a warning before every comment on the news (print, online, or televised)by a politician that says "Warning: Being a politician has been linked to severe defects in reasoning ability and to rampant paranoia of all things invented after 1950. All statements should be assumed false until verified by independent sources".

Re:I propose another warning

[GameboyRMH]

This, in conjunction with the NASCAR rule (politicians must wear a suit with their corporate sponsors' logos on it)

Re:I propose another warning

[Anonymous Coward]

And I thought I was the only one who was in favor of that.

baka lol

[Anonymous Coward]

oh it is baca

Eye problems

[grim-one]

I'd rather see a warning label that warns about over use leading to eye problems (e.g. myopia). Although maybe that should go on the TV / monitor instead. At least that link is reasonably consistent. You could also label books and magazines!

Shares?

[Stooshie]

Does he have shares in a games company? Having warning labels will only increase sales.

Re:Shares?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Comics Code: the Next Generation

Re:Shares?

[The Moof]

Does he have shares in a games company

Actually, I have a political friend who has theorized the reason they keep going after video games is because there's not a strong video game lobby yet, and they want a piece of the industry's pie from lobbying. Sort of like a "You want us to stop going after video games? Lobby for it (with cash)" type of situation. I'd say that a dirty and corrupt motive, but given that we're talking about politicians... well, you know.

Growing Evidence??

[ultral0rd]

Could someone please supply this "growing" evidence.. From my understanding and following of this specific discussion there seems to be less and less evidence that Violent Games are in any way linked to aggressive behavior. Except that aggressive people play video games.. But then again, so do normal placid people.. This is like saying Murders driver cars, thus we need to put a warning labels on all cars informing people that driving a car might cause you to become a murdered.. The pre-disposition was already there, it had nothing to do with the car or the game. The problem is the person >

Re:Growing Evidence??

[Seumas]

This is American politics. You don't need evidence for anything. The overwhelming majority of the country believes in religion, alien abductions, psychics, ghosts, and that Iraq had WMDs with which we were sure to be struck any moment. Make an assertion frequently enough and people will accept it as truth. People still believe the bullshit that more women are victims of domestic violence on Superbowl Sunday than any other day of the year.

Re:Growing Evidence??

[Seumas]

Also, is it just me or does the "new slashdot" make it nearly impossible to detect that text is hyperlinked in a post?

Re:Growing Evidence??

[e3m4n]

Aggressive behavior does not immediately imply full-on rage. The term is misused too much I fear. Remember those old office 'jokes' that used to go around in the days of sneaker-net? Like:

Stress: The confusion caused when ones mind overrides the body’s natural desire to choke the living shit out of some asshole that desperately needs it.

It was humorous because we've all felt the urge to smack, punch, bitch-slap, do _something_ to someone but never acted on it. Yelling, acting out, back talking, telling someone off... these are all 'aggressive behaviors'. So if while playing a video game (any video game) elevates your pulse rate, breathing rate, and increases your adrenaline levels putting you in a predisposed position to be more alert, and on the defensive then technically its liked to 'aggressive behavior'. That does not mean to imply that anyone experiencing aggression is suddenly going to go commit a Columbine. They're word games and politicians love to play word games.

Re:Growing Evidence??

[Onuma]

They're word games and politicians love to play word games. I bet they can't beat me in Scrabble...

I've discovered the link!

[Supurcell]

The link between violence and video games lies between the congressmen who don't know what video games are, and want to waste everybody's time and money so that they appear to be thinking of the children, and the people who have had enough of this.

meh, flamebait here

[JimboFBX]

Honestly, politicians can introduce legislation all they want, doesn't mean it'll go anywhere. This guy's just flamebait. I'd be more concerned if the bill had like 20 or more co-sponsors. I'm not sure of the hurdles one has to jump through to get legislation to the floor but I doubt it's that many.

Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a warning label on guns. You know, the things that actually ENABLE people to kill others.

Then again this is the US, that would be crazy talk.

Re:Guns

[addsalt]

that would be like putting a "flamable" sticker on a lighter. I don't think many gun owners are unaware that guns "may cause serious injury or death"

Re:Guns

[JustOK]

WARNING!: Flammable gas under pressure. Keep away from heat above 49C(120F). Keep away from face when lighting. Do not keep lit continuously for more than 30 seconds. Be sure flame is out after each use. KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN.

