On the subject of violent video games...

@Devil: That is good point, however I wouldn't really be surprised if desensitization for fictional violence would make desensitization to real violence to be "easier".

@Barkey: Eh, not really. Not everyone vents out their aggression and then as result go insane. Acting on aggression in certain ways make you more prone to violence in some situations too.

Anyhoo, I agree on that, I'm pretty desensitized to video game violence(somewhat, I always find it little bit disturbing when I play new game and see something brutal), but not to movie or real violence.

edited 17th Jan '13 5:48:17 AM by SpookyMask

Thread Hop:

I remember when all the kids in my class started becoming urban planners after playing SimCity.

I find the link between violence and video games to be tenuous at best. Just because some study says there is an "increase in aggressive impulses" does not mean more aggression. The media seems like misinterpreting scientific facts. I am sure that there is no universe where correlation equals causation.

Still, people who act rather sociopathic for fun when playing violent video games aren't really helping media's view on thing... If media wasn't too lazy to not read forums as those people aren't that rare Good thing that media is lazy on research.

edited 17th Jan '13 8:15:36 AM by SpookyMask

I play a lot of violent games, but I'm not desensitized at all.

To be 100% honest, I'm the squickiest person around. I was shaking the whole time I gave my first blood donation, and I couldn't even look at my blood pouring out.

So when people say Mortal Kombat or MAG or Farcry 3 desensitized me to violence,I feel like kicking them in the neck. But just strong enough to not make them bleed, ewww.

Ive played violent videogames all my life.

when I was like 13 I would play GTA and kill as many people as possible.

The other day at work I had to kill a mice, after I did it I almost cried.

I'd like to know if there's any study on how many people who play violent computer games can stand videos of real violence. Because having done both I can attest that two are hardly the same thing. No game has ever matched the horror of the real thing.

edited 17th Jan '13 2:37:05 PM by IraTheSquire

One's real life and the other isn't.

Well, I grew up at a young age playing fighting games on my sega genesis and playing games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D on my computer, both of which are very bloody games for a child to play.

But I've also seen the real thing more than most people ever will, and it shocked me just as much as it would anyone who's never played a violent videogame. Given there is also a variable to it in that some people deal with it better than others. I've seen folks vomit as a reaction, and some people don't. I think it depends more on the person, and I don't feel the videogames really have much of an effect aside from being able to grasp the concept of violence mentally.

Thread Hop:

What we're talking about here is the difference between fantasy and reality. Blowing away people on the screen and blowing away people in real life is different. Because one set of people exist, and one does not. Anyone with a good set of critical-thinking skills knows that. Which is why some people can be fed a diet of non-stop violence (in the form of video games and movies) and still find the idea of personally taking a life completely wrong and someone else...well, just can't.

I know the difference. I've played violent video games for twenty years, seen violent movies for longer than that, and done roleplaying games for the last decade and a half which involved all sorts of violence...and yet I regard the real thing as a regrettable necessity I'll avoid at all costs.

And honestly, I find a better sense of separation regarding those two concepts amongst the gaming culture than I do with, say...the religious.

OP: One thing though, Andrew Jackson was a Democrat!!! FOX would riff at him just the same no matter what he did.

Anyway, this is just absurd. But for their warped narrative FOX needs a concrete villain to scapegoat. Something like one's psychological state (or anything rational) does not cut it for FOX, or most sensationalistic news media.

And as we know, FOX will blame anything for anything as long as it is on their list of things to blame.

Also, I'd add that I, too, have played violent videogames since I was quite young, and I would never wish to harm anyone, or take a life. Ironically, I might say that they have even increased my respect for life.

edited 18th Jan '13 5:36:00 PM by Ficus

That people are still trying to pin violence on video games is absurd. I grew up in the era where gaming steadily became increasingly graphic.

By many standards I should be a horrific mass murdering monster.

There is a world of difference between violence in a video game and violence in the real world.

Only a person twisted and warped by some disease, ailment, or mental infrmity would seperate the two to the point of acting on it.

