Senior Game Designer Talks About Game Violence, Real Violence, and Lead (Video)

William Volk may not be the world's oldest game designer, but he's up there. He started out as a play tester for Avalon Hill in 1979, and since then has worked for Activision and other major players in the game space. His current job is with PlayScreen, where he's working on their Word Carnivale iOS game, which is not violent at all. But over the years Volk has worked on slightly violent video games and has watched public outcries over video game violence since 1976. He's also tracked how much less violence we've seen since lead was removed from gasoline. (Editorial interjection: Aren't most remaining pockets of massive gun violence in cities where many poor kids grow up in apartments that have lead paint?) Due to technical problems during the interview, some of the conversation is missing, primarily about the recent spate of multiple murders. It seems, for instance, that Newtown shooter Adam Lanza was heavily into violent video games, which is sure to spark plenty of new discussion about how they affect players. But then again, as Volk reminded me in an email, "If people were influenced by video games, a majority of Facebook users would be farmers by now," a meme that has been floating around Facebook since last year, if not earlier.

Comments

It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Anonymous Coward]

It's abortions and stronger morals that have allowed this reduction in violence.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Anonymous Coward]

I 100% agree, if people would keep aborting children they are not ready for instead of having them anyway and then just ignoring them I bet a lot of problems would go away.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[RazorSharp]

It's abortions and stronger morals that have allowed this reduction in violence.

This is much more likely than the lead theory, but you should include some evidence to back it up

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Anonymous Coward]

And to curb the the violence in inner cities, perhaps we could put birth control in their drinking water.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's abortions and stronger morals that have allowed this reduction in violence.

How exactly does one measure the strength of morals at a population level?

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[h4rr4r]

I would imagine crime rates would be one direct measure.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Hatta]

Why would you imagine that? There are crimes, e.g., pot smoking, that have no connection to morality whatsoever. And there are crimes, e.g., those commited by bankers, that are deeply immoral but never get prosecuted so they can never affect measured crime rates.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Hatta]

It's probably video games themselves that have contributed to the decrease in violence. Those who are prone to violence are attracted to violent media and this keeps them off the streets where violence is more likely to occur.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[X0563511]

This is much more likely than the lead theory

What makes you say that? I note you yourself fail to back that statement up, instead trying to piggy-back it on a link that has nothing to do with it.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[jythie]

I use a spring scale personally.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[cayenne8]

Take a look at the excellent documentary, Freakanomics...it has a pretty interesting explanation of this theory that the drop in violent crime over the years seems to coincide with the legalization of abortions.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[h4rr4r]

I mean the crimes that reflect this morality.
Yes some crimes are not immoral and some are more immoral than others.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[westlake]

It's probably video games themselves that have contributed to the decrease in violence. Those who are prone to violence are attracted to violent media and this keeps them off the streets where violence is more likely to occur.

Violence is often rightly associated with the adolescent male.

He'll watch the video or play the game, but he is far too restive to remain indoors.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Anonymous Coward]

So apparently video games are highly addictive and people will play them and play them and not do anything else, but at the same time they'll go outside. Something's not adding up.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[RazorSharp]

I say that because there's little evidence to support the lead theory aside from a correlation that abortions also share. The difference is, the abortion theory is backed up by much more statistical evidence and even a control group (Romania banned abortions about the same time the U.S. legalized them -- crime in Romania skyrocketed about 15-20 years later and crime in the U.S. plummeted). The linked article explains this, which is why it has everything to do with the topic at hand. The research was done by Steven Levitt and published in a paper. He also wrote about it in the book Freakonomics. The documentary the poster above me mentions is based off this book.

My criticism of the original poster was that he didn't cite Levitt or Donohue, not that he didn't elaborate enough.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[nitehawk214]

Then what's the issue with alcohol?

I keep running out of it.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[ShanghaiBill]

... the drop in violent crime over the years seems to coincide with the legalization of abortions.

Furthermore, a number of states legalized abortion prior to the 1973 Roe-vs-Wade decision that legalized it throughout the USA, and their crime rates began to drop earlier than the states that legalized it later.

But the lead theory has some strong evidence as well, and is probably a contributing factor. The CDC has found a strong correlation between blood lead levels and poverty, and between lead and low IQ. Low IQ is very strongly correlated with being convicted of a crime, especially violent crime.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[tnk1]

You could argue, in a socialized health care system, that the optional damage to your own lungs is morally wrong, since you increase health costs for everyone so that you can maintain your otherwise pointless habit.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[h4rr4r]

Since when is it?
I drink it all the time, I don't generally do immoral things.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[cayenne8]

You're looking at only two specific citties...and let's face it..Chicago has LOTS of problems and factors into all of this....

I think the abortion thing was a trend in lowering violence of the US in total....of course you can pinpoint some exceptions to this, but in general from what I've seen, the numbers add up for the US in total.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Fwipp]

A high abortion rate is indicative of widespread poverty, which is correlated with violent crime. Abortions don't cause poverty.

For a proper comparison, you should compare identical cities before and after legalizing abortion - which, in fact, is what the book you disparage does.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[h4rr4r]

Sure getting hammered in public is immoral, but I don't consider having a beer immoral. I flat out do not trust non-drinkers. Recreational use of these sorts of things is a normal human activity.

The only reason alcohol cannot be outlawed is because it would never pass. We tried and it repealed it.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Hatta]

By that argument, football, motorcycle riding, or hell, failing to put on sunscreen would also be immoral.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[mosb1000]

Except that we know lead exposure in children causes behavioral problems and has lasting physical and psychological effects.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Hatta]

Granted, this may be part of my lapsed Catholic upbringing, but I was under the impression drinking was considered morally wrong

They may have considered it such, but they were wrong. Not only wrong, but by judging people by the way they have fun they are themselves immoral. Moralizing is immoral. Live and let live.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[cayenne8]

I disagree with your conclusions, and point out that your scope is much smaller than mine, and if you look at the scope of my assertion, there is a reasonable assumption there is a correlation of the data.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[desdinova 216]

I think it's reasonable to presume that video games have helped to reduce violence,

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[prelelat]

I don't know, that only points out that their does seem to be other factors involved in the crime rate. I would there for be curious to know what the rate between two cities with similar social economic standards and similar differences between abortion rates would like. You can't really take two cases and directly compare them without excluding subject with other major factors.

Phoenix residents can carry concealed weapons without a permit. Chicago currently doesn't(though the law was tossed and Illinois has 6 months to re-write the law and they will. Does that affect the numbers?

Phoenix has an unemployment rate of 6.7
Chicago has an unemployment rate of 8.6
source: http://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laulrgma.htm
would this affect the numbers?

I don't know if abortions affect crime levels I can see the point in the assumption but taking only two cities in one country that have very different demographics and comparing them is seriously flawed. You have to exclude all the other variables in the sample and have a larger sample size or your statistics are going to get hammered.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Hatta]

As such, this would include second-hand smoke, impaired (or delayed) mental function where concentration is required (such as driving), or other activities which may end up requiring an undue amount of compensation from society to balance out

True, but you have to apply the same analysis to all recreational activities. If you're going to ban Cannabis because it's dangerous, you have to ban all other recreations which are more dangerous than Cannabis. Turns out Cannabis is one of the safest recreations, you're more likely to cause long term brain injury by playing football than smoking cannabis.

I start to wonder if the person isn't compensating for a fundamental life issue that is causing them undue stress that needs to be dealt with.

Possibly, but that's their business and you should mind your own.

i simply thought that sobriety was a trait held in high esteem by society in general, along with kindness, charity, and goodwill.

No, not really. A kind drunk is far preferable to a judgmental teetotaler. Kindness is in itself a virtue. Sobriety is at best loosely associated with virtue.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[tnk1]

By that argument, football, motorcycle riding, or hell, failing to put on sunscreen would also be immoral.