Aggressive behavior?

[cheekyjohnson]

A large majority of the population at large, even people who would usually be considered 'normal', must be aggressive, then. There's few people that don't view violent material. But, then again, they're not aggressive or violent. Most of them are just 'normal' people, with very few who aren't. The average persons' mind is likely not so fragile as to be altered by mere entertainment, violent or not. If the average mind truly was that weak, society would likely have destroyed itself by now (well, there would be far more violent people, at least). Looking at the statistics, I really don't see how you could come to this conclusion.

Re:Aggressive behavior?

[e3m4n]

if by 'normal' you mean the statistical average then I would agree that the 'normal' sampling of people are becoming more and more aggressive every year. The economy sucks, lots of people are either unemployed or underemployed. Those with jobs have probably not had raises in a few years, meanwhile damn near everything is going up 20% per year around them (insurance premiums alone have gone up more than 20% every year for last several years). Gasoline has increased by nearly a factor of x4 since 2001 while every quarter the oil cartels boast record profits over the previous quarter all the while being given enormous tax breaks by our government. Our businesses pay the highest tax rate of any other country (35%) all the while our biggest corporations shuffle their numbers around to cheat you and I out of 20 BILLION in tax dollars (ie General Electric paying 0 dollars in the USA last year but paid 10 billion in taxes to Ireland at their 12.5% rate) leaving the rest of us to make up for that in new taxes. This doesn't even begin to list all the things that the average person deals with or reads about on a nearly daily basis. Hell just typing all of that got my blood boiling LOL

If the situations themselves weren't bad enough you had politicians throwing gasoline on this fire since year 2001 using the most extreme metaphors and analogies possible. War criminal, Hitler, Nazi's, Communist, Manchurian candidate, impeach, assassinate, execute, kill kill kill, etc etc. Society has been on a steady incline in terms of average levels of aggression since the 50s.

I think the biggest confusion is the word aggression itself. It doesn't have to imply full-on rage of institutionalizing proportions. Any time you experience an emotionally charged feeling that gets under your skin and pisses you off.. you're experiencing aggression. Ever get pissed off and flip someone off while driving or use some colorful metaphors? The very fact we have to schedule down time to 'unwind' this 'tension' in the hectic lifestyles we now live gives plenty of evidence that aggression is on the rise, and that it affects so many people that it has crossed over into 'normal'.

Re:Aggressive behavior?

[cheekyjohnson]

Yeah, but I was mainly talking about violence. The number of people who play a video game and then go out and murder someone is very, very small indeed. Aggression has always been common.

Really

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they should just legislate that broccoli tastes grate and cures global warming. I mean, might as well since they are making stuff up as they go along.

Re:Really

[addsalt]

Indeed, broccoli has been linked to a decrease in global warming

Re:Really

[JustOK]

President Bush 1.0 has made sure that will NEVER happen.

Like Denis Leary said about cigarettes...

[gmhowell]

This guy’s goin’ from country to country to try and make the warnings on the packs BIGGA!! He wants to make the whole front of the pack the warning. It doesn’t matter how big the warnings are. You could have cigarettes CALLED warnings, we’d still buy ‘em. You could have a black pack with a skull and crossbones, called TUMORS and smokers would be lined up around the block to buy ‘em.

Fine. Put a warning on the games. It lets me know which ones are the good shit.

(Yeah, I know, Leary is a ripoff of Bill Hicks, blah, blah, blah. History is written by the living.)

Warning

[ensignyu]

Excessive warning labels may lead to a distrust of warning labels.

Re:Warning

[Rosey25]

Short, pointed, and incisive. Thanks!

Re:Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't trust that.

Re:Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late for that in California... There's a warning label on pretty much everything. Even the potato mesh nets...

Re:Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

The legal system in the US is just like that. A company gets a class action suit or it's sued by someone because they thing their product is linked to something. The result: a warning label anywhere (not yet one seen on Palin's crosshair website though).

Amazingly, the politicians manage to cool people down blaming video games. After all, someone has to be blamed instead a poor school system and lack of society values. Why a warning? Simple. Because the AZ shooter was not religious (catholic, muslim), or from a particular race (asian, black, latino). The way out, instead of blaming bad parenting skills, the social media, the cultural environment is a warning label.

Sometimes I'm amazed of the US

Re:Warning

[andyr86]

We will be hard on slogans and the causes of slogans.

