Harmless Entertainment?

I'm pretty sure I know what kind of responses this thread will attract, but here goes anyways...

WARNING: Skip the video in this thread if you are squeamish about violence. FAIR WARNING!!!! 'nough said:



Video games based upon first person shooting themes do not really appeal to me.

I guess, it's for that reason I had not realized how realistic they have become.

First, let me say that I'm not an advocate of legislating against video games like this one. I'm also not hostile to the argument that such video games attract, rather than create, screwballs....and that the vast majority of people who play these games appear relatively unaffected.

With that aside, let me ask, do people really think this is healthy for the mind?

The realism....the intensity....the duration....all have to have their impact, right?

For those of you who like this kind of stuff, help me understand what you get out of this type of game?

I have a really tough time understading it.

There was an argument I heard once that stated that violent games such as this may actually help people release their anger and frustration. If they're killing pixels it's better then taking it out on another human being.

I've never been able to decide either way myself. For the average person these should be no real detriment, but for those susceptible to these tendencies the games could be a catalyst. As technology increases and it becomes more realistic, where does the line get drawn for those growing up in an increasingly digitized world. Will we eventually lose track between the concrete and the illusory?

I'm an avid chess player, love the game. I've never had the desire to face two real armies against each other in a coordinated battle of wits and strategic placement. So someone with a decent sense of reality should be fine.

There was a thread on this before, but was saying it had been banned in russia. The offending part was taken out for later releases.

reply to post by Seiko

Originally posted by Seiko
I've never been able to decide either way myself. For the average person these should be no real detriment, but for those susceptible to these tendencies the games could be a catalyst. As technology increases and it becomes more realistic, where does the line get drawn for those growing up in an increasingly digitized world. Will we eventually lose track between the concrete and the illusory?

You and I are similar in these sentiments.

But I would ask whether we have arrived there now? Those images and sounds are disturbingly close to the real thing, I think.

Much more so than I ever realized before.

[edit on 26-11-2009 by loam]

Originally posted by Seiko
There was an argument I heard once that stated that violent games such as this may actually help people release their anger and frustration. If they're killing pixels it's better then taking it out on another human being.

Games like that help me release anger and frustration. I would never shoot a person in real life unless it was for defence.

I usually go for the first person war games though.

I think it is harmless if the right people are playing it. Of course there is always a concern about children playing games like that, but of course if you were a parent that knew what their kids were doing and knew what they were playing then there should/would be no problems in it. =)

reply to post by loam


Dear loam

In Liverpool England some good few years ago now two young boys about 7 & 8 took a two year old named something Bulger and stoned him to death. Then left his body on the railway tracks too be cut in two by the next train.

Things like this where blamed at the time.

I would agree that most are not advertly affected by such violence but there are those that are.

Can we legislate against everything or even should we try, personally I think we have way too much legislation already but I sure do not want to see a repeat of the above.

There's an old saying from computers: Garbage in, Garbage out.

I doubt that these games will create violence in someone who is not violent by temperament. Every so often there's some news item about a kid playing some violent game, who goes postal and hurts or kills someone. However, considering how many kids play these games, I'd say the risk is no greater than in ordinary life.

But still, what are you putting into your mind, what data are you giving that miraculous computer? What lessons do these games teach us - and do we want to go there?

The problem I see is desensitization. When I grew up (long ago), kids and even most adults did not see these kinds of images day in and day out. When I was a kid, there were lots of G-rated movies that our parents would take us to. The first R-rated movie I ever saw was when I was 16 and a friend and I snuck into a drive-in theater to see it. TV shows never got overly violent or graphic. There were no video games.

People of all ages today are quite regularly bombarded by images of violence and death. Last time I went to see a Saw movie there were probably 10 or so children under the age of 8 sitting in the audience. You cannot tell me that they are not impacted by such violent images.

As a society we are becoming desensitized to such images. That cannot be good for us as a civilized species. I am not against these video games, but I think that we are paying for all of these glorified images of violence and bloodshed in ways that are perhaps too subtle to notice and yet extremely detrimental to our society as a whole.

As an avid gamer for 20 some years I have played many many violent games, I have never hurt a fly, simply put a psycho is a psycho regardless of what games they play or movies they watch.
Hitler didn't have an XBox360, I doubt Bin Laden played manhunt, did Dahmer get inspired by GTA4?.

Mac269 mentions the Jamie Bulger case, I haven't played 'lets lure little boy to a train track and kill him' before, what console was that on?
The truth is when kids do wrong everyone points the finger at video games, sorry but killing and general sadistic behaviour was kicking about long before pixels on a screen.
It is just an easy fall guy to take an easy option of blaming music, movies and video games, I personally call it a cop out from finding the true cause.

It's so easy to blame kids going psycho on video games, music and movies because there's a fairly great chance the kid enjoyed such entertainment seeing as it's pretty common place for a kid to own such entertainment.
You may aswell blame it on a kitchen sink because if you look into it you will find all them psycho kids lived in a house with a kitchen sink *cue twilight zone theme*.

Now here is a video (or 2), tell me, did the game make this kid psycho or do you think they are already a kid who needs psychiatric help immediately and the games are merely one of many things that will rile them up into a frenzy.
Use common sense, it's usually what the parents lack.

www.liveleak.com...
www.liveleak.com...

Tell me, if it's the games then why isn't millions of kids acting like this and killing people.
What about little Johnny Nomates who plays GTA and manhunt and yet goes on to be a neurosurgeon, can we credit the video games, or do we only put video games on a pedestal when it's a negative light?

[edit on 26-11-2009 by keepithush]