Yes, it would. There may be a limit on how realistic a legal ban could be, but I can very easily imagine a society that considers football to be brutish and immoral, motorcycle riding to be insanely irresponsible, and failing to put on sunscreen to produce an extremely unfashionable tan, just like it was in the 18th Century and before, when tan people were those poor people who actually had to work outside.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[tnk1]

Since drinking alcohol was the only way of getting something clean to drink at many times in the past, simply drinking alcohol itself has only recently, by itself, been considered immoral and then mostly by Protestant fundamentalists.

Indeed it is strange that someone with a Catholic upbringing of any kind would find any particular immorality in drinking since it is part of the Catholic mass ritual.

Of course, overdoing it and losing control has always been an issue, but that's very different.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[SternisheFan]

I think it's reasonable to presume that video games have helped to reduce violence,

Reading this story's transcript, Mr Volk tends to lean towards your view. He does note that violent crime has actually decreased from the time that lead was removed from gasoline. Also it's around the time of the first 'violent' video game, when he created "Beserk"...

Robin Miller: Tell me this, which nobody has successfully answered: Are video games causing the violence or is it just that some of the violent people are attracted to the violent video games?

William Volk: Yeah, the answer to that is yes. What I mean by that is, yeah, it is possible that some of these people are influenced by video games, but generally the reason why these people may have played video games is because they are interested in violence in general. You know, they are into what they are into, and video games are there. It may be found when they do the studies. I hope they look into this, when they do the studies that has been recommended, they may find that video games actually reduce violence because they allow people to blow off steam that they normally wouldn’t have a way of doing so.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[RazorSharp]

I'm not disagreeing with the fact that exposure to lead does terrible things to one's brain. I just have yet to see evidence that it has a causal relationship with the overall crime rate. Levitt's research concerning abortion is extremely thorough and convincing. It certainly convinced me.

When it comes to lead and the 'article' (quotations b/c it's barely 100 words) cited, the only statistical factors taken into account are lead in gasoline, lead in people, and crime. While I think the correlation between lead in gasoline and lead in people is definitely a case of causality for obvious reasons, I don't see how that extends to crime.

Notice how levels of lead in people and levels of lead in gasoline go down together. If they were to overlay the crime rate on that graph it would certainly weaken the assertion -- during the entirety of that graph crime escalated and continued to do so until the mid/late 90s, when all of a sudden it dropped. What happened? Less unwanted children were born - when the post Roe vs. Wade children grew of age, that's when the crime rate plummeted. It was a sharp and direct fall in crime whereas the levels of lead in people diminished slowly.

That's not to say that removing lead from our society didn't have hugely positive effects. It certainly did. But to suggest that the out of control crime of the 80s and 90s was the result of lead is just absurd. The vast majority of these crimes were committed by people born into poverty, unwanted by their parents, and after Roe vs. Wade significantly less people were born into poverty, and even less people were born unwanted by the parents. You may be able to find individual cases here and there where highly elevated lead levels in a child caused extreme mental impairment which led to them becoming criminals later in life, but I sincerely doubt this is what drove most people to crime.

Remember, before lead became highly controlled, aristocrats lived in houses with the same type of lead paint poor people did. But the poor, throughout history, regardless of whether there was lead or not, have committed more crimes than those well off. The poor are much more likely to have abortions. Being poor is the number one distinguishing factor that most criminals have in common.

Also, keep in mind that Levitt's research used Romania as a control group. This cannot be stressed enough. Even if there is evidence to support the lead theory, there is no way to create a control group (ethically) to validate that evidence. Levitt lucked into Romania banning abortions about the same time America legalized them. Maybe if you can convince the Chinese to give you crime statistics around factors that expose their workers to lead and crime statics around factories that don't expose their workers to lead (assuming they are similar socio-economically), then you might be able to build a case. I don't see that happening.

I highly recommend you read Levitt's work. Not only is it eye opening, it's also extremely interesting.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[mosb1000]

There would be a lag between falling levels of lead in peoples blood and a drop in violent crime if lead were the cause of violent crime as well. That's because lead affects the developing brains of children much more than the brains of adults.

As far as the use of Romania as a control, I don't think it's reasonable to assert that you could have an actual control in this case. Using a control implies that your test and your control are identical, and that you are only changing one variable in the test. This is not the case. Romania and the US have had very different things going on since Roe v. Wade. Moreover, it's not a control if you changing the variable in question. A control would be a state that prohibited abortion before, and continued to do so afterward.

Levels of poverty have not decreased in that time period, so it is not reasonable to conclude that having fewer poor people is causing the crime rate to fall. It's only the effects of children being "unwanted" which are in question here, and that happens in the wealthy as well as the poor. If the rate of abortions among the wealthy are lower, I would suggest that it's because they are more able to conceal their abortions than anything. I would also suggest that the lower crime rate among the rich probably has more to do with police selectively enforcing laws than anything else.

I tend to question the usefulness of these large statistical analyses. It is unlikely that we know all the factors involved in crime, but there are certainly more than just lead and abortion. The "war on drugs," for example, has certainly contributed. Also, the cultural revolution of the 60's winding down may have had an effect. Increased diagnosis of mental disorders like ADHD and Autism may be having an effect. It's fun to say they've controlled for all the variables, but it's also impossible because we just don't know.

In any case, we know that lead exposure can lead to problems, so we stopped putting it in our gasoline. And I doubt we'll be banning abortion anytime soon. The real question is what can we do to bring down the crime rate further, assuming we still feel it is unacceptably high.

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[Ginger Unicorn]

Did you fall down an open manhole at the end of that sentence?

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[RazorSharp]

I don't think you're understanding the analysis of the data. I did take in account that lead affects children much more than adults -- my argument was that there would be the same 15-20 year lag before the effects could be reflected in crime statistics. The thing is, once that 15-20 year time is accounted for, one would assume that crime would gradually fall as lead removable was a gradual process. Legalized abortion, however, was immediate. And the dip in the crime rate was sharp, and immediate, in that 15-20 years after Roe v. Wade.

I too question the validity of most large statistical analyses, especially when one is attempting to draw conclusions about society. But Levitt and Donohue are extremely thorough in their research and they do analyze many of your concerns. At this point, to address most of your retorts, I would just be quoting their research.

Here is the full paper, you should find it interesting.

You'll notice that, as you should have concluded from my post above, that it's not just a matter of being poor. It's not just a matter of being unwanted. It's when those two problems overlap that a child becomes destined for a life of crime. Wealthy people have less abortions because 1) they can afford birth control/contraceptives 2) they tend to be more intelligent. Police corruption and selective enforcement is an issue, but we're talking about things like murder and assault. I don't think I need to pull up any statistics for you to believe that murder and assault occur on a much smaller scale among the wealthy than the poor.

Remember, the argument isn't that legalized abortion is the only factor responsible in reducing the crime rate. The argument is that legalized abortion was responsible for the massive dip in the crime rate during the 90s. Some of the ideas you mentioned can be dismissed off-hand. The 'war on drugs' was the cause of much violence violent crime and has been deemed a failure by anyone with half a brain, the winding down of the 60s cultural revolution can be dismissed because (and I probably should have specified) we're mainly looking at violent crime, not just crime (although both decreased, violent crime was deemed the more important statistic). It's questionable whether ADHD is a real mental disorder, and I haven't seen any indication that those diagnosed with either ADHD or autism commit violent crimes at a higher rate than anyone else.

The real question is what can we do to bring down the crime rate further, assuming we still feel it is unacceptably high.

It will remain an unanswered question if we reject the best explanations for crime with the most evidence because they're not politically correct or, in your case, because we make the claim that these things are unknowable. The problem with statistics is that they are often used without taking enough variables into account -- such as the lead/crime correlation. When they are used comprehensively, as in Levitt and Donohue's research, they can be enlightening.