Rites

[Seato]

Let's not be negligent and forget about violent books, articles depicting grotesque situations, television shows, etc! If you're going to impose labels then you might as well be thorough about it [/sarcasm]. It feels like video games are a new type of literature that beckons for the rite of passage of controversy that every other media has been subjected to.

critical thinking

[Canadian Window C'er]

I see there is a lot of critical thinking going on here.

For discussion/perspective:
Proverbs 11:5 Jehovah himself examines the righteous one as well as the wicked one, And anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates.

Note an important difference between what I see many others argue and this: It's not just whether doing what Jehovah God desires is obviously beneficial or otherwise. Nor is it doing so out of duty. Rather, most important and easiest to do when you are 'of that persuasion', is doing so out of love for God and a desire to please him.

That's my perspective.

Re:critical thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case jehovah probably hates himself as he seems to be all about violence.

Re:critical thinking

[Canadian Window C'er]

Nice.

Anything else to add to the conversation?

Re:critical thinking

[Canadian Window C'er]

That is, such as a citation? Some example of what you speak as to further the topic? Really if you think about it, you've got home field advantage by picking the example and forcing it to stand or fall.

Violent video games labels

[future assassin]

Excessive exposure to violent video games labels and other violent media labels has been linked to aggressive behaviour like impulsive buying of violent video games and other media.

In other news..

[xnpu]

WARNING: Excessive exposure to life has been linked to death.

Absolutely wrong

[dexi]

* I apologize that this websites formatting squishes all my writing together and does not allow paragraphing.* I'd like to call everyones attention to this article: http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/violence_and_videogames In the article, the author explains that the current time we live in, the early years of this century and now, has seen a DECREASE in violence among youth, in fact there was a sharp rise in violence after the release of the NES, and a decrease in violence after the release of the Playstation, which was home to misinformed mothers' favorite scapegoat, Grand Theft Auto. So if we take violence in correlation with video games, what we need to do is get Mario off our children's game consoles. In 1985 violence among people aged 18-24 years began to rise significantly. What happened in 1985? - May 15 – An explosive device sent by the Unabomber injures John Hauser at UC Berkeley.July 10 - The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour by French DGSE agents. in 1991 violence among people aged 18-24 was at it's highest. What happened in 1991? - Video games in their current form -DO NOT EXIST- - March 3 – An amateur video captures the beating of motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles, California police officers. - Jully 22 – Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested after the remains of 11 men and boys are found in his Milwaukee, Wisconsin, apartment. - August 17 – Strathfield Massacre: In Sydney, Australia, taxi driver Wade Frankum shoots 7 people and injures 6 others before turning the gun on himself. - August 23 – The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or "Super Nintendo") is released in the United States. The most popular games on this console include various Mario titles. If we call Mario violent, we should keep children far away from Tom & Jerry! In 1994 violence among people aged 18-24 years began to decrease. What happened in 1994? *- December – The Playstation video game console was released. - January 14 – U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin Accords, which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles toward each country's targets. - September 19 – American troops stage a bloodless invasion of Haiti in order to restore the legitimate elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power. In 1997 violence among people aged 18-24 continued to decrease. What happened in 1997? !!!*** GRAND THEFT AUTO WAS RELEASED! -- 1994 theft of automobiles in California - 308,205 -- 1997 theft of automobiles in California - 228,722 -- 1998 theft of automobiles in California - 195,517 - A similar decrease in those numbers were seen in New York, Illinois, and Texas. Despite the name, the game also features gun violence. -- 1994 murder and aggravated assault in California - 3,703/191,548 -- 1997 murder and aggravated assault in California - 2,579/81,468 -- 1998 murder and aggravated assault in California - 2,171/68,782 - A similar decrease in those numbers were seen in New York, Illinois, and Texas. Documents as of 2009 shows that we are seeing continually decreasing numbers of violent crimes including murder and aggravated assault. The lowest we have seen since 1967! Now obviously, these numbers have gone up along with the population, the era of violent video games has caused us to break this correlation, and despite the increasing population, we are decreasing violence. (http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/cacrime.htm) These numbers explain how, if any correlation exists, video games actually cause our people to be LESS violent. Let's put a warning label on video games that says this: "PARENTS: Allowing your child to play video games may cause them to take out their aggression via the game instead of in the real world."

