The Violent Video Game Debate

[Rainbowhawk1993]

It's been a very touchy issue ever since Wolfinstine 3D and Doom were first released. Are these games really building up killers in players?

My parents are very concerned about me when they see me or learn that I play things like Time Crisis and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. The say that they see me as a caring nice boy who is cares for the life on this earth and uses the bug-vac to take spiders out of the house alive. But they don't see why I would want to play a game were the reason is to shoot other Humans. And even when I get out of a very heated game of StarCraft, they say that the game changed me.

Well, the way I see it, the boy who saves the spiders and takes on virtual Nazis can be the same person.

I have a relative interest in popular T-M games out there but I only have an interest in titles that are interesting and exciting but not too all out.

Examples of game I have interests in are:

-StarCraft
-Infamous
-Uncharted
-Halo
-Tom Clancy titles
-Deus ex
-Medal of Honor series
-Mass effect (Although I've only see this game vaguely)

But I don't have interests in others:
-Grand theft Auto
-Gears of War
-Bioshock
-Duke Nukeum Forever
(and even though some of them are T)
-Call of Duty

The ones I have interest in have good settings, stories and gameplay. But I think the ones I don't have interest in seem too over the top for me.

What separates MOH from COD is that MoH's theme through each game is about the soldiers who go in and risk their lives for others.

Here on this site, mostly all of us are here because we believe in understanding, wanting to protect others and want peace in the world. But we talk brought up discussions about Splinter Cell Conviction and Halo Reach. And from what I've seen, this site also has a collection of Mass effect Fans as well.

So I as a question to everyone: Why do you like these games and do you think they create dangerous amounts of violent behavior in everyone?

[Eltu]

Not going to participate in the debate due to lack of time, but,

Originally Posted by Rainbowhawk1993

-Deus ex

That pretty much makes you made out of awesome.

That'd be all.

[Human No More]

Obviously not. Every single claim has been faked, and Jack Thompson even got disbarred for peddling his bull****.

[Aquaplant]

Violent behaviour is mostly learned by physical experience during early childhood. For example, if a child learns that violence can be an effective way of getting what you want, then they will resort to it when the opportunity arises. Children also effectively learn by observing how parents, others adults and kids behave.

That is whenever people complain that kids these days are violent, unruly or whatnot and try to find the next thing to blame instead of taking a good look in the mirror. The thing about children is that they don't grow up in a void, they are always raised by someone, and they learn from their surroundings.

[X.,.Pandora.,.X]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

Violent behaviour is mostly learned by physical experience during early childhood. For example, if a child learns that violence can be an effective way of getting what you want, then they will resort to it when the opportunity arises. Children also effectively learn by observing how parents, others adults and kids behave.

That is whenever people complain that kids these days are violent, unruly or whatnot and try to find the next thing to blame instead of taking a good look in the mirror. The thing about children is that they don't grow up in a void, they are always raised by someone, and they learn from their surroundings.

I raise my glass to you sir.

[Rainbowhawk1993]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

Violent behaviour is mostly learned by physical experience during early childhood. For example, if a child learns that violence can be an effective way of getting what you want, then they will resort to it when the opportunity arises. Children also effectively learn by observing how parents, others adults and kids behave.

That is whenever people complain that kids these days are violent, unruly or whatnot and try to find the next thing to blame instead of taking a good look in the mirror. The thing about children is that they don't grow up in a void, they are always raised by someone, and they learn from their surroundings.

I was raisd with a relative peaceful family without playing violent games but I did watch my dad play Diablo a couple of times when I was about 6.

Today, I think of myself as in between with the games. I do think if you play overly violent games you canbe a little loopy after wards. Ex: a few days ago me and my friend played midway arcade classics for Gamecube and we played things like moratal combat 2&3 and total carnage. I made a mental note not to play those kinds of games. I still like to play games like Infamous, Deus ex and Halo because they aren't in too much of a disturbing setting like Grand theift auto or Duke Nukeum. Thats why I prefere MoH over CoD.

Maybe it's time to ask everyone a question: Why do you play T-M games and are apart of a community site that has a goal of peace in the world?

[iron_jones]

The excuses people make to cover for poor choices...

[Tsyal Makto]

Someone post the Penn and Teller video.

[Isard]

This is not a debate, this is a scapegoat.