False equivalence

[Anonymous Coward]

Farmville does not realistically represent the manual labor or complexity of farming in the slightest, whereas FPSes compete with each other to include the most gore.

(Granted, the gore isn't realistic either but, if anything, it's exaggerated for dramatic purposes.)

Re:False equivalence

[alen]

by your definition neither does call of duty

read most accounts of war and firefights take hours compared to seconds on the consoles. you lay down covering fire and have maneuver elements. you call in air and artillery. you find good fighting positions and use cover to stay alive and move around. unlike cod where all you do is move in a straight line to play the level

Re:False equivalence

[chill]

America's Army would be a better comparison than CoD.

Re:False equivalence

[alen]

nope

american soldiers are smarter than to fire at an enemy in an unprotected position. that's why our casualties are so much lower than everyone else's

look at any photo or youtube video and the americans are always firing from cover. the enemy is almost always in the middle of a field or the street in the open firing from the hip and playing rambo.

Re:False equivalence

[ogar572]

There are a few things you forgot to mention while comparing to cod 1. You dont see soliders jumping around like kangaroos to avoid being shot 2. Waiting 10 seconds doesnt automatically put you back to full health. 3. The main rifle can have more that 2 attachments 4. And the most important, once you die, you aren't respawning.

Re:False equivalence

[Westwood0720]

America's Army would be a better comparison than CoD.

There no game out there that can compare to that of real warfare. None.

Re:False equivalence

[lgw]

The US Army actually did a lot of research on this, somewhat associated with funding/making the America's Army game. They found almost nothing from FPS games carries over to real combat, but there were a couple of exceptions.

At the individual gamer level: paying attention to how much ammo is left in your clip. That's it. Not quite nothing, but close.

At the team level: small teams that take the game seriously (like CS players who play for money) do learn some of the team dynamics important to modern urban combat, such as the importance of communication and acting as a group (when moving or clearing a room or etc). Basic stuff, but important (but most gamers don't play that way).

Re:False equivalence

[frosty_tsm]

3. The main rifle can have more that 2 attachments

And jacketed rounds aren't an "attachment" (upgrade); they are a requirement from the Geneva Convention.

Re:False equivalence

[tnk1]

Even in something like an MMO like WoW, which is about as far from realistic combat as you can get, you can learn quickly as a raiding guild that the guys who work together, do what they are supposed to do, communicate, and don't waste time are also the guys who finish the instances sooner and actually spend *less* time overall rather than more time trying to kill bosses.

Re:False equivalence

[jxander]

Gore, maybe ... but an actual firefight? I've yet to see a video game reproduce that.

How about a real wartime scenario videogame? Trying to catch whatever few hours of sleep you can, in a hole you dug ... walking around with a metric fuckton of gear strapped to your ass. Setting up camp, burning barrels of poo, MREs, sand in your everywhere ... oh, and no respawning. That game would just FLY off the shelves, ya?

Re:False equivalence

[alexander_686]

A bit off topic but Back in the 90s I was talking with some 1st year Naval cadets at Annapolis.

They were discouraged from playing any commercial available military war game – with the exception of Harpoon. The feeling was that the cadets would subconsciously pick up on biases in the game. (i.e. relative strengths of various ships.) And because they were 1st year they could not play the military simulators because that had classified data.

Re:False equivalence

[chill]

My father was stationed in Annapolis in the early 1980s. I was a freshman in High School. I remember joining their war gaming club and playing Napoleonics and other miniatures war games. It was a blast, and you learned a LOT about historical warfare.

All the games were played with detailed miniatures, fine gradient rulers for measuring distances and angles, and dice.

Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Most homes in New England (especially in Northern New England: New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine) have lead paint. Yet, New England (and especially Northern New England) has some of the lowest levels of violence in the USA.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[h4rr4r]

Lead Paint is pretty sketchy sounding anyway, most folks don't eat paint chips. Lead in gas however you have no choice to not breathe.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[jklovanc]

Having lead paint around is not an issue. The problem occurs when the paint is not maintained and chips off where it is easily ingested by children. Perhaps the standards of maintenance are better in New England.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[jjsimp]

...Yet, New England (and especially Northern New England) has some of the lowest levels of violence in the USA.

probably due to the prolonged winters. Hard to kill someone when there is three feet of snow blocking you in.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[CaroKann]

I can imagine kids eating paint chips. However, from what I've heard, it's not so much the paint chips as it is the dust from deteriorating paint. Have you ever run your finger along a dirty windowsill? A lot of that is not just regular dust and dirt, it also contains paint dust.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[Medievalist]

Having lead paint around is not an issue. The problem occurs when the paint is not maintained and chips off where it is easily ingested by children.

Yep. And crime already correlates incredibly strongly with poverty (go figure!) so it's hard to separate the effects of poverty from the effects of the heavily polluted, badly maintained environments the poor often inhabit. It's probably even harder to sort out when the poor live in close proximity to crime targets; poverty-stricken inner-city youth live near stores and wealthier people, whereas subsistence farmers in less polluted environments usually live prohibitively far from any large number of easy crime targets.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[SirGarlon]

Yes, but there are laws in place to mitigate the impact of lead paint. I live in Massachusetts, where landlords are required to remove lead paint from a rental dwelling if the tenants have a child under age 6.

I have two things to say about this. One, it's a burdensome regulation that disinclines me to invest in rental properties in Massachusetts. Two, it probably works as a public-health measure.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[Westwood0720]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that our open carry laws contribute more to low level of violence instead of the lead paint. =]

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[Knuckles]

One, it's a burdensome regulation that disinclines me to invest in rental properties in Massachusetts.

I can only see this as a good thing.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[Bob the Super Hamste]

It seems to work up here in Minnesota but slightly different. People don't want to go out and commit crime when it is 20 below out side yet the first nice weekend there is always a spike in crime.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[WilliamVolk]

It was lead in gasoline I was referring to...

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[Medievalist]

Mr.Volk, what a pleasure to hear from you directly! I wonder, did you know John Huff when you both worked at Avalon Hill?

I've been following the science connecting tetraethyl lead exposure to crime rates; I've found the papers written on the subject in the last ten years have presented extremely compelling data. Like you, I'm a believer.

Lead paint's just as harmful, but it's harder to track, and lead paint poisoning tends to be more concentrated among the poor because the paint isn't maintained in poorer quarters. My house is a converted 19th century factory, so I have plenty of lead paint, but I can afford to deal with it - and I do, at considerable expense. When the lead paint flakes start coming off the ceiling like drifting snow, you generally have to painstakingly scrape it and trap the debris, or screw up drywall to encapsulate it. If you paint over it, it just comes down in sheets instead of flakes.

Re:Lead Paint Theory is Flawed

[WilliamVolk]

Don't remember John. The computer game division didn't get to meet with the board game folks that much.

Matter of Perspective

[UnknownSoldier]

One thing that is important is to keep in mind is perspective:

The millions murdered in World War 1 & 2 never played video games.

So I'm not sure ready to jump on the "video games == violence" bandwagon; no doubt "video game violence" and the "causation vs correlation" will be debated till the end of time so I did my own experiment. As both a game programmer and designer I have found that when take a month long break from gaming I have found that my mind is significantly calmer. I have also done experiment with Aikido, meditation and yoga (found Aikido to be very interesting, meditation to largely be a waste of time, and found yoga to be extremely helpful.) Gaming with my online buddies is also a great stress reliever since we're almost all 40+, can joke around with each other, have fun cooperating, and don't have to worry about the typical bullshit drama. I would wager to bet that we all find it therapeutic after a long day at the office. The point of all this is that each person needs to find out what works for them. i.e. Listen to a new genre of music and keep a log of how it effects you, etc.