Re:Absolutely wrong

[johncandale]

Of course there is no real data linking video games to violence but your post suggests there is for decrease in violence which is equally bad data usage.

The only real data correlation that MIGHT explain the decrease in violence after a steep increase(not) in the time period is roe vs wade, As abortions became legal Just about the time for the kids coming of age that would have grown up in terrible homes with unstable uneducated mothers were starting to be born.

Still, everyone needs to remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

Re:Absolutely wrong

[Feinu]

I apologize that this websites formatting squishes all my writing together and does not allow paragraphing

Try using HTML markup, so encapsulate paragraphs in <p> and </p>. You can also use <br> for line breaks

Re:Absolutely wrong

[Lehk228]

This site certainly does


allow paragraphs

I think you should run for congress...

[Anonymous Coward]

as there are no reputable studies that show myopia, or any serious eye problem, is caused by TVs.

Oh Look!

[night_flyer]

A democrat...

Fox News?

[Sockatume]

I saw a study recently that showed Fox News viewers held significantly more incorrect beliefs about recent news than viewers of other channels, and that this effect scaled with the amount of viewing. Very neatly showed a causal effect. If it had been about a food additive and brain damage, we'd already have people screaming about a ban. Perhaps there should be a mandate that Fox carry a disclaimer at every ad break: "Studies show that watching Fox News results in you believing things that aren't true." The research is just as solid and incontrovertable as the research on violent video games.

Re:Fox News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps there should be a mandate that Fox carry a disclaimer at every ad break

I can already hear them screaming: You cannot regulate TV! Free speech! That's socialism! And communism! Rah! Rah! Rah!

We have to deal with it: video games are last century's TV, previous centuries' music, cinema, books and so on. It's human nature, old farts oppose new things they know nothing about. All they see are those damn kids who won't get off their lawns and - out of ignorance - they blame the first best thing. These politicians have to die out before video games will get accepted.

In a few generations the next old geezers will rail against direct brain interfaces or whatever the next big entertainment technology is going to be. Humans are stupid and illogical by nature.

Re:Fox News?

[Anonymous Coward]

But they bring you "Both Sides" ...

Piracy

[fleeped]

Add warning labels and ignorant laws, add DRM, add ANY sort of difficulty for a consumer to get what he/she wants and would *normally* be entitled to, and guess what will happen.. Unexpected, you say?

So, parents, give your weak kids violent games?

[Targon]

I can see it now, you have the kids that are non-agressive and withdrawn suddenly being encouraged to play violent video games in the hopes their increased agression will be better than having them be withdrawn. Considering how poorly many children are raised, I can see this being done by parents who hear about this and want more outgoing children.

Self-righteous douchebags

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bible: Rated M for mature: "Excessive exposure to the Bible and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior."

Just because you THINK you have the moral high ground doesn't mean that it's true.

10 years out of date headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently he stopped paying attention to the evidence, what is it, 5, 10 years ago? The only thing to positively identify video games as causing violence are headlines... which I guess, is where he gets his 10 years out of date news from.

Violence & aggression are natural

[penguinchris]

Many aspects of society are built around violence and aggression - especially sports. Sports is basically the main outlet that most people had up until recently to get this natural aggression out of their system. Knute Rockne (who won "one for the gipper") recognized this in the 20's as the Notre Dame football coach when people wanted to crack down on football and violent sports. I saw the film Knute Rockne, All American recently and was struck by this point in the film and its similarity to today's attitude of certain people against video games.

Now, video games fill the same role for many people - and much better, because you can play video games a lot more often than you can play aggressive sports. It's just harder for older people to see the connection, and that the positive aspects of sports (building teamwork and leadership and whatever) come from video games as well. Of course, you don't get the exercise benefit, but that's a different story.

As a disclaimer, I'm not into sports in the slightest and I play(ed) lots of video games.

Comics in 1954, video games in 2011

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamasutra reports that Congressman Joe Baca (D-CA) has introduced legislation that would require video games with a rating of T or higher to have a warning label that alerts buyers to the dangers of simulated violence. The warning would read: "Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.

Why am I reminded of this?

Seduction of the Innocent cited overt or covert depictions of violence, sex, drug use, and other adult fare within "crime comics" — a term Wertham used to describe not only the popular gangster/murder-oriented titles of the time, but superhero and horror comics as well. The book asserted, largely based on undocumented anecdotes, that reading this material encouraged similar behavior in children.

