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Video Game Violence in the news media
Celcius
Member RarePosts: 1,869
As I am sure most people are aware of the tragedy recently and the news surrounding it; there has been alot of blame placed on video games (as usual) because of it. So I encourage you, even if you are not a fan of TotalBiscuit, to take a look at this video. He demonstrates some really good points and this video is a good way to inform the uninformed about such a stupid notion; video game violence translating to real life violence.
If you like it please share it with your friends, especially those who are uninformed and think the news media is right.
(Please note that I am not advertising here. The video has no ads and is not being monetized. You could probably argue that it brings attention to his channel, but thats not the point of this. )
Comments
Thanks for this! Tragedy likes to be able to point blame, sadly.
Video games are becing considered culpable as well as (lack of) adequate mental health care, gun control, school's being unsafe, etc.
I guess you can't really be black and white on this issue.
I completely agree that video game violence doesn't always breed real life violence. How many books that depict violent acts have been read by sane folk who didn't committ mass murder? I'm sure I'm not the only one whose imagination and visulations during reading is way more graphic than video games.
Regarding video games and if it can be linked to RL violence, IMO it's all about age & parenting.
I teach second grade and I have a handful of kids who talk about playing Call of Duty and (almost always) draw and write about guns. They're 7 and 8. I have never played an FPS but can't imagine it's a good idea for that age group.
I guess you could call it poor parenting, but then again, there are still MANY parents today who believe that if their kid is playing a game (especially on the PC) that it's somehow educational. A parent just told me yesterday that her 5th grader is "skyping or something" while "studying" with classmates. When she went in his room, it turned out he was playing Minecraft.
I'm in my 30s and when I was busy dailing up to BBS in the 90s my parents for sure thought I was on Encarta or w/ever.
Again, thanks for this clip. Sending it to several family members who are choosing the video game scapegoat.
Played: Ultima Online - DaoC - WoW -
You bring up a good point about age. It startles me when parents allow their children to play games like Call of Duty that young. Poor parenting is responsible overall for violence, or atleast in part, not necessarily a single point of interest. If parents are letting their kids play M rated games, then that parent should know that their kids are capable of understanding the differences between video games and real life.
Carding and informing people at retailers is very important and I think that is part of it as well. I used to work at a retailer selling video games and I can tell your right now that even if the parent was standing next to the kid buying the game, I would make sure to inform the parent of everything that the game has in store for them. I have had several parents say "Oh they play these games all the time, I don't care". I mean yeah, there are situations where this is an "acceptable" practice, but the reality is that if that kid grows up to do violent things it comes down to poor parenting. Chances are that kid is watching R rated movies as well as MA rated television which can be just as bad (or worse) then the given game. You would be amazed at how many parents turn to the kid and tell them they aren't getting it. Parents blindly buy games for their children more often then most people would care to admit.
It amazes me that in this digital age that any parents still don't feel like they have the tools to control what their children are doing. It is a matter of being informed. Parents need to learn more about video games and what they contain, especially with how common they are now, in order to make intelligent choices regarding their children's intake of them. They don't need to hop on the bandwagon of ignorance.
Maybe I shouldn't be upset over this since it will pass in time just like it did for every other industry. I am just sick of this happening all the time.
What I really love is how Senator Rockefeller has proposed we study the effect of video game violence on children...again...
I mean why not for the umpteenth time look for a scapegoat rather than actually take some actions to really try and curb something like this from happening again? Like focusing on mental illness, the breakdown of the family nucleus, etc.
No...lets blame it on video games or movies.
What they should do a study on is why the fuck people keep voting these clueless and spineless fucks into office again and again.
They can't come to terms on other issues like solving the fiscal cliff debacle but this will probably pass in a heartbeat with bipartisan support.
Truly amazing
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Exactly!
Played: Ultima Online - DaoC - WoW -
If the person has a mental illness then video game violence might be enough to be at fault, but then so could anything else, such as, the media glorifying these events, or poor parenting, or a person sitting on a bus minding thier own business.
You can't make sense out of mental illness which is what the public wants most - the reason why it happened, but when there's mental illness usually reason is nowhere to be found.
If the media actually blamed metal illness what would those people calling for the ban of violent video games call for then? I shudder to think of it.
That is the crux of the issue. Somone suffering from whatever form of mental illness as the prick that did this shooting can be set off by anything.
Games, movies, books, TV shows, music, voices in his head, something on the internet, etc.
Going after one potential factor (if that was even the case no one will ever really know) that caused his break solves nothing. If they really want to try and stop this from happening again they need to invest more into the factors and causations for mental illness. The level of care and attention in reference to mental illness is still abysmal in this country. Add to that that there is a growing amount of people that do not have the support within their own family and community that used to exist in earlier days and you have a recipe for disaster.
But I guess it is easier to pander to your constituents and blame the usual scapegoats rather than seriously look into ways to stop a tragedy such as this from happening again.
The fact that some would attribute this to a fucking game and want to blame this on video games or whatever the flavor of the month is for them at the time is simply mind blowing.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Yes - exactly!
The more I read from this guy, the more I like him.