Since the human brain is at least a threefold structure ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain ) I wouldn't be at least bit surprised if the reptilian complex ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_ganglia ) is responsible for some of the inherent violence in men. A civilized person doesn't want to beat the living crap out of another person -- yet our species is "entertained" by such mindless violence -- one has to wonder if it isn't deeply ingrained in our genetics.

--
Only cowards use censorship.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[Algae_94]

The millions murdered in World War 1 & 2 never played video games.

And I'd wager most of those people didn't want any of the violence of that war.

As an aside, the killing of enemy soldiers during an active war is not usually referred to as murder.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[westlake]

The millions murdered in World War 1 & 2 never played video games.

An interesting example of a statement that is demonstrably true but utterly meaningless.

Para-military training and open field war games for young boys began at around age ten or so in Nazi Germany.

You joined in the games and played to win or else.

There were no video games, of course, But an abundance of violently anti-Semitic board games, books, films, radio programming and classroom exercises targeting all ages,

Re:Matter of Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are so intimidated by violence that they do not want there to be any form of it anywhere, fanciful or otherwise. Their claim that video game violence causes real violence is just justification for their real motivation, which is to ban violence in video games (for everyone) simply because it makes them feel uneasy.

This is very common among humans:

1) something intimidates them.
2) they come up with some arbitrary way of associating that with something bad.
3) they use the "something bad" to try and justify forcing all humans to stop doing the intimidating thing (whether it actually impacts anyone or not).

Oppression of homosexual rights has been subjected to this treatment for a very long time.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[jandersen]

The millions murdered in World War 1 & 2 never played video games.

What has that to do with anything? That's a bit like saying "my granddad smoked like a chimey and lived 'til he was 95, so smoking isn't unhealthy".

It is very difficult to prove that violent video games cause an increase in violence; as a point of interest, it is in fact even harder to disprove. It is not impossible, however, and we are slowly beginning to see something emerge, which looks a bit like proof.

A civilized person doesn't want to beat the living crap out of another person

And yet, one can not deny that the Nazi elite were in many respects very civilized. That apart, I don't think anger is the main driver of violence; lack of self-control is, and if you don't care about the wellbeing of others, you lack the motivation to even try. IMO, the biggest worry is that when you are more or less constantly immersed in violence as entertainment, you learn to be indifferent to suffering, and perhaps you then don't see the need to restrain yourself in a critical situation.

The media often try to link the big, spectacular massacres with eg vioelnt games; I don't think that is valid. A more likely explanation which I have heard recently, is that these persons suffer from narcissistic personality disorder: to a narcissist, other people are of no consequence - they alone are the centre of the universe, and they can get extremely upset and frustrated because nobody can see the truth in this. And a dramatic show of extreme violence is just their style, or so one could imagine.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[Talderas]

They're called collateral damage.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[omfglearntoplay]

Liking, tolerating, or doing violence is certainly part of human genetics. But I get aggravated when people point to the "reptile brain" approach. It seems a cop out. The truth of the matter is that humans are animals, and all animals have dealt with violence between other animals for all the history of animal life for survival. Humans have to use their ability to care for others, use logic over feelings, etc. to override the need to be violent to survive.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[CrimsonAvenger]

A civilized person doesn't want to beat the living crap out of another person

Whatever gave you that idea?

I've never known a "civilized person" who didn't want to beat the living crap out of another" at one time or another.

The real marker of a civilized person isn't that he doesn't want to beat the crap out of another, but that he overcomes the urge to do so....

Re:Matter of Perspective

[CrimsonAvenger]

As an aside, the killing of enemy soldiers during an active war is not usually referred to as murder.

Six million Jews.

More than half the Soviet casualties were civilians.

A large fraction of German and Japanese casualties were civilian (don't have the numbers to hand, don't want to look them up, but it's in the millions each).

Re:Matter of Perspective

[Algae_94]

I'm aware of those numbers, and I don't think " the killing of enemy soldiers during an active war" would include civilian deaths, or civilians that were victims of genocide. Those are clear cases of murder / war crimes.

The comment I was replying to referred to both World Wars and seemed to indicate that all deaths in those wars were murder. I was not trying to indicate that all deaths during those wars were justified by any means, but clearly many were. I don't believe US soldiers returning from war were charged with murder for their actions.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[jandersen]

I wouls like to believe that you had actually made the effort to read and understood what I wrote, but that clearly isn't the case.

Sadly, I see your kind of arguments all too often - you argue like an American fringe politician: you take whatever an opponent says and deliberately misinterpret it in the way that seems to cast the opponent in the worst light.

In this case you didn't even notice that I was arguing for the same side as you seem to favour, with the modification that I am willing to consider sound evidence. And that is the sound, scientific approach - you have to be open to the possibility that your opinion may be wrong. With your words you have demonstrated that your mind is closed, so what can you actually tell us about being scientific?

Re:Matter of Perspective

[UnknownSoldier]

>> The millions murdered in World War 1 & 2 never played video games.
> What has that to do with anything? That's a bit like saying "my granddad smoked like a chimey and lived 'til he was 95, so smoking isn't unhealthy

The point is, humans have been violent (fighting wars) since the beginning of time.

Making video-games a scapegoat (even if it is a factor) is nothing new.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[UnknownSoldier]

> I've never known a "civilized person" who didn't want to beat the living crap out of another" at one time or another.

Anger comes from a false belief system. The emotion is the symptom, not the cause.

> The real marker of a civilized person isn't that he doesn't want to beat the crap out of another, but that he overcomes the urge to do so....

That is the beginning of being enlightenment. When a person realizes there is no _need_ to.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[HornWumpus]

Fucking self righteous care bear.

Sometimes, someone just needs his ass kicked. He will be a better person for it.

The alternatives can be worse. Choose: 'Kick his ass' or 'Put him into the court system'. 'Kick his ass' isn't the universally correct answer, but nether is 'Put him into the court system'.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[UnknownSoldier]

You are under the fallacy of anger == violence.

    Only a spiritual retard uses (unprovoked) violence.

It would behoove you as a wise man to consider your 3 options:

  * Bring him up to your level -- if the animal (pseudo-man) is already attacking you then sadly this option is probably already ruled out,
  * Go down to his level -- you have the right to defend yourself from such animals -- the question then becomes: How MUCH violence is necessary to force the fool to stop?
  * Do nothing - if the idiot just wants your money, give him money, and the both of you can carry on. He is too [spiritually] stupid to realize he is hurting himself by robbing others.

What you are failing to comprehend is that you can "kick his ass" and NOT be angry. As soon as you are angry you have already lost self-control and that is half of the battle.

So get off your high horse.

--
Only cowards use censorship.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[HornWumpus]

Make up your mind.

Two posts ago you were claiming that 'That is the beginning of being enlightenment. When a person realizes there is no _need_ to.'

You are right about anger being an enemy if/when you have to fight. But this has never been about anger. This has been about 'appropriate violence'. Which is not incompatible with civilization or enlightenment (whatever that means).

You never rollover, it encourages the bastards. You don't get yourself killed, but in general; 'lose the fight, but hurt them' is better then 'give it up without a fight'. Bullies are usually chickenshit, especially if they are picking on the little guy/girl.

Being large, I ran into more of the 'find the big guy' and start a fight to prove something. I like to challenge them to pushhands, doesn't always work. All much less common now that I'm old.

That said there is something cathartic about beating the snot out of someone. Makes me feel better for a week, like going skiing. Too many repressed fight or flight moments, when you let the beast run free it feels good.

Re:Matter of Perspective

[UnknownSoldier]

> Make up your mind.

You're a big boy perfectly capable of understanding that there almost always exceptions for every rule. You're not a little kid who needs everything spelt out in black and white.