In 1954, it was comics; now it's video games.

Reality is probably the opposite

[penguinchris]

I think violent/aggressive games are an outlet for the natural violent/aggressive behavior that everyone has (some more than others of course). In other words, if you give a kid who is violent and aggressive toward others in real life violent video games, by taking out their aggression in the game perhaps they'll show less of it in real life. Kind of like how football players fit a certain stereotype - they're outgoing and aggressive both on and off the field.

I don't have any studies to back it up, but it seems a lot more plausible than what they're claiming here.

Re:Reality is probably the opposite

[zeroshade]

The study that backs this up, at least by correlation, is the fact that violent crimes and specifically violence between the ages of 18-24 has decreased significantly since the introduction of video games.

Re: Causality

[Anonymous Coward]

... viewers held significantly more incorrect beliefs about recent news than viewers of other channels, and that this effect scaled with the amount of viewing. Very neatly showed a causal effect.

You've neatly described correlation, not causation. Still missing a couple of elements to causation.

Military recruiter warninng labels?

[h00manist]

I'd agree that video games oftentimes are linked to agressive/violent behavior. I work with games, I play games, and indeed i see that happen. I don't agree games are alone in that situation, we live in a very violent society and there are dozens or hundreds of things leading to increased violence. Indeed reducing violence in society is one of the most noble activities, all kinds of specialties are concerned with it. So let's label everything that leads to violence, yes, I agree. Are military recruiters and training posts going to be required to use the same label? Police signup stations too? Law schools? Post offices? Managerial posts? Salesmen? Prisons? Government posts? Customer service rep positions? Many, many professional activities, hobbies, books, toys, social environments, in society "have been linked to" aggressive and violent behavior, some very correctly, the abuse from customers some positions are required to politely tolerate is just completely insane and utterly wrong, the customer is *not* "always right", and neither are the companies, nobody is always right. Many people get incredibly arrogant and rude. But the bottom line is, *everything* should have a "warning label", saying something like "you are responsible for your actions, mental, and emotional state. You are a member of your own society, if you see or experience violent or abusive behavior, you are *legally required* to take action to call attention to it and stop it, or be liable for social negligence charges".

Revisit the 80's

[Jarza]

Welcome to the extended argument from the 80's that tried to blame violence in kids to video games. Just proves nothing ever really goes away.

Frankly...

[Syberz]

Frankly, I see nothing wrong with rating systems for games like they have for movies and I would even support warning labels too... IF there is actually corroborating evidence of what the label claims. Show us multiple independent peer reviewed and verified studies and then, yeah, label to your heart's content.

In the meantime, focus on your country's astronomical debt/deficit and maybe think about ending those useless wars of yours (drugs, terrorism, etc).

Re:Frankly...

[zeroshade]

ESRB = rating system for games like they have in movies.

It already exists and is in wide use. In fact, it's quite effective.

Correlation

[Illicon]

It should also say: Correlation != Causation

Game Warning

[Rosey25]

Great -- no federal budget (the fiscal year started last October), but Congress has time to legislate warning labels.

Another congressman that needs to be voted out.

[JustAnotherIdiot]

We've got so many real problems in our country today, and you chose to focus on this one? I'd say ESRB does a good enough job already, you can't fix the idiot parents buying their 2 year olds GTA no many how many warning labels you slap on there.

Metaanalysis, controversy in psychology

[Anonymous Coward]

I felt strongly enough about this to post my first comment on Slashdot. Flame away at the noob.

Psychological Bulletin, a peer-reviewed and well-respected psychology journal, published a large meta-analysis of existing (published and unpublished) research on video games and aggression-related outcomes in 2010: Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review (pdf). The authors analyze results from 136 studies (total sample size, 130,296) that used a variety of methodologies (laboratory/experimental, correlational, and longitudinal). They find (from the abstract): "The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior."

The journal published with it a critique from a perennial naysayer on the video game violence - aggression hypothesis: Much Ado About Nothing: The Misestimation and Overinterpretation of Violent Video Game Effects in Eastern and Western Nations (pdf), as well as a response to the critique (pdf) and an additional comment (pdf).