Played: Ultima Online - DaoC - WoW -
I agree on the parenting bit. I may just be coming from a libertarian personal responsibility / personal freedoms standpoint, but the issue we face dealing with an increase of violence in TV & Games can be resolved with a more active & engaged method of parenting. With that said, my own anticdotal evidence leads me to believe that more & more parents are trending in the opposite direction in terms of allowing media to take a greater role in the raising of their children.
Think latch-key children of the mid-late 70s....and the effects of TV taking a greater role in the parenting process.
Considering guns & access to guns has been a constant througout American History, the first shooting that involved a kid killing other kids in a school was in 1978. What has changed? Pop-culture & Media....
Either some all controling governing body limits the content for EVERYBODY through law
OR parents take responsibility and work harder to adapt with the changing times.......I'd prefer the latter.
The problem is that it's not just mentally ill people.....it's also kids that do not develop a level of consious that we deem as healthy or normal for our society.
It doesn't take a chemical imbalance for a kid to become completely apathetic to the sanctity of human life, or repsect given to a perfect stranger. There are places in America where you can be shot on sight for wearing a blue shirt in a neighboor hood that claims be be bloods (red).
This goes deeper than some bipolar kids going off with an assult rifle.
Dumb-areses having kids they have no intention (or are ill equiped) of actually parenting sits somewhere near the root cause.
It's because it's easier to emotionally tie something tragic like a school shooting to guns, video games, etc. than it is to explain the minutia of economics, politics, and other stuff that pop culture tells us is booring.
I mean, what monster would be against preventing little kids from being murdered right? lol Things like $16.5 Trillion in national debt is too confusing to comprehend. I digress...
Point being, appearances have trumpt substance in terms of politics....and has done so for quite a while.
What you describe above is motive based killing rooted in territory control.
Those reds shirts or blue shirts are protecting assets that they control.
If you transported one of those people into a neutral area like Berlin or Paris, it's very unlikely that they would kill people for wearing red or blue.
I disagree.....the whole "protecting territory" bit is a symptom of the root cause....which is a skewed understanding of respect given towards others, and the sanctity of life.
1. If you picked this kid out of the south side of Chicago and dropped them in suburban America (or any other city you choose), they would look to colonize that area and recruit gang members...either as a chapter of their original gang, or to start their own. This has been documented, and accounts for the major expansion of gangs in the US through the 90s - 2000s. They do this because they are still opperating under their understanding of how things run...which was learned at an earlier age.
2. What are they protecting? A corner of a block...it's not theirs (even though they claim it so). In America, any person has the right to walk down any street they wish. It's not as if people are attempting to squat on private property.
Who are they protecting it from? Someone who wears any color clothing other than what they claim to represent their gang? There are thousands of instances of innocent bystanders being shot, who claim no gang affiliation, just because they mistakenly wandered in a certian neighborhood wearing the wrong color.
Again....its all rooted in a skewed sence of reality, that only gives respect to shows of strength (not age, understanding, or any other quality we deem constructive in a civilized society) and somehow performs the mental gymnastics that gives them the right to take away another person's life for no other reason than for walking down a street while not wearing a particular color of clothing not affiliated with their own gang.
Just for comparative purposes....there are some states in the US where home owners are bound by law to retreat from their own home before using deadly force with a firearm on an intruder. These people are not allowed to protect their own life & property in their own home when a burgler breaks in IF there is an opportunity to run first before shooting.
This debate about computer games and shootings always pops up. Thankfully, they find less resonance these days than in the past. A few things to keep in mind as arguments:
- there never has been any proven correlation between video games and violence. No study whatsoever has proven such a connection. People have all sorts of background which become violent and 99% of all video gamers NEVER become violent murderers.
-violence is a new change, especially these shootings. When a person in the past went rogue and shot people, it was 3 or 4. This is clearly a case of "imitation". People do such shootings of many people, because they imitate others. That is quite a strong proven correlation actually, and video games have nothing to do with it.
- also almost all shooters have been on risky and dubious drugs prescroiptions. So many mass shootings only rose with the age of psychopharmaceutic psycho drugs. That is a line of suspect way more valid to research, but due to pharma industry interests, that is never really researched.
- Video games contain violence as ALL human games always did. It has always been a natural part of human society to "play war" in games. There is not special or strange about that.
Media will, alas, often grasp for simple explanations, and explanations which agitate the viewer. Violence is a social problem, not some to blame on one thing. And to quote something from a friend when the "evil videogame" debate had surfaced here in Germany: "Weird, all those Nazi killers and tortureres.... they never had played any video game or seen any evil TV show. And still they got brutal barbarians. Maybe that has to do with society? The video gamer generation hasn't made any holocausts."
Extreme. But I guess it does deliver a point.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
They might recruit new members or they might do something else, but what they wont do is start defending their new block from anybody wearing their old enemies colour of choice; there would be no need for them to do so since their rivals are not present in the new area. They are protecting their vice businesses from a perceived encroachment by their rivals. Their behavior is based on gain of wealth or the prevention of loss of wealth - these are sane motives even if their behavior is not normal to you or me. They are sane.
Just for comparative purposes....On August 6, 1945 a man named Paul Tibbets killed 66,000 people and injured 69,000 people (the death toll raised to 200,000 people over the following 5 years) - he was sane the entire time, he never once said he regretted it, he claimed he never lost any sleep over it, and has in the past said that under the same circumstances he would do it again. His motive was sane but his behavior was not normal to me.