> You never rollover, it encourages the bastards

There are 2 words IMO that everyone should removed from their dictionary: 'never' and 'always' -- because there are almost always edge cases where the assumptions don't hold. There is a time to surrender, a time to fight going down dieing, to flee, to dig your heels in, and everything in between all the extremes.

> Being large, I ran into more of the 'find the big guy' and start a fight to prove something

In your case I would mostly agree with you -- if some little shit wants to pull the pseudo-alpha-male crap then one would be quite justified 'it is your obligation to put him in his place.' The difference is that you STILL have some choices. Even though they probably haven't given you any choice you need to consider your options: If they are civilized enough to understand reason then great; if not then you can only respond to him in the only manner they understand. The 3rd option would be to be aware of the situation BEFORE it escalates and leave. e.g. Why are you in a place that those types of events happen regularly? THAT is the point -- learning to recognize the patterns. i.e. Evaluating "Is it really necessary to teach this dumb-schmuck a lesson?" The answer is not a dualistic yes-no one, but a trinity: yes-no-maybe.

> something cathartic about beating the snot out of someone

That's the adrenaline rush. There are other safer methods (for everyone involved) that are even more powerful.

Anyone who wants to watch (or be involved) with 2 men beating the crap out of another I have to question "How does this bring you closer to your respecting yourself and your fellow man?"

Cause or Effect

[jklovanc]

Does playing violent games cause people to be violent in real life or do violent people in real life prefer to play violent games? In both cases there is a correlation but the cause and effect are reversed.

Re:Cause or Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

American WWI soldiers trained with bullseye targets, and in real life battle they were highly disinclined to fire their guns at human opponents. The army noticed this and began training soldiers using human shaped targets, and thus soldiers became more desensitived to firing on another human. Ramp up that desensitiving via todays realistic war games. Let a young person who hasn't developed a personal moral code play these games unsupervised for unlimited periods of time. You end up with one screwed up young person. Now add access to real weapons, and don't expect love and hugging.

Re:Cause or Effect

[tnk1]

I've been playing violent video games of one variety or another for a couple of decades now. I don't even own a gun, and I assure you, they certainly have not made me want to shoot anyone. I realize that the plural of anecdote is not data, but I know a lot of gamers, and none of them are particularly violent. Some need a lesson in being adults, but not in the sense that they kick their dogs, beat their girlfriends, and plan bloody retribution for slights.

I think the reason these killers are into these games is that *almost every young man* their age is into those games. Also, if you're already an antisocial personality with a persecution complex, gaming by yourself in your room is just something you would do to remain diverted. In other words, at worst it is merely a symptom of an existing condition.

Personally, I think that the very high level of media reporting on these issues is much more at fault than games are. With media reporting, these people see that these acts are actually possible AND that they will achieve notoriety by doing them. Also, they see that there is little anyone can do to stop them. The cops are no threat... all they can do is clean up the mess. Their arrival is usually just the shooter's cue to off themselves, if they haven't done that already. Consign these stories to media oblivion, and I bet you will find that the instances of this sort of media friendly massacre decreases substantially.

Re:Cause or Effect

[WilliamVolk]

Part of what got edited out was a discussion of video game use and violence in Japan etc.

Once again

[fustakrakich]

Talk to any marketing 'professional' about the effects of various forms propaganda on humans.

Not so sure.

[sunking2]

I'd be willing to bet $1 that there is at least one person out there that has tried to duplicate at least some part of their Farmville crop at home, even if it's buying a tomato plant. Why would the effect only be legitimate if a majority of people follow it?

Re:Not so sure.

[CannonballHead]

In general, we geek types don't argue against positive impacts of video games. We only cry foul when negative impacts are suggested.

(yes, I put "buying a tomato plant" in the "positive impact" category ;) )

Source for Lanza info: a tabloid

[Psyborgue]

They quote the Sun, as a source the Lanza played video games? Supposedly going off the word of a plumber who supposedly heard this from his mother? Why am I not surprised no other major news outlet has claimed this despite the fact the Sun published it's claims in mid December. Even if it were true, I'm willing to bed a significant portion of the younger generation has played CoD at one time or another. I have. I'm willing to bet they breathed air at some point or another. Are we to ban that?

Re:Source for Lanza info: a tabloid

[CannonballHead]

Because it's clearly a logical assumption that interactive media has the exact same neutral effect as breathing air... ?

I'm not one to argue that video game violence causes real life violence... but I see lots of "I bet they all ate bread, too!" type of retorts ... which don't seem to make sense. Interacting with a virtual reality sot of thing is pretty different from breathing air, and it seems illogical and silly to try to say they should be treated in the same way.

Do video games affect us? Yes, we know they do. Do they affect us negatively? That's the part that studies don't seem to know. I mean, using slashdot as an example; when stories come out about video games affecting us positively (e.g., increasing spacial awareness or increasing image recognition, or response times, or whatever) ... nobody complains and says "yeah, well, I bet they all breathed air, too, so clearly air also increases our spacial awareness!" ... because we realize that that would be a silly argument due to the inherent differences in activities. Playing a video game is remarkably different from breathing air. Or eating bread or drinking water. Or sleeping. Or putting your shoes on.

Re:Source for Lanza info: a tabloid

[Psyborgue]

Well. Maybe it's a bit silly to go so far as air, but how about this: obviously any media or art we consume, whether book, painting, tv, music, or video game, affects us in some way. Billions have been killed as a result of direct commands originating in violent books (ones we revere out of tradition and political correctness), yet nobody would dare ban them. We don't, because we realize that while a book can command a person to kill somebody, it cannot load the gun and pull the trigger. Yet the very same people who revere those violent books will have us believe that video games can do exactly that. It's throwing personal responsibility out the window. That's even avoiding the fact that religious books contain direct commands to commit violence and video games are very explicitly works of fiction.

Re:Source for Lanza info: a tabloid

[Firethorn]

Do video games affect us? Yes, we know they do. Do they affect us negatively? That's the part that studies don't seem to know.

There are some positives, some negatives with video games. What I do know is that we're a lot less violent than we used to be - to the point that video games, lead, etc... Are all insignificant compared to the decrease between the 15th and 20th centuries. And that's including the world wars.

In general, the research I've seen suggests that 'violent' media increases violent behavior in those under 6 for brief periods of time amongst inadequately supervised children, mostly due to imitation. For teenagers and adults, 'violent' media actually tends to cause the opposite reaction.

There are still people who are going to fixate upon something and use it as justification for their bad behavior.

Re:Source for Lanza info: a tabloid

[Creepy]

I was going to mention that - Ryan Lanza, Adam's brother, was supposedly obsessed with CoD and other military games and his facebook page was dedicated to them, and the press picked up on that first. Reportedly Adam Lanza was into strategic games such as Starcraft, which to me makes sense because that caters more to someone with Aspergers Syndrome (one step away from Autism). I would not take hearsay from a plumber as proof, as, for all we know, he may have seen the wrong kid.

The meme goes:

[i_ate_god]

If video games affected kids, then they would all be running around a dark room eating pills and listening to electronic music.

Unfortunately though, that happened. It was called the rave scene.

To all of the doubters of the lead theory

[greg_barton]

Here is a better article than the small blog post cited. Read the whole thing. The clincher for me was that when lead was removed from gasoline in different states at different times the reduction in violence in those areas tracked perfectly two decades later. Not only that, but the shape of the violence reduction data tracked well with the shape of the lead reduction data. (i.e. a fast phase out of lead resulted in a fast reduction of crime twenty years later.)

Re:To all of the doubters of the lead theory

[Zeromous]

While I agrree, (and read the same article) we must be careful to mind this as only an obvious contributing factor. It does not tell the whole story, though. There are so many inputs relating to violence it's hard to blame any one thing.