I am happy to leave you all with this information--though the fact that it is social science rather than hard science means that many Slashdot readers will dismiss it reflexively--but I'd like to share a sentence from the abstract of the additional comment piece with the readers of Slashdot: "The results of meta-analyses are unlikely to change the critics’ view or the public’s perception that the issue is undecided because some studies have yielded null effects, because many people are concerned that the implications of the research threaten freedom of expression, and because many people have their identities or self-interests closely tied to violent video games." (emphasis mine)

Clarification needed

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this straight...simulated violence in video games makes you aggressive, but saturated violent speech on Fox News ("Tiller the baby killer") has zero impact?

Why is our government allow to continue like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where are Tax money goes??? No wonder we are broke as a nation. You have Moronic congressmen trying to pass stupid, pointless crap as the nation sinks in it's own crap. I HATE the people that run our government. They have NO common sense and are out only for themselve. If they were all to die and we had to start over from scratch I would throw a party.

Stupid shit like this make Democrats look lame

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I'm a progressive liberal minded person but dumb shit like this makes Democrats look like fucking out of touch assholes.

We dont need a label on a videogame. It's not cancer... get the fuck over it. GET TO WORK ON UNIVERSAL MEDICARE FOR ALL ASSHOLE.

No wonder

[Dyinobal]

He's a Californian Congressman, it seems lately that entire state has a hard on for video games.

Perhaps this could be put to better use on C-Span

[grapeape]

Do any major game companies not support ESRB? ESRP ratings already list why they are rated whatever they are rated in fact its not just for teen and up titles. As for adding a warning that video games lead to aggression is absurd, participation in sports can "lead to aggression" should football helmets have the warning too. Driving on the highway has been shown to cause aggression in some people, perhaps we need the warning on cars as well. Hell politicians tend to piss me off more often than not...perhaps that warning should scroll across the bottom of c-span.

If you look at something interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.paulspoerry.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/videogameviolencechart.jpg

Granted, this is circumstantial, but I'm betting it's more evidence than they have.

So World of Warcraft would carry this label . . .

[TheReij]

I'm not sure that I'd classify WoW as a violent video game. Here's some other games that would be required to carry this label (taken from the ESRB website:

Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 1: It's About Time
The Sims 3
Full House Poker
Magic: The Gathering - Tactics
Scrabble Tour
Test Drive Unlimited 2


How about Congress let the ESRB do it's job. Compared to similar rating boards, it's a pretty decent one IMO. At least we're not in Austrailia (sorry Aussies, your ratings system is overly opressive!)

Digitally sold games too?

[slyrat]

I'm curious if there is anything in the legislation concerning non-physical copies of games. It would become a bit odd if warning labels started showing up in steam/gog/etc.

What about books?

[MobyDisk]

Perhaps this law should also apply to books. Books containing violence, homosexual behavior, etc should have similar warning labels. For example, "The Catcher in the Rye" has been linked to two famous political assassins, so perhaps readers should be informed. And The Bible would be X-rated if there was a book rating system at all.

Now that I think about it, perhaps ideas should be rated and labeled too. Ideas can be a poison, leading to violence. But how can we label ideas? Do we need to label people? How can we make this work?

(No, this post is not to be taken literally)

Sports Equipment

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is a great idea. We should also start throwing these labels on all movies rated PG-13 and above, music that has harsh tones, violent novels and graphic novels, violent posters or pictures, and of course most sports equipment. Actually, perhaps there should be warning labels on kids sports equipment that mentions the link between kids playing sports and psychotic parents that attack each other during games.

You know I'm fine with this

[bjorniac]

I'm totally OK with this. Just so long as they post the same notice on the Bible/Torah/Qu'ran/Insert religious script here. After all, so many wars/acts of terrorism have been done based on the words in these books (or their interpretations).

Also all sports games. Fights break out, even at little league games. So we'd better put warnings there.

Or we could grow up and stop using such cowardly words as 'linked' - anyone can 'link' any two random things without any evidence. For cigarettes there were causal studies and medical evidence of the effects before the warning labels went on. We should hold everything to the same standards - either anecdotal crap will suffice and we can 'link' any two things we choose, or we can have research done by psychologists/sociologist and actually prove things before we do this crap.

As I keep saying...