[Pa'li Makto]

I like a variety of video games, some of which have a moderate amount of violence in them such as:
-The Prince of Persia Series: Especially my fave and indeed the bloodiest of the lot: Prince Of Persia Warrior Within.
-The Assassin's Creed series
-Elder Scrolls-Morrowind and Oblivion.
-Gun
-Star Wars Battlefront 1-2

However, I like them not because they are violent but because they have great stories, characters, settings and gameplay..Violence is just one of those various ways that a problem can be tackled such as deciding to kill a bad guy instead of talking to them. I always, even in video games try to find a peaceful way to get around a problem and most of these games allow that. Plus I suppose if you have to kill in a video game it's always easier to kill a monster then a villager.

Ultimately I think that all violent video games do is desensitise children to violence, if they haven't already been desensitised from schoolyard fights, violent news stories and witnessing the occasional bout of road rage on the streets.
Overall I'd argue that people are responsible for their own decisions and blaming a video game won't save you from getting a sentence in court. Society in general has been degenerating into violence and doom and gloom for a while now, it's all you ever hear about. Criminals are becoming glorified such as bikie gangs in tv shows such as The Underbelly tv series and movies such as the classic Scarface and Pulp Fiction.

As a gamer I'm tried of the whole argument really, but some developers rely on making excessively violent games to attract trigger happy gamers.

[Ashen Key]

It's the opinion of some in the US military (if I had the book on hand, I'd quote it, but it's from Dave Grosman's On Killing) that yes, video games desensitize people to violence, which really isn't a good thing. The military has to do the same thing, desensitize, but they try and put safeguards in place to check the reactions - you don't shoot unless ordered, you only react thus in certain situations and you stop when told. But the general public doesn't have that discipline, which is where the main problem sets it.

Personally, I can see both sides of the argument, but I thought I'd put that out there.

[Pa'li Makto]

It's an interesting view.

[Human No More]

Considering it comes from the military, that is called "shifting the blame". They're the ones who take it into real life, not normal people (the few people who do kill someone in real life are less often gamers than not, it's a small establishment that hypes the few cases where they are).
I can certainly say that without games I would almost certainly have got in a lot more fights with idiots than I did at school as it was.

[Advent]

Think of it this way. Games relieve stress. Stressed-out people often do very rash or violent things. Therefore, giving people something to relax with, or spend their leisure time on (a game) will stop them from doing something they normally wouldn't do.

[neytirifanboy]

In my view, the main objective of any species is to survive. There are two main techniques in the survival game:
1) Make endless copies of yourself - i.e. Sex
2) Defeate your rivals

The human race is very good at both.

Concentrating on the 2nd point for the moment, I recognise that as a human male I have violent instincts. However, since I am relatively same (I believe) and do not live in a culture of violence, my violent instincts are not directly at anyone and are generally quite abstract in nature.

Now the point is that I have these violent instincts and there is no way in society to surpress them. But video games allow me to satisfy my violent instincts and in fact gain satisfaction and even pleasure from them.

For example, I quite enjoy mowing down the enemy in Toy Soldiers. That game satisfies a fantasy that I have always had. But the truth is that after doing it virtually, I have realised that I don't want to do it in real life. If I have to do it in real life, it will be for pure survival, not enjoyment.

I have enjoyed Saints Row 2 very much. I enjoy driving about like a madman and killing the rival gangs. However, my external morals do impose themselves the game. I don't really enjoy fighting the police or killing innocents, even though these things are inevitable in the game.

But one thing is certain; playing SR2 does NOT make me want to do these things in RL. If anything, I don't want to do them in RL because I know how it feels in SR.

Now, I feel that there are 3 broad effects that video games can have on an individual:
1) Video games encourage those to commit violence.
2) Video games have a neutral effect. They neither encourage or discourage violence.
3) Video games reduce violence because they either satisfy the bloodlust of the gamer or make the gamer understand that they wouldn't actually like killing people.

From my own point of view, the effect of video games is 2) or 3).

In my own personal, subjective, completely unscientific point of view, I suspect that the effect of 3) is probably greater than the effect of 1) and thus a good thing. But I could be wrong about that.

But there is one thing I will say in favour of video games with respect to violence. While you are playing a video game, no matter how violent it is, it is very difficult to be committing real physical violence at the same time.