Violent Video Games

[ShadowRunnaX]

Do you think that Violent Video Games are a catalyst of violent behaviour?

Please give your views...
(I'm debating saying that Violent Video Games do not cause violent behaviour. In need of views by wednesday morning )

[blueznl]

i am of the mind that it is not the offered material yet the subject that makes the difference, take one impressionable individual and you can make him blow up himself

these kind of people would also be affected by a role playing game, a movie, a book, or even a horror story late at night

[thefool]

well if people will be suicide bombers because they hear they will get to god when they do it, of course some can be affected by games. But it eventually helps ME not reacting violent..

I think it affects most people more to watch the tv news than to play a violent game.

So my conclusion is that games do not affect people more than other stuff

[Num3]

I believe violent games in some way make the oposite thing...

The "how would it be like" thing just disapears, because games are getting so real and now you know how it goes.

So players loose interest in the real thing... Seen it, done it, gimme something else

Also you can release stress by blowing a few guys away (just image your ass boss on this one) without the need for real violence.

There will come a day where wars will be made over the internet, without the need for real death.

[dontmailme]

I believe violent games in some way make the oposite thing...

I think this too, maybe...... once we have 'full immersion' into games, who knows what will happen ?!

On the one hand a potential murderer would get his satisfaction from a virtual killing, someone into shooting can immerse himself into a bloody war......

On the other hand, 'normal' people.... once exposed to killing etc could become accustomed to it, even accept it as 'normal' behaviour..... then we'll be in trouble

Good Luck, it's a good debate

[Inner]

everything effects you, example breething.. stop breething you die, but with each breath you feel the effect, in it's simplitic forum of just prolonging your life.

I did a self study of myself, at a time when FPS where my thing, Unreal Tournament was the thing to play 24hrs a day, I found that althought I thought I was the same person as before I started playing, other people disagreed that I was more vintictive and vengeful, so I stopped playing and now I only play Virtual Skipper 3, a nice carm game of floating around racing other boats, and I'm a much nicer person for it, back in 2000 when I used to play UT, none of you would have wanted to know me much less talk to me.

Remeber what they said about smoking, it's good for you, doctors perscrubied it as medical healing, some years later? you know the story, what if the same could be said about voilent computer games, not that you'd get cancer but, it could be coursing something else.

Course & Effect.

I thank God, for showing me a better and more hornerable path to follow.

[MadMax]

I have mixed feelings about this. I believe that playing simcity and getting pissed off at your citizens demands and sending them a a massive set of earthquakes is in most cases pretty harmless, same about shooting a few enemies on some nice game, driving like a maniac is one of my favourites, and in real life I rarely commit a driving offence.

But some games, well if you go around killing some ethnic minority, torturing your wife... etc Well maybe the game in itself is just the same as any other, but the ideas behind the game can be objectionable, it's not the pixels or the code, but the storyline, the ideology behind the game can be, in my opinion, evil.

Summing up, while I think the great majority of games are quite harmless, this doesn't mean that a game just for being a game is necessarily innocent.

[dracflamloc]

I think my old psych professor said it best: "If a mind is already violently unstable then a violent video-game can very possibly create the need for the unstable mind to commit the acts themselves to balance thier instability, but if a mind is stable, then a game can be beneficial as stress-relief, or just not have any effect at all."

[Inner]

I would add something to the end of that dracflamloc, or create an unstable mind by play the games what would have normally been stable, lets face it, rather that avoiding the obviousness of the truth, no matter how much we'd like to think otherwise, it's possiable. because to rule it out isn't leaving space of chance.

[dracflamloc]

Eh, I believe what he said. It makes sense really. I mean if you're mind is stable then you wouldnt go do something violent just because you experienced it in a game.

[Inner]

Just because "you" think you have a stable mind, (and defining a stable mind is like defining what is normal), doesn't mean by any degree that you actually have one, such comments in history because of human pride and to be honest it's a fools pride have been known thoughout history, one comes to mind, "This ship won't sink!" and what do we find? it sunk 3 miles down the Titanic rests, have we learn absolutely nothing? that we still think " just because x exists y is impossiable to happen because x is a constant, there is no constants in this world at all ", everything is forward motion.

[PB]

> I did a self study of myself, at a time when FPS where my thing, Unreal
> Tournament was the thing to play 24hrs a day, I found that althought I
> thought I was the same person as before I started playing, other
> people disagreed that I was more vintictive and vengeful

But did you become that way because of the game, or because of lack of
sleep from playing 24 (or even just 12) hours a day? I think a lot is blamed
on the games for no real reason. Anyone can become irritable and moody
after a lack of sleep from prolonged game-playing.

However, I do believe some games are psychologically disturbing. In one
example, I bought "Aliens vs Predator" (the FPS) and there's parts where
you can play the Alien and watch the humans cowering beneath you, and
they're sobbing and begging for their life. I used to stand there and just
look at them, and think "how f**ked up is this for a game". I ended up
just playing as the humans in that game instead -- it wasn't disturbing to
kill the non-living things (the Aliens).

[DarkDragon]

All people talk about gamers, but no one cares of the developers.
30 aged people playing doom3 have a nightmare of playing it a bit. But the developers sat on this game sure a few month with testing it....

[ShadowRunnaX]

Thanks for all the great arguments, with such a wide range of people's opinions and views, I'm pretty much ready.

Personally, I believed that the people blaming violent videogames on violent behaviour were totally obsurd and obviously had never played videogames themselves.

What also needs to be considered is "What is violent?" Ban violent videogames, then ban:

-Terminator (example of a film)
-Star Wars (Jedi fights)
-Tom and Jerry (Kids watch this and do NOT swallow objects 3 times their size and start beating their opponents with an arsenal of weapons)

Although I still partially believe this, I think that there is definately a good point to be made by them, but I have any reasons to believe otherwise.

A famous case of violent videogames being blamed is the game Manhunt. The 17 year old who stabbed the boy was mentally unstable before playing the game and would have snapped at any moment, but it was a coincedence that he happened to have played Manhunt.

I'm not saying certificating games is a godsend of a technique to protect people, but they do protect the minds of impressionable children, which I agree with. The rest is the fault of other sources, including parents and the media (not necessarily both or either).

Sometime ago, a boy shot at a car with a shotgun and eventually caused it to blow up. He blamed it on GTA. Although unmentioned on the news following the event, it was found that he said "in GTA, the cars don't blow up". The people who blamed Grand Theft Auto for this obviously never played the game because in the game, cars do blow up.

People affected by violent videogame banning:-

-developers (lose of millions, maybe billions and bankrupcy)
-psychopaths (need to find something else to occupy them)
-normal people (turn to beating up old people for fun, 'cos no more GTA)
-me (I matter )

I find all types of games to be stress relieving. I remember that when I used to ever get frustrated at a game, I would always come off and act as if nothing happened.
(note that I said used to. I now play games and never get frustrated. When playing my friends copy of Doom 3, I cycled through the weapons and tried playing the level punching monsters )

Woah! didn't expect to type that much.

Closing statement :

I'm a moderately well-behaved Christian boy who has played a few "violent" games, and never have I attacked anyone :roll: . The psychological affect of videogames is no more than that of the media and effects only the weak minded.

Better get out of school before they kick me out

[thefool]

and again:

also ban tv news. The only place i have seen real dead people with blood running from their head is the tv news..