[Moraelin]

As I keep saying, if people just imitated what they see on the screen, then a chunk of those who grew up with PacMan would be popping pills in the dark to the sound of repetitive music... err... wait a minute ;)

congressmen need to work

[Anonymous Coward]

congressmen need to work on something more productive then worrying about video games, like maybe the budget, public education, net neutrality or most anything would be a better way to spend the tax payers money then working on putting yet another label on a package that parents aren't going to look at...way to go

gaming 2011 style

[ciabs]

The game is this. While you dummies are playing games, your being gamed. While your busy clicking that mouse, the banksters are stealing your fucking house. This congressman is a dick, and I am sick of hearing his fucking name on c-span. I am sick of hearing all these dick's and whore's name on c-span, every fucking (D) and (R) must be tossed out in 2012. Get the fuck out of group think, and think for yourselves! Go research who the fuck has foreign interests and corporate interests, toss all that political advertisement shit in your mail box into the garbage (since your fireplace is now gone along with your "wet ink" loan paperwork) This dick won't go after banksters for screwing the monetary system over. Video game labels are more important. This dick won't go after the jp morgue for fucking veterans mortgages. Video game labels are more important. This dick won't go after fraudulent mortgage paperwork. Video game labels are more important. This dick won't go after BP. Video game labels are more important. MOtherfuckers could be starving in the streets, but this dick thinks Video game labels are more important.

Aggressive == Less Passive

[HTH NE1]

"Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior."

Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to reduced passive behavior and a greater likelihood of standing up for yourself and the rights of yourself and others.

E.g.: witnessing a terrorist act on an airplane has lead to a reduced likelihood of cowing to the demands of terrorists hijacking airplanes.

So a new scare will come by

[Moraelin]

So a new scare will come by.

See, the original scare of something that's turning children into delinquents was... comic books. Nowadays we'd probably laugh and say it causes at most keeping one's virginity, but in 1954 Fredric Wertham made a whole book out of and massaging dubious anecdotes and flawed logic into "proof" that kids imitate every all those antisocial acts from comic books. Some not even as much actually having anecdotes to show any link, but just reproducing gruesome comic-book panels out of context and providing his own hand-waving that basically you just know that a kid seeing something like that will become some kind of monster.

Or using his own kind of freudian divination to argue that there are hidden sexual images in there. Basically that if you squint just right at a drawing of a tree, you can get a pareidolia kinda of seeing a naked woman in the bark pattern. (And puritan America being still scared shitless that a kid seeing a boob will be the end of the world, you can imagine how much worse that was in 1954.)

And he was a psychiatrist, so if he said something about how the brain works, a lot were only too ready to swallow it without any other evidence or clinical data. Especially if he said what they wanted to hear.

He went even in front of a congressional committee, and actually got those whipped up in a frenzy too.

The comic industry crippled itself with a code of what it can show and what not, and of course America was free of crime ever after and kids grew up upstraight. I kid. Obviosly it made no difference whatsoever.

Not that it made a dent in Wertham's claim, since to him the code was just not enough. And apparently anything short of stopping printing anything even remotely violent would be enough.

After that it's been "satanic" rock music, often supposedly in the form of hidden messages you can hear only when playing it backwards. Never mind that there still is no evidence that the brain can decode such messages at all without actually playing the record backwards. But supposedly makes kids kill, rape and commit suicide anyway.

And then D&D. Now that was a big piece of bullshit. Though it spawned such mildly amusing stupidities as that Chick tract where kids actually get taught real spells when their char gets to a certain level. Yeah, right.

And violent TV shows. And god knows what else.

Video games are just one in such a long list of bullshit scares about the next generation.

So if I'm to take a prediction, when generation Y firmly takes over the world and stops giving two shits about violent games making people evil... it'll promptly get scared shitless about some new thing that generation Z does.

News and Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Tomorrows headline: Watching the news and CSPAN has been linked to higher rates of lying!

The idea that video games are responsible for my (or anyone else's) behavior is ridiculous! You are the only one who can control you. It is truly a weak and thoughtless move to support the idea behind this legislation...

I see a rise in sales of T rated and above games.

[lordmage]

Anyone remember the PMRC? They are responsible for putting warning labels on CD's. They also were responsible for the huge rise in sales of Warning Labeled CD's.

Only based on rating?

[LocalH]

Wow, I read this, and it says nothing about actual content, only the rating that the ESRB gives a game. That means we're going to see violent video game warnings and labels on fucking GUITAR HERO and ROCK BAND games. What the fuck? Text of the bill:

A BILL

To require certain warning labels to be placed on video games that are given certain ratings due to violent content.

        Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION REGULATION.

        (a) Regulation- Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Consumer Product Safety Commission shall promulgate regulations to require the warning label described in subsection (b) to be placed on the packaging of any video game that is rated T (Teen) or higher by the Electronics Software Ratings Board.

        (b) Warning Label Content- The warning label required under a regulation issued under subsection (a) shall be placed in a clear and conspicuous location on the packaging of the applicable video game and shall state: `WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.'.

        (c) Video Game Defined- As used in this Act, the term `video game' means any product, whether distributed electronically or through a tangible device, consisting of data, programs, routines, instructions, applications, symbolic languages, or similar electronic information (collectively referred to as `software') that controls the operation of a computer or telecommunication device and that enables a user to interact with a computer controlled virtual environment for entertainment purposes.

Re:Only based on rating?

[Korin43]

Well, since the ESRB isn't a government organization, they could just remove the rating of "T" (or redefine it to be the highest rating) and make a new one to replace it..

Re:the NASCAR rule

[DocSavage64109]

That is the best suggestion ever. I wonder how we could get this implemented.

Fine...

[jmerlin]

So long as every alcoholic beverage comes with a clear indication of its effects as well. Including loss of inhibitions, self restraint (leading to violence including brutal fights), judgement, motor ability, visual acuity, etc. The list is impressively long, so perhaps a pamphlet should be distributed that requires that you read all the way to the end then click 'I Agree' before you can drink.

Hilarious how something like Alcohol bears no warning to its effects but a video game must claim "warning: simulated violence is linked to violent behaviors." Hilarious, really. Hilarious. Fucking morons.

Re:Fine...

[kramerd]

Alcohol does contain a warning - that pregnant women shouldn't drink and that alcohol use should not be combined with operation of a motor vehicle and that long term use of alcohol may cause health problems.

People are quite aware that alcohol leads to a loss of inhibitions and self-restraint; that is why they drink in the first place.

Cars

[ildon]

Cars need giant warnings painted on the driver's side door about the dangers of driving. And there should be a huge penalty for painting over or removing the warning after you buy it. They kill a fuckload more people than "simulated violence" does.

When will they learn

[tsman]

more waste of taxpayer's money...and nothing new http://tbchq.org/forums/index.php/topic,2768.0.html (previously posted on Slashdot.org)

Final Fantasy 7

[euroq]

Does anyone remember the Columbine shootings, and that the news reported that the killers were known to play violent video games such as Final Fantasy 7?

HA! For the 5% of you who don't know what that is, FF7 is a fantasy game and it's laughable to be described as violent.

So even if there is some study testing relationship between violent video games and violent behavior, how are we to know how to describe the "violent" in a violent video game?

This will help sales

[Chewbacon]

You just gave children and adults alike the best reason to buy these games. When legislation passed to print "Explicit lyrics" on records, Twisted Sister were ecstatic because they knew kids would want the profane album. As Denis Leary said about the cigarette warning label: they could make a black pack with a skull and crossbones, call them Tumors and people would line up around the block to buy them.

Isn't the opposite true?

[Anonymous Coward]

It should say, "Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has ABSOLUTELY NO CORRELATION to aggressive behavior." Violent people may be attracted to violent video games, but just because you play violent video games doesn't mean you're violent.

Re: Causality

[Sockatume]

Having an effect which scales with exposure to something is usually considered one of the preliminary signs of a cause-effect relationship between the effect and the suspected cause. The others are an appropriate time sequence and that sacred gold standard, direct interventional research. At any rate, the looseness of the research is part of the point I was trying to make.

The Sixties crew IS in power...

[fuzznutz]

Just remember: Those people who were 18 years old in 1969, the summer of love, will be 60 this year. Obama was born in 1961. People in power who looked the other way at illegal wiretaps, are old enough to remember COINTELPRO. George W Bush ducked the Vietnam War only to start one in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. Our government representatives ought to remember My Lai and the bombing of Cambodia, but never batted an eye at Abu Ghraib and extraordinary rendition. The generation of hippies and flower children are the ones who want to touch your junk in airports in the name of safety. The "counterculture" wants to keep you from flying on airplanes just because your parents chose your name poorly.

I find it almost humorous that the generation that wanted us to turn on, tune in, and drop out and the most autocratic, dictatorial, and fascist of all. But that's okay, because it's for our own good and safety...