Those findings refer to a measurable and documented case of environment affecting/causing various neurosis. This is great. However does not prove that there are no other contributing factors. It would appear that videogame violence only heightens the risk of real violence in cases where these neurosis might exist or even as you say, be prevalent.

But, since this is immeasurable, we will continue debating the endless possibilities without concluding what is obvious to any civilized gamer. There will always be fear, uncertainty and doubt as long as complex systems such as violence amongst humans remains wholly immeasurable, no matter how many other convincing quantitative observations we can make from other potential causes/vectors.

Re:To all of the doubters of the lead theory

[greg_barton]

You can't prove a negative.

Anyway, you can argue all day that the waves aren't knocking your sand castle down, but after the tide comes in you look like a complete idiot. :)

Re:To all of the doubters of the lead theory

[Zeromous]

Indeed. Just pointing out there is a whole cottage insurance industry for "sand castles" that does not apply scientific method in any meaningful sense. My post only predicts that these morons are not going anywhere, so we're going to need more than 'leaded gasoline directly correlates to increased violence in nearly all cases enumerated' to make our point.

Video games/violence

[RazorSharp]

The video games/violence debate is extremely flawed from both angles. In this regard it reminds me of the nature/nurture arguments -- whenever someone takes a side one way or the other I'm convinced they're wrong. The problem with the 'video games cause violence' argument is that people are free to make choices of their own. The problem with the 'video games don't cause violence' argument is that the choices people make, especially among children, are influenced by environmental factors.

I'm critical of video gaming as a lifestyle. I have no problem with them as an occasional diversion, but playing for hours on end is like running a screensaver on your computer -- it's keeps things active enough to stay on, but nothing useful is happening. I've seen children who act violently, mimicking video games/tv/movies/etc., but that's not what really concerns me. What concerns me is that the children who play lots of video games have an extremely adverse reaction to any suggestion that they should read, do something constructive, or exercise. All too often these 'gamers' are confused for nerds (or geeks or whatever word you choose to use). They are not. They're morons and they'll remain morons as long as they spend the majority of their free time on XBox Live or the Playstation Network.

That's not to say I think video games are a scourge to society. They're no different than TV in this regard. The problem is parents who allow their children to plug into these diversions from actual life on an almost permanent basis. Many of my friends have children. The ones who limit video game/tv time and only offer it as a reward for doing constructive things have well adjusted children who are bright. The ones who let their kids zombify themselves in front of the boob tube have maladjusted morons for children who think an example of fine art is a Michael Bay film.

When people claim that video games cause violence they're oversimplifying the issue -- however I can't disagree that children who are raised by video games moreso than their parents will be more prone to becoming violent adults than those who aren't. When people dismiss the idea that 'video games cause violence' that's not really what they're objecting to -- they're objecting to the very true assertion that playing video games extensively has a negative impact on an individual's life.

Re:Video games/violence

[shadowofwind]

I think these video-game-violence /. threads are mostly an exercise in rationalization and justification, not an effort towards understanding the nuances of the issue.

If you play violent video games, you have violent images and patterns in your mind which you are reinforcing by repetition. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing isn't easy to answer, since as omnivores we already have such patterns hard-wired in, and expressing an instinct in a relatively harmless way can be better than suppressing it. But there's absolutely no doubt that violent gaming affects a person's thinking. And the barrier that separates 'pretend' from 'real' is never completely impermeable.

Almost anyone who has kids can see the addictive and adverse effects of gaming. As with candy, some kids will limit themselves to a healthy level without parental intervention, but in my experience and observation those kids are the exception.

Note that I'm not making an argument for any kind of government regulation, or saying that nobody should play violent video games in moderation.

Re:Video games/violence

[Knuckles]

do something constructive

Which is subjective. Nice try, though.

Maybe you should go scuba diving.

What concerns me is that the children who play lots of video games have an extremely adverse reaction to any suggestion that they should read, do something constructive, or exercise.

Re:Video games/violence

[SteveAstro]

I just sent a copy of your comments to a whole bunch of my friends who say the same thing.
Absolutely right.

Re:Video games/violence

[Knuckles]

You're so predictable, but unfortunately for you, that would only apply to me if he had said "children and adults" rather than just "children."

But I fail to see how that was an appropriate, logical response to my comment. Hopefully it was just a joke, but it's hard to tell over the Internet.

Well yeah it was a joke, but you did act like an 8 year old whose XBox had just been taken away.

Re:Video games/violence

[epyT-R]

You could make the same case for virtually any other hobby or pastime. Sports carry risk, as recent cases of cranial trauma from football have brought to light. In fact, everything carries risk. At some point it boils down to what you want to do with your free time over what you are capable of doing with your free time. Obviously, doing ANYTHING obsessively for a long time is unhealthy, but the old sports jock > video game nerd stereotype runs strong in your post. From where I sit, I see far more evidence that western society obsesses about team sports far too much, and far more than it does over video games. For example, video gaming skill isn't used to get backdoor access to our 'prestigious' universities, but playing good ball often is. Neither should be. Team work is an important skill, but there is far more to success than mere membership in a pack.

If you're going to bitch about games, you need to include all of them. Athletics are as much a diversion as anything else, complete with biochemical highs and other responses that drives players with miserable lives deeper into self important fantasies. It's just that this is tolerated when it's football, but not when it's an MMO.

Re:Video games/violence

[epyT-R]

It's interesting that you say this because from what I've seen, it's often the people who complain the most about media violence who have the most trouble telling the difference between fantasy and reality. Naturally they want to sanitize everything down to their level, using government of course, because they assume everyone is at their level. As someone who grew up with such games in the 80s and 90s, I've never had trouble telling the difference, nor has it impacted my judgment. I think the real problem lies in the softening of western society. This push for ultra-sensitisation/feelings-over-facts/consensus-over-correctness is causing ever more extreme reactions from ever more benign stimuli. This is not good..at all. It's like the mother who oversanitizes her baby's environment to the point where his immune system can't develop properly. It's a mistake. If anything, we should be toughening ourselves up for the future instead of softening us up.

Re:Video games/violence

[Master Moose]

In summary, bad parenting contributes to bad kids. .

Re:Video games/violence

[RazorSharp]

The difference is that the gameplay mechanics of a MMO are designed by psychologists specifically to be addicting. It's not physically possible to play sports for the amount of time one can play a video game. A person can go on a 24 hour Halo binge but they cannot go on a 24 hour soccer binge. I'm not arguing against risk, I'm arguing against doing something detrimental with the majority of one's free time. I drink alcohol, I get drunk. But I'll still argue against getting drunk every day, just like I'll argue against playing video games every day.

Also, you're missing one of the key points of my original post: Sports physically improve a person. They make exercise fun. They also have other benefits, some of which you mentioned, such as teamwork, socialization, and if you're really good at them a free education and maybe even a career.

There's a reason 'professional video gaming' never took off the way gamers hoped. People enjoy watching sports -- it's been this way at least since Rome (I could dig up some earlier examples but that's the easiest). Those who enjoy video games as spectators are a very small niche (and it's just weird if the game isn't strategy-driven, like Starcraft; I can understand the Korean obsession there, I can't understand why someone would enjoy watching someone else play an FPS).

Re:Video games/violence

[PPH]

it's often the people who complain the most about media violence who have the most trouble telling the difference between fantasy and reality.

True. Or they have kids who have trouble making this distinction. Try telling a kid that his friends are 'well adjusted' but he (or she) may be suffering from a lack of judgment.

If anything, we should be toughening ourselves up for the future instead of softening us up.

Then lets have some more realistic FPS games. Odds are that up against a similarly equipped enemy, you should be taken out after only a few kills. And going up against unarmed civilians gets you surrounded by the cops and shot or burned to death in your hiding place. Now that game I'd give any kid.