For example I have played more then a few shooters even some fairly realistic ones. However the difference between pointing my M16A2 at a flesh and blood person vs some random mook on a screen is incredibly vast. My playing of games did nothing to desensitize me to the moment i would have possibly had to pull the trigger. Quite honestly I was pretty damn scared of having to do it.

edited 18th Jan '13 7:37:43 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I had to listen to someone rant about how games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor are training people to use guns once. I snuck out of the lecture, grabbed my PS 3 controller, went back in and asked him to demonstrate how using the controller would teach people how to use guns. Turns out he had never actually looked at a controller before.

Mon dieu, I hate congress!

Chances are, that proposed bill likely wouldn't go beyond committee and/or die on the floor, but given the sensationalist nature of politicians and the troubling influence of mass media, who knows?

That doesn't seem like anything more than what they've been doing for a long time now...

Yeah, I've gotta agree with Barkey on this one. Make it so everything has to have a rating (everyone already does it anyway), and make people abide by the rating (the problem). It's one of those "Wait, we didn't already have a law for that?" common-sense regulations.

The only question I have on this is: Do indie games normally get an ESRB rating, and how much does it cost to get one? Because I know the bureaucracy of the ratings board has been used against independent films before.

That's the thing. I've nothing on the ESRB. What is meant is that it comes down not only to the pointlessness of the bill (since major retailers already enforce age ratings, so a kid can't just waltz right in and walk out with the latest Call of Duty game without a parent's presence and authorization, thus ID rules), but there are some independent developers that can be impacted since being rated by the ESRB is not a cheap process. What also reinforces the pointlessness of it is that major developers already do adhere to ESRB ratings, making this a non-issue for them.

Other implications include the possible government mandate of a private company (which the ESRB is), and no other medium is subject to anything like this. Video games are being singled out by this bill.

edited 19th Jan '13 3:58:21 PM by EarlOfSandvich

I'm on the opinion that if we could consistently send out an anti-violence message (that is, not presenting violence for escapism) in all media (including TV shows, music, news, and literature), that would indeed end or decrease many of our present violence problems.

Ultimately, it is in large part the media that teaches us how to think, behave, what to find attractive and repulsive, what is socially acceptable and what isn't.

A few decades ago, the media would have tought us that smoking is cool. Now it doesn't. The problem is, that it's a chicken or the egg problem. The media stopped saying that smoking is cool, because we stopped thinking that smoking is cool.

To stop glorifying violence without a totalitarian censorship system, we as a civilization would have to be so good, that we would first have to decide that we don't want to see simulated violence to begin with, but then we would already be totally peaceful.

Ever; Huge flaw with that. People still take up smoking because they think it is cool. You know the whole rebelling thing. Same for underage drinking. Nothing changed. There is also a lot of evidence suggesting the impact on violence from media is minimal.

Saying we are solely educated how to behave by media is just not true.

edited 19th Jan '13 4:22:48 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Yet smoking rates are decreasing. Yeah, humans are individuals, and they can defy blatant propaganda one by one, but the overall society is also influenced by the media.

It isn't? Boy, am I glad that I didn't say that.

edited 19th Jan '13 4:27:33 PM by Ever9

I don't think video games make people more violent. If they are easily suggestible, yes, I suppose they could cause an increase in violence but so can other media with violence in it. I could open a newspaper and the majority of times there will be violent content that if it was in a video game, the censors would be furious. Yet, they are not accused of making people violent. Eh, double standards I suppose. Every new media ends up getting the same flak when it is the new thing. Still doesn't make it acceptable though.

So if video games were photorealistic, would that change your opinion?

Why wasn't this guy using games like Duck Hunt to prove his point?

Photorealistic violence would probably stop me from playing that game. I'm squicked out by blood on TV as it is. The same reaction would probably come from me with Photorealistc violent videogames.

That bill won't pass by the mere fact that Apple and Google do not follow the ESRB rating system for their mobile systems, nor does Microsoft when concerning Xbox Live Indie Games. They do use ratings, but not the ESRB due to cost.

edited 19th Jan '13 5:45:46 PM by GameGuruGG

Here's Total Biscuit's take on violence and video games: