[Column] General: The March Against Violent Videogames

wallet113 · January 2013

Cyberpunk 2077

"Bullet" by Archive

mmoguy43 · January 2013

Agreed. Video games don't kill. Bad parenting kills.

I have a feeling Pokket is going to be a pretty badass gamer mom in the future.

derek39 · January 2013

I love how that picture shows a little kid wearing a snoopy shirt, holding a gun. HAHA!

But yea, I did the same working at Walmart. It started to get sickening to see all the parents blindly buying the worst games for their kids.

But of course. No one wants to take responsibility for their own actions and if you bring it up YOU become the bad guy for "telling them how to raise their kids"...It's sad to be honest.

Lustmord · January 2013

Are you a Manson fan, Pokket?

Hokie · January 2013

Whats most disgusting are the people who are pushing their agenda off of these tragedies.

I think this is over all a much deeper issue, a social and economic issue, than just video games and or bad parenting. And that takes it too far off into the out-field to say on topic, so I wont go there.

KenFisher · January 2013

Entertainment software needs a lobbyest group to defend itself from government attack.

Beyond that, no comment. If I spoke my mind I'd cross the line on a TOS violation.

stayontarget · January 2013

The NRA blames the gaming community and yet the put out a shooting game of their own : http://kotaku.com/5975910/the-nras-new-shooting-game-is-for-ages-four-and-up (hypocrites)

The gov blames the gaming community and yet the us gov puts out a fps shooter of their own (hypocrites)

I think Stephen Colbert say's it all: http://kotaku.com/5976156/watch-stephen-colbert-point-out-how-absurd-it-is-to-blame-video-games-for-violence

officialfive · January 2013

Since no one wants to say it.... I will. Illuminati, Illuminati, Illuminati, Illuminati. (New World Order) control is their agenda.

Stoping violents in video games is not the true intent here, our government is using video games as one of the examples to take away your right to bear arms its not a First Amendment issue but a 2nd Amendment issue, once they have taking this right away, our governmnet controlled by Illuminati will push their true agenda by controlling everything (food, banking and property etc.) no one will be able to fight back. I know this is hard to believe, but knowing the truth will set you free.

troublmaker · January 2013

For the short:

I felt this article (just like every other gaming journalist commentary) was poorly researched and made no attempt whatsoever to try and understand the issues. Instead it just blanketly defends the video game industry to video gamers who support the video game industry. IT would be interesting for a Devil's Advocate to do this article simply because you might geta better more rounded picture.

Anyway, yes video game violence is bad for kids. Although yes there are some studies that show video game violence has no effect on children the vast majority of them say there is. According to the APA (http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson.aspx) there is 40 years worth of data on the topic and the metastudy indicates video game violence is bad for children.

How does our brain work in regards to emotions?

Quite complicated as it seems. The dumbed down version of it goes like this.

You receive information from the world. It transforms into data your body understands called "chemicals." Chemicals when combined form chemical reactions and form new compounds. The new compound is excreted in the form of an emotional reaction.

Often you hear people talk about "stored emotions." It's a simple way of explaining the byproducts (AB+CD=AC+BD in which BD is the byproduct). These byproducts are stored until an appropriate situation occurs in which the body can create a new chemical reaction to use these byproducts up.

In the mean time your unused emotions sit in your body waiting for the day they can be used.

In the mean time as you receive new emotional data your body will be doing more and more reactions and these stored emotions will change.

It is in this way that we can make the claim that certain activities or feelings can evolve into disorders. Violence in video games has been tracked in the development of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), ADHD, anxiety disorders and a few other dozen lesser known disorders. Each of these disorders in kind evolve in their own way to form something worse.

It's no coincidence at all that in all 21 school shootings since Columbine the shooter was suffering from some developmental disorder.

Yes you can play video games and not end up with these disorders. Guess what, you can also smoke your whole life and not get cancer. But this doesn't mean you're going to up and deny the link between cancer and smoking right?

That's specifically the reason why video gamers do not want to own up to the fact that violent video games are bad for kids. They remember that time they went to an arcade and played Mortal Kombat and chopped off their buddies head and they say HEY I'M FINE ERGO VIDEO GAMES ARE FINE FOR KIDS!

Just because there is a rating system out there doesn't mean it's all that useful.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/440/

This is Team Fortress 2, perhaps you've heard about it. It's also rated M for mature. If you look at that website there is absolutely no rating on the game. Valve will be releasing a Steam-based console soon and no doubt a TF2 console version will become available. Valve is one of the most respected developers in the world... and they don't even require ratings be placed on the largest distribution platform on the planet.

TF2 is also a very cartoony game and you'd never be able to tell from the advertising material that this game isn't for kids.

On top of that if you look at the video game box the rating on it is pretty small. The M logo will only represent 2% of the total box. If it was doubled to 4% it would be highly visible, 8% it would be hard to miss, 16% and you would not be able to miss it.

It's fine to just sit there and say ZOMG BAD PARENTS. But that's not a real solution. There will always be bad parents who need their hands held by the government in these regards. Whose to say that your (future) kid doesn't go to the friend's house and they play all this stuff you forbid there?

In the end the response from pretty well all video game media outlets is exactly the same, protect the industry at all costs. Children represent less than 10% of all video game sales. It would have a very little effect on the sales of those violent games.

It would show dignity for members of the video game industry to stand together and take a stand against children playing violent video games. These companies need to work on branding and distribution errors.

No ones saying ban all video games and no one should play video games.

Also video games causing prostituion is a stupid red herring. It's a red herring because NOBODY of any value is saying prostitution is rooted in video games.

Maephisto · January 2013

Dear Troublemaker,

We have reviewed your application essay for acceptance into the Pokket and Kardashian School for the "talented." We feel you will not be a good fit here due to the fact you actually researched a topic and tried to use logic and reason. There is no place for logic and reason in the Pokket and Kardashian School for the "talented." Furthermore, you decided to not adopt the hive mind and blindly accept what information was given to you.

We wish you the best in your future endeavors.

EDIT: joking aside, that was an informative read, good job.

Uhwop · January 2013

It's called senseless violence for a reason.

Politicians and advocacy groups need to start being a little more cautious about the things they do in the name of protecting society and our youth.

They're starting to tread thin lines that can cause a lot of nonviolent people to turn real violent, real fast, and it would not be senseless.

PyrateLV · January 2013

Games will be much more enjoyable when we can all just chase Rainbows and pick Daisies

Ironman2000 · January 2013

I am a parent with adult children now, my kids all played video games all their lives and none of them are aggressive, violent people. That being said, I do think there are too many parents out there that don't WATCH what their young impressionable kids are actually playing. Little Timmy asks mommy to get him this game or that game and his mother has no idea what the game is or what its about. I always know and if I didn't know, I did some research to find out, i.e.: ask sales people, read online, etc. but I never just let my kids play what they asked for without checking. Ok, that being said, I think our society doesn't want to look inward at our own parenting skills because we're afraid what we'll see. Too many people just not paying enough attention to their OWN kids and too much time into everyone else’s business. I'm all for being safe and preventing real violence against people, like the recent events but video games aren't the problem, and at least part of it is poor parenting decisions and disinterest in peoples own kids. Too busy to raise em after they have em....It just makes me so angry that they want to blame EVERYTHING else and don’t look at themselves.

bbbb42 · January 2013

Call of Duty players are not capable of killing anyone, their only real skills are calling people gay and promising to rape each others moms.

DamonVile · January 2013

Also, if we're going by the logic that these folks in Melrose are using, then video games and media are the reasons girls become strippers....

So you're saying there's no chance of this then pokket ? /laugh

eye_m · January 2013

I think that there are factors within mmorpg's that can help cause a person to snap mentally. Lag, Queues, someone afking mid-raid, kill stealing, loot ninjas, bots, exploiters, and so on.

The thing I'm wondering, is if the studies were true, how many Wushu players are going to castrate themselves?

All humor aside, games and movies can contribute to a desensitization of violence. All too often, there are people who are left to struggle with their mental problems without the proper care that they need.

mythran7 · January 2013

Warning WALL OF TEXT! This is commentary on the whole issue, not just Pokkets article.

There can be little doubt that violent video games contribute to a form of desensitization to violence as they become more, and more realistic, as do other forms of violent mass media. However, desensitization does not mean your libel to commit a violent action yourself, it just means that your empathy for such events happening to others is likely to be decreased. You feel less about it when you see it happening to others.

I think anyone that is honest with themselves will admit this. When you first seen war footage for instance, you might have been shocked or disgusted, but as you are subject to more and more footage of such images they fail to illicit any emotional reaction over time. I think about how I felt when I first seen the twin towers exploding, and then if I see those same images now they mean nothing to me. The become “fantasy” since they are removed from your everyday life and you no longer feel empathy for what is going on. Go watch a 80's horror film and tell me if you feel any sort of fear from the kind of violence that once terrified people.

How do we tell the difference between fantasy and reality? Video games can blur these lines for people that are either immature, or emotionally damaged. We all know people who rage violently at video games, I have done it myself on an occasional tense pvp battle, and the reality is that we do commit violence in video games. And we like it. It gives us dopamine as it is part of our biological programming to survive. Competition itself is hardwired into our brain chemistry.

Violent video games desensitize us. They do not, however, give us morality. Morality is the rational part of us, not the animal instinctual part of us. We do not kill others because we are morally committed to that, even when we might feel like it. This ability to control our more base natures with our moral commitments is something that happens every day, all the time, 24/7. These kinds of horrific events are caused by a complex set of variable that cannot be easily determined by simple causes and trite answers. But morality is not an abstract thing, it is something we learn and assent to as we grow in maturity. These crimes are committed by individuals that have not developed a moral sense, either from lack of training, neglect, mental illness, or a combination of all three. Then they have access to deadly weapons that our ancestors who wrote the second amendment could not have dreamed of existing.

If anything the problem we face is that morality has been taken hostage by the religious factions for so long that secular society seems to think it doesn’t need any of it. We have abandoned an arbitrary morality, and replaced it with an even more arbitrary morality. Western society must evolve. It must evolve morality, but not one based on superstition and dogma. Until we train (not just parents, but the collective society) children to value morality, and to have purpose and dignity these kind of event will just continue.

Don't blame video games. Don't blame media. Don't blame parents. Blame lack of collective vision.

Thorkune · January 2013

Originally posted by Heafstagg
instead of dealing with the actual problem with regards to mental health care/awareness and proper gun control/legislation, they use the video game as a scape goat. Its pathetic.

America needs no gun control. Your comment about mental health care is what is needed. Video games/Hollywood violence has absolutely nothing to do with a persons decision to take a life. Gun control will be about as effective as stopping illegal drug use/traffacking. Criminals are going to have guns and the rest of us need them to protect ourselves against them. As the economy keeps spinning out of control, things will get worse before they get better. We don't need unprotected citizens in jeopardy because they can't arm themselves.

And, put concealed carry staff in our schools to keep these kids safe.

IMHO

Cameron27 · January 2013

I know personal anecdotes blow, but I was recently replaying Hitman Blood Money, and it definitely negatively effected me emotionally when I would end up getting caught and end up in a fire fight just mowing down endless numbers of police officers and civillians. With that game they always tried to make your target a real scumbag, but really you were mostly just offing people with no way to defend themselves. I don't know, I like the style and freedom of the game, just putting you in the map with objectives and letting you figure out how to do it, but the violence is a bit much.

I also was sickened by playing a melee class in Age of Conan when it first went F2P. I could handle the spellcasters, but the melee just was too much for me.

Gruug · January 2013

Niether the gun nor the video forced the person to pull the trigger. Politicans and those that wish to make a name of themselves are going to make the most out of what they see. It makes no difference if it is correct, it is just a way for them to gin up votes for themselves. More gun laws like more CENSORSHIP will not stop a bad person from doing bad things.

Kendane · January 2013

People don't like taking responability for themselves. People also don't like taking the simple answer of in the Sandy Hook situtation, the guy was mad, both at his mom and possibly life in general, and sought out the destroy what she worked for. I mean, he targeted the children at the school she worked out!

Instead what people want to blame is things they don't understand. They don't understand video games(though thats getting a tad absurd seeing how many decades games have been around now) and human nature sometimes leads people to fear what they don't understand, which also can lead to hate. So they don't understand video games, and they know that some video games involve killing human representations.

So instead of putting blame where it belongs, the shooter, the put the blame on games. Why? Because its a convient scapegoat. They blame GTA saying it desensatizes the person to violence and so they go around murdering people. Since its the video games fault this automatically excuses the these people from being worthless excuses of parents who don't pay attention to their kid and blame it on something else.

Finally the reason this gets any political support is due to politicans and their lobbyists taking advantage of the situtation. There are the anti gun people who are going full force of ban all the guns or most of the guns or what not relying on people voting by emotion of the tragic death of 20 children and 6 adults. They know normally people are usually pretty okay with guns, so they try to rush these laws using this emotion to get a law passed that normally wouldn't. On the flip side, those pushing that video games are the sole reason for these shootings are likely politicans backed by gun lobbyists such as the NRA. They want to shift attention away from guns and towards video games.

What all of these people fail to do is shift the blame on where it belongs, the killer. You AREN'T going to be able to prevent future bastards from murdering children. Ban all guns and all video games, a guy is going to go in and stab children with a knife. Will it reduce the deaths? Dunno a guy in China managed to stab 20 children and while thankfully they didn't die, he still injured 20 children. Bad things happen, they happen to good people, innocent children, to everyone one. Restricting freedoms such as games does little, banning guns may or may not reduce violence. But it won't prevent tragedies from happening in the future.

PyrateLV · January 2013

Originally posted by Kendane
People don't like taking responability for themselves. People also don't like taking the simple answer of in the Sandy Hook situtation, the guy was mad, both at his mom and possibly life in general, and sought out the destroy what she worked for. I mean, he targeted the children at the school she worked out!

Instead what people want to blame is things they don't understand. They don't understand video games(though thats getting a tad absurd seeing how many decades games have been around now) and human nature sometimes leads people to fear what they don't understand, which also can lead to hate. So they don't understand video games, and they know that some video games involve killing human representations.

So instead of putting blame where it belongs, the shooter, the put the blame on games. Why? Because its a convient scapegoat. They blame GTA saying it desensatizes the person to violence and so they go around murdering people. Since its the video games fault this automatically excuses the these people from being worthless excuses of parents who don't pay attention to their kid and blame it on something else.

Liberal Reasoning 101: Blame the Thermometer for the Temperature

I remember back in the 80's people thinking AD&D turned their kids into satanists and would burn the books

Loktofeit · January 2013

Originally posted by Pie_Rat
Americans have legalized firearms, Europeans don't. Americans get random shootings every 6 months, Europeans every 20 years.

This particular comparison bothers me because a lot of people fall for it, as if violent crimes are only committed using guns. When looking at violent crimes as a whole, it's a different picture.

A really different picture.

Violent crime isn't the result of a game or gun. It's the result of problems in a society, and those problems need to be addressed.

Which brings me to the actual topic, and I think that pointing the finger at any realistic source to our violent crime problems (parenting, education, mental health facilities/assistance) would be wildly unpopular or, worse, require action and money on the part of the US Government to solve. Whatever the case, the gun issue has served its purpose for our leaders - a distraction. Going to quote a buddy of mine on this one:

"This is just a distraction from the govt towards the people; the people who actually want meaningful progress on jobs and the economy. If this is the bread, what will the circus look like?" - Danny Block

Kendane · January 2013

Originally posted by PyrateLV
Originally posted by Kendane
People don't like taking responability for themselves. People also don't like taking the simple answer of in the Sandy Hook situtation, the guy was mad, both at his mom and possibly life in general, and sought out the destroy what she worked for. I mean, he targeted the children at the school she worked out!

Instead what people want to blame is things they don't understand. They don't understand video games(though thats getting a tad absurd seeing how many decades games have been around now) and human nature sometimes leads people to fear what they don't understand, which also can lead to hate. So they don't understand video games, and they know that some video games involve killing human representations.

So instead of putting blame where it belongs, the shooter, the put the blame on games. Why? Because its a convient scapegoat. They blame GTA saying it desensatizes the person to violence and so they go around murdering people. Since its the video games fault this automatically excuses the these people from being worthless excuses of parents who don't pay attention to their kid and blame it on something else.

Liberal Reasoning 101: Blame the Thermometer for the Temperature

You're right, the video game(whichever one he played, made him do it. It single handly warped his mind and caused him to kill those kids. If video games never existed, school shootings never would happen.

mythran7 · January 2013

Conservative Reasoning 101: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

True, but does that mean we should allow average citizens to make Nuclear weapons? How about Chemical weapons? There is always going to be human beings that want to harm others, SHOULD WE MAKE IT IT EASY FOR THEM TO DO??? Or hard...hmmm

Personal responsibility doesn’t take away from collective responsibility. We protect people from all sorts of stuff in civilized society, this conservative argument is not only weak, but infantile.

Wake up, and use your brain.

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[Column] General: The March Against Violent Videogames

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[Column] General: The March Against Violent Videogames

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