Re:Video games/violence

[Smauler]

There's a reason 'professional video gaming' never took off the way gamers hoped.

Having been a gamer all my life, I've always wanted 'professional video gaming' to fail. I've got zero interest in watching other people play - I always want to play. That's what gamers do - they game. I don't know what you'd call people who watch other people game.

There are obvious exceptions - watching your team in Counterstrike after you have died, for example.... all the time wishing you were still playing :P

Re:Video games/violence

[WilliamVolk]

I'm saddened that children live such restricted lives, for the most part not free to explore on their own outdoors. I'm lucky to have enjoyed that as a child.

Re:Video games/violence

[shadowofwind]

I think that reasonable people can differ about what kind of society they want to live in.

Personally, I prefer honest confrontation over false or imposed consensus. And I find it depressing that so few people are willing to fight any more, that they look to authority to protect them. They seem to have no spirit, no honor. On the other hand, when I was growing up there was a lot of gratuitous cruelty, neighborhood kids trapping and tortuously killing animals for entertainment for example. Maybe its good if there is less of that sort of thing now.

In my observation, the tendency to allow feelings and desires to trump facts doesn't correlate strongly with the hyper-feminization of our society. The macho, right-wing, Ted Nugent types do it at least as much, they just fudge the facts differently to fit a different desired worldview. Race perceptions would be one example. Many 'progressive' people are loathe to acknowledge that there are statistical differences between different ethnic groups, many of them biologically based. On the other side, people pretend that oppressed groups suffer primarily because of their own genetic or cultural deficiencies, and ignore the extent to which they have been fucked over by a more powerful majority. Neither side deals with the subject honestly.

Aggression and courage are related, obviously, but aren't quite the same thing. I don't think that disliking brutality, both real and pretend, is the same as becoming a pansy. Those aren't the only two directions we can develop in. I don't like porn that depicts women being raped, and don't think that its possible to habitually get off on such without it distorting one's perceptions of women. I don't think my view of this makes me less of a man. The same kind of thing applies to other pretend violence.

Re:Video games/violence

[shadowofwind]

I agree completely. This is one reason I insist my kids put down the video games after a few hours a week and go do something. Modern kids are restricted by their parents, and their parents are restricted by ridiculous laws. But most modern kids aren't inclined to go out and explore of their own volition either, they'd rather stay in and watch videos or play on the computer all day.

Hyper Farming

[dittbub]

No one would play a hyper realistic farming game. On some level though we all seem to enjoy throwing stuff at moving stuff, even if simulated. It seems logical to me that repeated simulated murder could warp the mind of a young or weak mind. But what I heard was Adam Lanza played WoW...

Re:Hyper Farming

[Zerth]

No one would play a hyper realistic farming game

You have no idea how wrong you are.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/220260/

Re:Hyper Farming

[dittbub]

well I enjoy being wrong lol but if everyone was playing that then we'd have to deal with the sudden and shocking farming in our schools and theatres

Not the video games

[Jason Levine]

Video games might have been a factor without being a cause. From the reports I've heard (which, admittedly, might still be pure speculation), he saw his shooting body count as a "score" and was trying to top the "high score" set by the Norwegian shooter. Of course, your average gamer into games of that nature might try to top a "high body count" score within the game, but isn't likely to try to replicate this outside of the game.

He also trained at shooting ranges for this so it's not like video games were his only "target practice." Is anyone calling for shooting ranges to be shut down because they're "obviously training killers"?

This was likely a case of a mental illness causing fantasy and reality to blur. People like this should steer clear of violent video games and seek help to manage their conditions. Sadly, too many fall through the cracks or aren't diagnosed at all (until they go on a rampage). Banning violent video games to keep a small population of mentally vulnerable people from turning into killers is like banning peanut butter from all stores lest someone with a severe peanut allergy ingest it.

Re:Not the video games

[tnk1]

I've pointed this out before, but when he talks about a "high score", he's comparing himself to a well-publicized serial murderer. I think the publicity and notoriety that the media is providing these people is more of a cause for this particular type of mass killing than any video game would ever be.

Yes, he expresses himself in terms of a score, but that is no more than an indication that he is influenced by video games into expressing an achievement as "points". Shooters aren't the only games with point scores, and a few even dispense with any sort of body count score, while remaining ultra-violent.

Re:Facebook users would be farmers by now

[Dahamma]

They're LEAD FARMERS, motharfucka!

Actually, this explains why lead farmers seem to be so violent, as well.

Everyone knows it's not the violent games...

[Zaphod-AVA]

Everyone knows it's not the violent video games, it's that evil Jazz music corrupting our youth!

Re:Everyone knows it's not the violent games...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's the pool hall!

Re:Everyone knows it's not the violent games...

[WilliamVolk]

Gene Krupa was a heck of a drummer though ...

What about movies

[synapse7]

What games compare to movies like Saw?

Re:What about movies

[WilliamVolk]

Cut out of the interview, I mentioned: Thrill Kill. Game was finished, never released. That's right, EA decided it was too violent. Finished PS1 game.

leading the speaker

[fazey]

- The guy doing the interview is completely leading the speaker.
- The speaker is talking about the history of people being overly butthurt by violence in games. Then speaks about the media being hyper sensitive to violence in games.
- We are asking a guy who has never worked on a violent video game, his opinion on video games and expecting there to not be a bias?

HOWEVER! I was in a car accident, and my car flipped, and landed upside down. The first thing I did was kick out the driver side window, crawl out, and get some distance between me and the car. Then wait for police to arrive. Why? Because when you flip a car, it slowly catches fire and explodes. I will admit, that sounds like I was trained by video games. Namely GTA. Could it have been because I got hit in the face with the airbag? Trauma from the accident? Either way, I dont go around shooting places up. So take it how you will.

Re:leading the speaker

[nschubach]

Because when you flip a car, it slowly catches fire and explodes. I will admit, that sounds like I was trained by video games.

Actually, the first thing I thought of was movies/television... although, according to the media, the car will explode almost immediately.

Re:leading the speaker

[letherial]

Unless your the hero, then it will explode just out of reach, often very dramatic.

My point.....always be the hero

Re:leading the speaker

[WilliamVolk]

I was at Activision from 1988 to 1994, eventually as the VP of Technology. So why I didn't design violent games, I was involved in the production of them. For whatever that's worth.

Re:leading the speaker

[fazey]

Out of curiosity, and I absolutely dont mean this in a rude way, what kind of insight do you think having worked in the video game industry provides you? I mean, it is obviously not a degree in Psychology. It also means, by current standards, you have been over-exposed to video games and should be out on a rampage...

Do you have any sort of facts to stand behind your theory on lead? Have you found any statistics? Done any research? Engaged any third party research firms? Or is it possible that people who are prone to violence, seem to be drawn toward violent video games. Rather than violent video games making them prone to violence?

In my opinion, even though it may not be worth much, Video games can be used as simulations to train people. But has no bearing on their sense of right and wrong. I grew up playing violent video games, and while I would like to hit my boss in the mouth every now and then, I have never had the desire to harm innocent people.

Re:leading the speaker

[Smauler]

HOWEVER! I was in a car accident, and my car flipped, and landed upside down. The first thing I did was kick out the driver side window, crawl out, and get some distance between me and the car. Then wait for police to arrive. Why? Because when you flip a car, it slowly catches fire and explodes.

I did the same a while back, and I don't think it has anything to do with video games. I think it's more about more basic human reflexes. If you're in a massively bad experience, the first instinct is get out of there. I don't think you learn this.

Also... what were your other options? Sit there in the car like a dimwit?

Re:leading the speaker

[WilliamVolk]

Considering my degrees are in Physics, Astronomy and Computer Engineering ... I am clearly NOT a subject matter expert on violence (ok I did play Lacrosse a bit in HS). I have worked in both the video game and educational game space for a while, so this is really just a designer's opinion. I do have a grasp of the industry's history so consider this some historical perspective on this topic and just my opinion, No offense taken.

Re:leading the speaker

[SternisheFan]

Thank you Mr. Volk, for creating "Beserk", a great game, one that I played a lot in arcades back in the eighties. (Sir, you owe me many quarters!) :-)

Re:leading the speaker

[WilliamVolk]

Sadly, I did not create Beserk :-( Only the exploding pigs genre of games, of which I am quite proud of. Oink.

Re:leading the speaker

[SternisheFan]

I see my mistake. I misunderstood the transcript. You spoke of Beserk as an example of violent games. Still, I did own all the Zork games (and bought the guides) on the C64. Amazing work, never did finish those games to completion. One day I may revisit them, if just to meet that 'lady'...

it's not "tomacco", either...

[Thud457]

yeah, "tomato" plant...

Re:Facebook users would be farmers by now

[crazyjj]

My father was a lead farmer, you insensitive clod!

Farmers...

[skelly33]

"If people were influenced by video games, a majority of Facebook users would be farmers by now"

This made me laugh for the "in your face" factor, however quip hardly closes the door on the debate. I would submit that generally it is much easier to influence socially undesirable behavior in people than it is to influence desirable behavior. It's human nature - the forbidden fruit is always calling. The appeal of the easy score, and "being bad" for real excitement has no substitute in farming vegetables, paying taxes and enjoying a good round of Go Fish. Just because Farmville players are not easily subdued into actual farming, it does not follow that more violent games cannot have a subversive effect on its players...

bad analogy

[j00r0m4nc3r]

"If people were influenced by video games, a majority of Facebook users would be farmers by now"

Idiotic statement. A) We're not talking about farming, and B) just because everyone had not transformed into a farmer does not mean people are not influenced by those games, and C) farming and killing (in games) most likely stimulate completely different parts of the brain. You're comparing apples to pineapples. Yes, they sound similar but are mostly different. Every single thing you see or do has an influence on you at some level.

Re:bad analogy

[Nolas]

sorry, but you can't have it both ways. you can't say video game A causes people to be violent, but video game B does not. Either video games effect people or they do not. If you claim that CoD makes people want to shoot people, then you HAVE to say farmville makes people want to farm. You cant say a domino's pizza makes you full, and a pappa jon's pizza makes you even hungrier. they are both food, they both go in the stomach, they just taste different.

Re:Neither side is right

[cheekyjohnson]

just because you THINK you are well-adjusted doesn't mean that you ARE.

Well, to begin with, whether you're 'well-adjusted' or not is rather subjective. But I think what they usually mean is that they're not murderers and such.

Regardless, I think that argument is rather weak; it's just anecdotal evidence.

It's the same shit as the anti gun people.

Funnily enough, some of the anti-violent video game people are also anti-gun control. It's like when the NRA tried to blame video games for that shooting.

Boardgames ...evil...

[Kittenman]

Good to hear that someone from Avalon Hill is still around. I've been playing their boardgames (and those from SPI) since the mid-70s. That's way before video games were invented (uh-oh...that's bound to start something). And I remember that some 'conventions' - where a dozen or two dweebs would gather at a school meeting room to play through a WW2 simulation - were picketed by protesters who believed that the boardgames were promoting violence.

I wasn't either side of the fence - I got my kicks from a different group, but in those days and in that town (London, UK) there was no shortage of like-minded opponents.

What does this mean? People always protest against activities seen to promote violence. BTW, anyone see any protest against the scouts, or paintball?

And anyone up for a game of 'Pax Brittanica'?

Re:Boardgames ...evil...

[Nolas]

or Risk, where are the protester's over the game Risk, the game build around WORLD DOMINATION, oh the evils of someone pretending to take over the entire world but slaughtering millions of your opponents army men. I've killed more people in a single game of Risk then every single call of duty/halo game combined.

Re:Boardgames ...evil...

[WilliamVolk]

I worked on their first computer game titles. I loved working there. My first published game was Conflict 2500, followed by Voyager 1 ... Which COULD be considered a wireframe FPS.

People are influenced by everything...

[mark-t]

*ANYTHING* that a person is exposed to will have some influence on that person. It only stands to reason, regardless of what sort of thing they are exposed to, that t sufficient frequency of exposure is going to have a profound impact on what sort of person they become. This does not mean that environment determines behavior in any sort of absolute sense, but it is somewhere between naive and completely ignorant to assert that human beings are not ever going to be affected by what they are exposed to. Bad or good. And yes... that even includes playing video games.

Or the simple matter of how many people play games

[Sycraft-fu]

The Call of Duty series are some of the best selling games out there, and they are violent as hell. If they lead to more violence, well then we should be seeing a lot of it given how many people play them, and that the number who do is increasing. But of course we don't. The best kept secret of the media, it would seem, is that violent crime has been on a steady decline, which is a wonderful thing.

Also it rather ignore nature. A big part of play in many critters is fighting. Their play mimics their combat in many ways, just non-harmful. Get a couple of kittens and watch what they do: They stalk and ambush each other, the wrestle, bite, kick with their back feet, etc. Well guess what? This is what cats do when they are hunting/fighting, only the claws are out and the moves are full-force. This is true even of cats who are 100% domesticated, and never have to hunt for food or defend themselves. They can tell the difference, they don't accidentally rip each other apart, play and combat may be related, but they aren't the same thing.

So why would we think humans would be so different? Why wouldn't our play be play fighting, and why wouldn't be be able to tell them apart?

Still bad comparisons.

[Firethorn]

you can't say video game A causes people to be violent, but video game B does not.

Fallacy of composition -
CoD is a first person shooter. Farmville is a 2D overhead view game. The stimuli can be extremely different, therefore causing different effects.

Leaded Gasoline?

[g8oz]

I think the effect is for lead in gasoline more than paint, no?

Fuel savings

[tepples]

Wouldn't motorcycle riding be more moral than driving because of the fuel savings? Or does the health cost outweigh the fuel savings in this case?

Re:Neither side is right

[Aserrann]

we've been evolving for millions of years and this whole video games thing is such a RADICALLY new form of sensory input requiring unprecedented (from an evolutionary standpoint) sensory/emotional/cognitive processing.

Depends on how you look at it, really. How is video games so different from imagination games, just with a audiovisual element to it? Sure, there isn't any imagery of blood, but even children without computers play cops and robbers, or army man, using the fingers for guns if nothing else is around. I think video games may just be a small evolution of things that are brains are wired to do.

IMO there is something wrong with people who need to sit in front of a screen being entertained for hours every day to feel normal.

And if you think most people who enjoy video games NEED to sit in front of a screen to feel normal, you obviously have no clue about the people you are passing judgement on.

Re:Neither side is right

[Aserrann]

we've been evolving for millions of years and this whole video games thing is such a RADICALLY new form of sensory input requiring unprecedented (from an evolutionary standpoint) sensory/emotional/cognitive processing.

Depends on how you look at it, really. How is video games so different from imagination games, just with a audiovisual element to it? Sure, there isn't any imagery of blood, but even children without computers play cops and robbers, or army man, using the fingers for guns if nothing else is around. I think video games may just be a small evolution of things that are brains are wired to do.

IMO there is something wrong with people who need to sit in front of a screen being entertained for hours every day to feel normal.

And if you think most people who enjoy video games NEED to sit in front of a screen to feel normal, you obviously have no clue about the people you are passing judgement on.

Re:Famers? Dark rooms, pills, and repetative music

[Macgrrl]

That, and the fact that most rave attendees aren't old enough to have been long term players of Pac Man.

Re:Facebook users would be farmers by now

[Dahamma]

But did he go FULL lead farmer??